Question Recommedations for a prebuilt PC to run 3D modelling software ?

[bodgrotew]

Hello!

I am looking into buying a prebuilt PC for 3D modelling work using the following software: Maya 2024 / 3DSMax 2024, Photoshop 2024, Substance Painter 2024, ZBrush 2024, PureRef 1.X, and Steam Platform. Also, would be using a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet (paper edition that requires Bluetooth).

Budget is up to $5000, but preferably 2500/3000. In Canada.

Monitor would likely be 4K (27" or larger), and probably a refresh rate of 120. With possibility of a 2nd as well.

Not a super rush, but thinking within a month or so.

For reference, my school's PC is an ASUS, Windows 10, i9-12900k at 2.4GHz, 64 GB RAM. Nvidia Geforce RTX 4070 Ti.

My school gave 3 recommended builds, low, mid and high tier All Windows 11:

Low: 1 monitor, 1080, or 1440, 32 GB Ram, i7-10700 or Ryzen 5700x, Nvidia RTX 2070 (or 3070), 1TB internal storage

Mid: 2 monitors 1440 or 4k, 64 GB Ram, i9-12900k or Ryzen 7 5950x, Nvidia RTX 4070, SSD with 500GB, and another SSD, or HDD at 1TB

High: 2 4k monitors, 64 GB ram, i9-13900k or Ryzen 7950x, Nvidia RTX 4090, SSD with 500 GB, and a another for storage, 2TB (SSD or HDD).

I had been thinking Dell, but I am note sure how upgradeable the inside is these days, oh, and if they use proprietary parts as I know HP has (and probably still does?).

And maybe their products are good, but I hear bad things about Asus' business practices the last year or two. So, if their is a reputable major pre-built PC company out there, that'd be good!

Hopefully I have provided adequate information, I can always add more if needed.

Thanks very much

 

[Lutfij]

You might want to pass on a link to each prebuilts. I wouldn't go for an RTX2070 not when the RTX5000 is almost around the corner. I would avoid 13th and 14th Gen Intel processors for the time being since thy are dealing with issues.

The core of your builds(in terms of the processor, discrete GPU and ram) are on point but please keep in mind that workstation prebuilts would be your go to solution since you're looking for stability, that's what you're paying for. Otherwise you could actually build a system from the ground up after hand picking parts. I'm sure all of the apps you've listed above would do good on Nvidia Quadro and AMD Radeon Pro series cards they cost a pretty penny but are rock solid in terms of stability.

 

[Why_Me]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *Intel Core i7-13700F 2.1 GHz 16-Core Processor ($402.96 @ shopRBC)
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler ($47.65 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: *MSI B760 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($239.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: *Patriot Venom RGB 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory ($239.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: *Silicon Power UD90 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($141.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Video Card: *Asus TUF GAMING OC GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB Video Card ($1098.98 @ Amazon Canada)
Case: *Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower Case ($106.00 @ Amazon Canada)
Power Supply: *be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($129.99 @ Canada Computers)
Monitor: *Dell G2724D 27.0" 2560 x 1440 165 Hz Monitor ($299.99 @ Dell Technologies)
Total: $2707.54
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-10-10 04:56 EDT-0400

 

[Misgar]

I am looking into a pre-built for 3D modelling work

When I was building a Ryzen photo/video editing rig at the end of 2022, I used the performance graphs at Puget Systems as a guide to choosing components.

If I'd wanted the last ounce of performance, I would have used a 13900K and an RTX3090, but sanity (and my wallet) prevailed and I bought a 7950X and a 12GB RTX3060.

From the Puget graphs, I calculated an RTX3090 would finish a video render in one third the time, but cost five times as much as the RTX3060. There was also the 1kW PSU needed for a 3090.

Since you're considering a prebuilt, Puget do a wide range of systems tailored for specific apps. There's considerable overlap between systems, but some apps favour a more powerful (and costly) GPU. Consider which apps are most critical and choose your hardware accordingly.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/solutions/3d-design-workstations/autodesk-maya/
https://www.pugetsystems.com/pugetbench/creators/photoshop/

Many people on this forum will tell you it's easy to build your own system and you'll save a ton of money. You also heve (in theory) a far greater (bewildering) choice of components. That's fine if you feel confident and are prepared to spend time ordering, assembling, configuring (and troubleshooting compatibility issues) in a new build.

On the other hand, you can choose from multiple options in each Puget system and they use standard (not proprietary) components, so if anything goes wrong outside warranty, you can repair/upgrade the system without too much hassle. The other advantage is they've set everything up for you.

