Rendering/Modeling/Image Editting 3000-4000$ PC build

[AndreiAlbu]

Hello, folks! I would like to know which is the best build for a person using mainly Blender (Cycles) and Photoshop, given the above budget. If it could also take into account CAD, it would be perfect. (I currently own a monitor)

L.E. I should specify that I currently own a i5-2400 3.1GHz/Quadro FX 580/8GB RAM system. Rendering is bloody slow. It takes 1.5-2.5 hours for a normal 1080p image. My main purpose is a very strong boost to my render times (and also to my live poly-processing capacity).

 

[mrdmatt123]

do you plan on overclocking?

 

[babernet_1]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($999.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 DELUXE ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($349.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Dominator 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($263.93 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($364.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($162.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($155.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan 6GB Video Card ($1019.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum 1000W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($225.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: LG BH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Professional (OEM) (64-bit) ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $3973.78
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-12 14:54 EDT-0400)

This will crush any problem within fifteen feet of it.

 

[mrdmatt123]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mr.dmatt123/saved/#savedbuild_451589
with badbernet's ssd because I forgot it

 

[AndreiAlbu]

I don't think I need overclocking - no. Thank you for your answers so far, but I have a question: can all those expensive HDDs be skipped? Is an 180$ sound card really necessary? I also don't think I need mouse, keyboard, OS and optical drive. If you can please address the bare necessities...

 

[mrdmatt123]

I don't think I need overclocking - no. Thank you for your answers so far, but I have a question: can all those expensive HDDs be skipped? Is an 180$ sound card really necessary? I also don't think I need mouse, keyboard, OS and optical drive. If you can please address the bare necessities...

if you are not overclocking get the i7 4770 and get a coolermaster hyper 101 cpu cooler. The soundcard isnt necessary if you are not working with music. the ssd will help alot with loading times I suggest just putting your os and photoshop and stuff like that on it, then put movies and music and other things on the hdd but the amount of storage on them can be reduced if you dont think that you will use it
here is an edit of that build http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mr.dmatt123/saved/#savedbuild_451623

 

[babernet_1]

I don't think I need overclocking - no. Thank you for your answers so far, but I have a question: can all those expensive HDDs be skipped? Is an 180$ sound card really necessary? I also don't think I need mouse, keyboard, OS and optical drive. If you can please address the bare necessities...

Please try to give as much data as possible. How much hard disk drive space do you need? I specified the 500GB SSD so you could put your entire design on it for some real fast performance. The 3970 is the fastest thing out there now. I wasn't sure about the CUDA so I used this page:

https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

As far as I could tell the GTX Titan was as fast as anything else with the bonus of 6GB ram and a lot of gaming power.

The more you tell us the more specific our help can be. Do you have a specific CUDA GPU card in mind? I know very little about this.

 

[mrdmatt123]

I don't think I need overclocking - no. Thank you for your answers so far, but I have a question: can all those expensive HDDs be skipped? Is an 180$ sound card really necessary? I also don't think I need mouse, keyboard, OS and optical drive. If you can please address the bare necessities...

Please try to give as much data as possible. How much hard disk drive space do you need? I specified the 500GB SSD so you could put your entire design on it for some real fast performance. The 3970 is the fastest thing out there now. I wasn't sure about the CUDA so I used this page:

https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus

As far as I could tell the GTX Titan was as fast as anything else with the bonus of 6GB ram and a lot of gaming power.

The more you tell us the more specific our help can be. Do you have a specific CUDA GPU card in mind? I know very little about this.

the titan is made for gaming that is why I would recommend the quadro as it is specifically made for the kinds of things that you are doing

 

[AndreiAlbu]

Are you guys saying that if the files pertaining to a process are stored on an SSD, the process will run faster? I'd prefer a CUDA card, given it's larger support among industry graphical design software. Of course, it's compute capability must be over 1.3. My current card, the Quadro FX580, has 1.1, which means I'm stuck rendering on CPU. BTW, I don't need gaming power.

L.E. Presuming I opt for a GTX Titan, what will the difference be between using two GPUs and only one?

 

[apower101]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/apower101/saved/1WHB. CHange the titans from sli to two speerate cards, or alternatively, buy a quadro k5000.

 

[mrdmatt123]

Are you guys saying that if the files pertaining to a process are stored on an SSD, the process will run faster? I'd prefer a CUDA card, given it's larger support among industry graphical design software. Of course, it's compute capability must be over 1.3. My current card, the Quadro FX580, has 1.1, which means I'm stuck rendering on CPU. BTW, I don't need gaming power.

the quadro is cuda. what software was it running at 1.1?

 

[apower101]

Two titans in sli will only use one. But there is a setting where you can choose to use them both at the same time, but the work is split between the two (kind of like a workstation sli option)

 

[AndreiAlbu]

@mrdmatt123

My point was exactly that it was running no software.

@apower101

What are the potential concrete benefits of using two, against using one?

 

[joeschmoe007]

Andrei: IMO you are not being pointed in the right direction in previous posts. You most likely will not benefit from SSD for your usage.

What is the bottleneck in your rendering? Is it your RAM or your CPU? If it is your CPU then you need to look at Dual or Quad CPU board (server of workstation class), possibly something that supports Xeon CPU. Dual should definitely be in your budget. Be sure that your intended OS and software will support and take advantage of that number of CPU-s/Cores - you may have to go with Windows Server OS.

