Help with sub $7,000 3D workstation build

[ColeHarris]

Hello everyone I'm obviously new here and was hoping you could provide me with some feedback/help with a build I'm trying to put together mainly for use in 3D graphics.

First off let me explain my situation, I work as a 3D generalist for a company in LA and until recently was perfectly content to use the workstation that they have provided me as it is a very well specced computer. More recently however I have begun to work on more personal/freelance projects and have realized that my personal computer is far from sufficient to handle the kind of work I need to do (i7 iMac quad). At first I was planning to get a Mac Pro as prefer OSX to Windows (I use a Windows at work) after doing I bit of research however I discovered that the current Mac Pro's are rather outdated hardware-wise and also significantly overpriced compared to many Windows based solutions. After lots of reading I came to the conclusion that my best option would probably be to build a Windows based machine as it will be the most bang for buck option as well as very functional for my specific needs. I've built computers before but not for some time and am therefore somewhat outdated interms of my knowledge of current hardware (although I still understand all the principles to building a machine). I've set aside a budget of $7,000 which I hope will be sufficient to make a very very fast machine! To give a better idea of what I will be using it for here is some of the software I use:

3D suite: Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D
Renderer: Vray, Mental Ray, Octane
Sculpting: Zbrush, Mudbox
Texturing: Mari, Zbrush
Simulations: Realflow, Maya Sim
Game Dev: Unity

As I'm sure you can tell I use a very wide array of software as I tend to work many very different projects, I also do some video editing from time to time with the possibility of editing some 4k/5k in the future so a machine that could handle that as well would be a bonus! My main priority is rendering I need a machine that will spit out renders as fast as possible (mostly in Vray), second to that is graphics performance Zbrush and Mari are very intensive graphics-wise and I need a machine that can handle very very high resolution models as well as very large texture maps. I've done some research and put together what I think will be a decent machine and would like your feedback:

CPU: Dual Intel E5-2670

GRAPHICS: 1. 2x Nvidia Quadro 4000
2. 2x AMD Firepro V7900
3. 1x Nvidia Quadro 5000

HDD/SSD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black (File Storage) + 120GB Kingston Hyper X (Operating System+Applications)

DVD/Blueray: LG Black 12X Blueray R=RW

CASE/CHASSIS: Need some help on this as it appears there aren't many options for HPTX sized motherboards

MOTHERBOARD: 1. EVGA SR-X
2. ASUS Z9PE

CPU COOLER's: 1. Thermaltake Frio (Will 2 of these fit without covering the DIMM's?)
2. I was hoping to stay away from Liquid Cooling as it seems to be rather unnecessary unless you plan to significantly overclock (E5's are locked) but if you guys think that would a better option then I can go with that instead.

MEMORY: 64GB GSkill Ripjaws 2X(4x8)

PSU/POWER: Enermax 85+ 1020W

TOTAL: $5873-$6,921 (Roughly)

I think thats everything, I apologize for the rather long post and I appreciate any advice you can give me!

 

[ColeHarris]

Ah, the turbo smooth modifier is close to how SDS act anyway, that causes a massive hike in poly count. Are you talking about the poly count before or after that modifier?

Well that depends, If I'm working on something like a car for example then things can slow down pretty quickly because I'm using turbo smooth throughout the entire course of modeling. If however I'm modeling something like a house theres really no need for turbo smooth but even so the polycount can become rather high simply due to the large amount objects that exist within its structure. I usually try to leave off Turbo Smooth until just before rendering but sometimes thats not practical if your modeling something that will be significantly affected by Turbo Smooth (Car, Human, ex...).

 

[SSri]

So what should I spend that extra $1000 on? I was thinking of maybe going with a Quadro 4000 in addition to the Firepro v7900 that way I could run my monitors off the Firepro leaving the Quadro for more taxing things like Mari and Zbrush, or would I be better off upgrading the CPU or RAM?

Draven35 has a point. Given your requirements, I think you should seriously consider spending that $1000 on a render node with a moderate OC processor. You would be able to add more nodes as per your future requirements.

 

[naf]

my suggestion

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=16819331

EVGA SR-X motherboard

2 x intel E-5 2650
evga srx
2 x gskill ripjaws 4x8gb 1600mhz ddr3 ram
pny quadro 5000 2.5gb
seasonic x-1050 1050w 80+ gold psu
samsung 830 128gb ssd (for os and programs)
2 x wd carvier black 1 tb 7200rpm hdd in RAID0 (for work files and some important files)
seagate baracuda 3tb 7200rpm hdd(for storage)
lg 12x blue ray burner.

corsair h80 liquid cooler x 2

SerialKiller's build looks really good. Couple things:

- Be sure to check the forums over at autodesk to double check any info you hear here about those GPUs - http://forums.autodesk.com/ lots of people there, including people who write the software, weigh in on what is the most efficient and economical way to get top performance.

- maybe get a 240GB SSD - you're working with a lot of software.

- You might consider a Mountain Mods case (the pinnacle 24, specifically). I almost never recommend them because they're expensive (my tower was $420 after shipping) and because they take a lot of time to pick out the right parts and they require assembly. But it's sturdy as he// and huge - you'll never need another one. They're really custom - you can mount anything anywhere you want, basically. Plenty of room for WC stuff. You could probably fit 2 H100s in the case with a 4x120 top.
http://www.mountainmods.com/

Good luck!

 

[serialkiller]

sorry for the data or work files its RAID 1 and not 0

 

[ColeHarris]

Thank you everyone for your input, I certainly have a lot to consider. Another question, is there really any point in trying to water cool my GPU/s or would that be a waste of time and money? I thought now that I'm going to be having to cool my CPU's that I mine as well cool my GPU/s as well but If theres really going to be no noticeable difference then I wont bother. Thanks again!

 

[SSri]

Another question, is there really any point in trying to water cool my GPU/s or would that be a waste of time and money? I thought now that I'm going to be having to cool my CPU's that I mine as well cool my GPU/s as well but If theres really going to be no noticeable difference then I wont bother. Thanks again!

I would not bother if you are going with one GPU.

Good luck mate!