At the very least, check out Puget's site. They also do some very good articles on the relative merits of AMD vs Intel CPUs and GPUs, for various apps.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/adobe-photoshop-intel-core-14th-gen-vs-amd-ryzen-7000/

I think all the systems your school has recommended are very "light" indeed on storage. Figures such as 500GB SSD and 1TB/2TB hard disk are 10 years out of date. The school might be working on the premise that all your work will be saved on external storage or servers, but even then, they haven't considered "scratch disks".

Programs such as Photoshop/Premiere Pro make use of additional physical disk drives as scratch disks, to speed up processing. You'll probably get by with a 500GB SSD as a boot drive, but modern systems use faster 1TB or 2TB SSDs for Windows + Programs. A 1TB hard disk is woefully inadequate for storing data. 4TB would be OK, but 6, 8 or 10TB would be better still. It's amazing how fast data drives fill up. Keep your projects separate from your Windows C: drive.

On my 2-year old 7950X rig, I have three 1TB M.2 NVMe drives. Drive 1. is for Windows and Photoshop/Premiere Pro. Drive 2. is the Photoshop/Premiere Pro scratch disk. Drive 3. (not strictly necessary) is for Adobe "work in progress" files.

In addition I have a motley assortment of hard disks for data storage, 1 x 4TB, 2 x 6TB and 2 x 8TB. This is overkill on the hard disk front, but I had them all to hand at the time of the build. A better choice would be a single large capacity hard disk, e,g. 20TB.

See link below for Puget's suggestions on storage in Photoshop and Premiere Pro.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/soluti...e-photoshop/hardware-recommendations/#storage
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...nd-Cache-File-Locations-in-Premiere-Pro-2292/

Budget is up to $5000, but preferably 2500/3000. In Canada.

Only you can decide how much you're prepared to spend (squander). With your current budget, it might be wise to avoid the pricy RTX4090. Now if you had US $6,800 to spend on a GPU, I'd suggest an RTX 6000 Ada card.

Some things to bear in mind:
1). Prices for high end GPUs (RTX4080/90) are increasing prior to the launch of the 5000 series.
2). Intel will be releasing their new Arrow Lake range of CPUs soon.
3). Until recently, 13th and 14th Gen. Intel CPUs were prone to damage from overvolting.

 

[logainofhades]

We use Lenovo workstations where I work. Our cad guys mostly work in Solidworks, but I know some stuff is done in Catia, and I think Creo. I use a cad based inspection software, Zeiss Calypso, along with Renishaw Fixture Builder for fixture design. We also have Master Cam for our machinsts.

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/workstations/?visibleDatas=698:ThinkStation;710:NVIDIA%20RTX%E2%84%A2

 

[bodgrotew]

Thanks all for the info! I have some homework to do!
To answer Lutfij, the prebuilt I had been looking into was Dell higher end stuff, but ultimately would be nice to avoid them (bloatware, and I see they are forcing people back to the office, of course, not computer buying related - but avoiding company(ies) that are a bit dickish for lack of a better term!)

I would like to build, but, would more likely build a cheaper day to day internet machine to get familiar with building first!

Also, what are the issues with 13th and 14th gen processors presently? And who is to say whether the 15th gen would solve them (I am not an expert, just speculating). I know Ryzen jumped ahead performance-wise forced Intel to keep up a few years ago after they were on cruise control so to speak. Anywho, I will check out some performance graphs as recommended! And checking Puget as a whole!

 

[Why_Me]

Thanks all for the info! I have some homework to do!
To answer Lutfij, the prebuilt I had been looking into was Dell higher end stuff, but ultimately would be nice to avoid them (bloatware, and I see they are forcing people back to the office, of course, not computer buying related - but avoiding company(ies) that are a bit dickish for lack of a better term!)

I would like to build, but, would more likely build a cheaper day to day internet machine to get familiar with building first!

Also, what are the issues with 13th and 14th gen processors presently? And who is to say whether the 15th gen would solve them (I am not an expert, just speculating). I know Ryzen jumped ahead performance-wise forced Intel to keep up a few years ago after they were on cruise control so to speak. Anywho, I will check out some performance graphs as recommended! And checking Puget as a whole!

Intel released a microcode update via the board's bios weeks ago so those cpu's should be fine.

 

[Misgar]

I would like to build, but, would more likely build a cheaper day to day internet machine to get familiar with building first!

There's not much difference building a cheap internet machine instead of a more expensive workstation, except you could "make do" without a separate PCIe GPU in a simple machine.

Apart from the lack of a separate GPU card, you're still "faced" with installing the motherboard inside a suitable case, fitting CPU, RAM and SSD, making all the PSU connections, plus front panel LEDs and power switch.

Mind you, if you're really unlucky and you destroy something on a cheap build, you won't be so quite so heartbroken or out-of-pocket, if a $60 CPU dies instead of a $600 CPU. You could "get your feet wet" by tinkering with a second hand machine. Pull it apart and put it back together, to see how things work.

The only thing that worries me during construction is lowering the CPU into the motherboard socket, to avoid damaging any of the delicate pins underneath. If you inadvertently drop the CPU on one corner into the socket, it's often "new motherboard" time. So far I've been lucky.

Also, what are the issues with 13th and 14th gen processors presently?

Hopefully they're all solved by the latest microcode update(s), but people thought the new 12V-2x6 PSU connector would fix 12VHPWR faults on GTX 4090s, but there might still be a few RMAs.

AMD had their own Ryzen overheating problems in some motherboards. Luckily my 7950X in an Asus mobo didn't suffer this problem in 2022/23, before a new BIOS was released. Probably because I never invoked PBO. You can see "hot spot" damage to the CPU and socket in the photo below:

I had been looking into was Dell higher end stuff, but ultimately would be nice to avoid them (bloatware

If you've got your heart set on a Dell, there's nothing to stop you uninstalling all the bloatware, or wiping the boot drive and re-installing Windows. You'll get a legitimate Windows license with a Dell and the rebuilt OS will be activated as soon as you connect to the internet again (provided you went on line with the old OS before removal).

I see they are forcing people back to the office

Quite right too. I never did have the "luxury" of staying at home when I worked in large electronics labs. No way could I take work home with me, with test rigs costing huge amounts of money, let alone the security aspects.

 

[logainofhades]

Intel released a microcode update via the board's bios weeks ago so those cpu's should be fine.

My 13700 equipped systems have yet to see said bios update. I check at least once a week.

 

[Eximo]

How about the power settings on those pre-builts? I know a lot of OEMs artificially cap the power output on the chips to make them work better with inexpensive motherboard designs and/or inadequate cooling. They may hold off an update if the CPU can't possibly meet the fault conditions with their standard BIOS.

Basically a problem of a CPU cranking up the voltage and not having a load to bring it back down in time while the CPU was too hot. My understanding of the vmin shift that Intel says is the root cause of the problem.

 

[logainofhades]

Wasn't the CPU's also asking for too much voltage even with power limits enforced? IIRC, jay saw his spike to like 1.6v.

 

[Misgar]

Wasn't the CPU's also asking for too much voltage even with power limits enforced? IIRC, jay saw his spike to like 1.6v.

Thanks for reminding me. I checked out JayzTwoCent's video again and if you skip to 13 minutes 40 seconds into the video and play up to 15 minutes, you'll see the yellow voltage test spikes (unmodied BIOS) approaching 1.58V, but the blue spikes (modified BIOS) are reduced to 1.51V max.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEv74JrHQo

Basically a problem of a CPU cranking up the voltage and not having a load to bring it back down in time while the CPU was too hot.

I don't think the whole CPU die was getting too hot, just small spots. If I understand Jayz's analysis of the problem, the old BIOS was increasing the voltage on a single core (or possibly two cores) for very lightly threaded loads, to boost one/two cores up to nearly 6GHz.

SInce only one or two cores were overvolted up to 1.6V, there would be localized heating in only one or two spots on the die. If the "best" cores (most overclockable) were consistently selected for boosting up to 1.60V and 6GHz, they would be the cores that suffered the greatest degradation. The other cores would be selected only for more heavily threaded loads, when the voltage applied to all cores would be reduced, to stay within the package maximum power limitations.

On lightly threaded loads, the CPU would remain relatively cool overall, with one or two localized hotspots on the fastest cores. This insidious overvolting would be difficult to detect and took even Microsoft years to fix.

As I've already mentioned, AMD had their own far more obvious hot spot problems on some CPU/motherboards. There was no mistaking a distorted bump on a 7950X and a melted CPU socket underneath. Intel's problem lay hidden deep inside their CPUs.

My 13700 equipped systems have yet to see said bios update. I check at least once a week.

Whether or not these suggestions of Jayz will be of any use if you have a proprietary BIOS is debatable, but they may help to slow down or stop degradation if you can apply them.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3EW5lRIZYc


For anyone like the OP contemplating buying a proprietary Intel 13th/14th Gen. system from Dell, etc., I suggest checking VERY carefully to see if they incorporate the microcode fix. This information could be difficult to locate amongst all the glossy brochure ads on the web site.

 

[logainofhades]

We use Lenovo where I work, and I have little control of what we buy, because my IT head insists we buy only from CDW.... I choose what we get from there, but my options are quite limited.