If it is the RAM that is a bottleneck for your rendering then just buy as much as you can afford. Most consumer level boards don't support more than 32 GB. Again, be sure that OS and applications will be able to use all this RAM.

As far as graphics card you probably don't need anything outrageous but I don't know how much of a performance you need with real-time polygon model rendering. What is more important that you card is certified (or known to be well compatibel) to work with your CAD applications. If I am not mistaken this usually means some kind of Nvidia Quadro card.

 

[AndreiAlbu]

Andrei: IMO you are not being pointed in the right direction in previous posts. You most likely will not benefit from SSD for your usage.

What is the bottleneck in your rendering? Is it your RAM or your CPU? If it is your CPU then you need to look at Dual or Quad CPU board (server of workstation class), possibly something that supports Xeon CPU. Dual should definitely be in your budget. Be sure that your intended OS and software will support and take advantage of that number of CPU-s/Cores - you may have to go with Windows Server OS.

If it is the RAM that is a bottleneck for your rendering then just buy as much as you can afford. Most consumer level boards don't support more than 32 GB. Again, be sure that OS and applications will be able to use all this RAM.

As far as graphics card you probably don't need anything outrageous but I don't know how much of a performance you need with real-time polygon model rendering. What is more important that you card is certified (or known to be well compatibel) to work with your CAD applications. If I am not mistaken this usually means some kind of Nvidia Quadro card.

My main bottleneck is the GPU. I simply can't do GPU Compute in Blender (and I think this is the case for Octane, V-Ray etc.) because it's compute capability is too low (have 1.1, need 1.3), meaning that I'm stuck with my CPU. Other than that, I have no idea what part of my system is disproportionately weak to the others.

 

[apower101]

JoeSchmoe, thei7 3970x will crush anything he throws at it for years. The two titans are really quite necessary for high poly models. I moved from a firepro to a titan, and the difference was night and day. The 6 gb vram is a life saver.

@andrei, m,aybe 180% of the performance of 1 titan. However, if your budget allows, I would go for a quadro k5000, as their drivers are better optimised for SOme CAD programs.

Another alternative, as Joeschmoe said is to consider xeaons. Their motherboards come with ecc memory, which is really good for rendering (it doesn't make it faster, but it eliminates 99% of the possible errors/artifacts that can occur), and you can get multiple xeons.

 

[ncmike]

I built a new rig recently for Photoshop CS6 and other high-end uses. Really, an i7 3930K is the better choice, more bang for the buck for a 6-core which CS6 can certainly use. Also, it would be a waste to not overclock the CPU some; put it on a decent out of the box cooler and you can OC it up to 4.2-4.6GHz in a matter of minutes and safely for 24/7 usage and get a huge performance gain. Also, don't go with the non Pro Samsung SSD; get the pro version. The GPU will have little to no impact on Photoshop usage, but will for video rendering and gaming of course. The 32GB is nice; I went with 64GB as I do massive panos consisting of 100-200 36MP images combined and I easily burn up a lot of RAM as a result - but I'm on the extreme end of normal imaging users.
Finally, the HAF X case is nice; it is slightly better than the HAF 932 which I have for my old rig, but take a hard look at the CoolerMaster Storm Trooper - I think its a better case than the X and built my new rig using it and very happy I chose it over the X.

 

[ncmike]

I built a new rig recently for Photoshop CS6 and other high-end uses. Really, an i7 3930K is the better choice, more bang for the buck for a 6-core which CS6 can certainly use. Also, it would be a waste to not overclock the CPU some; put it on a decent out of the box cooler and you can OC it up to 4.2-4.6GHz in a matter of minutes and safely for 24/7 usage and get a huge performance gain. Also, don't go with the non Pro Samsung SSD; get the pro version. The GPU will have little to no impact on Photoshop usage, but will for video rendering and gaming of course. The 32GB is nice; I went with 64GB as I do massive panos consisting of 100-200 36MP images combined and I easily burn up a lot of RAM as a result - but I'm on the extreme end of normal imaging users.
Finally, the HAF X case is nice; it is slightly better than the HAF 932 which I have for my old rig, but take a hard look at the CoolerMaster Storm Trooper - I think its a better case than the X and built my new rig using it and very happy I chose it over the X.

 

[Andy11466]

For rendering purposes AMD and Radeon Strive. Intels and GTXs are more for gaming imo.

 

[apower101]

Sorry in my previous post I meant the 3930k. Also, I have 1 titan and I model in blender, and it is much quicker to render on the gpu. However, there are bugs, which prevent you from using the gpu in some cases.

 

[joeschmoe007]

Andrei: IMO you are not being pointed in the right direction in previous posts. You most likely will not benefit from SSD for your usage.

What is the bottleneck in your rendering? Is it your RAM or your CPU? If it is your CPU then you need to look at Dual or Quad CPU board (server of workstation class), possibly something that supports Xeon CPU. Dual should definitely be in your budget. Be sure that your intended OS and software will support and take advantage of that number of CPU-s/Cores - you may have to go with Windows Server OS.

If it is the RAM that is a bottleneck for your rendering then just buy as much as you can afford. Most consumer level boards don't support more than 32 GB. Again, be sure that OS and applications will be able to use all this RAM.

As far as graphics card you probably don't need anything outrageous but I don't know how much of a performance you need with real-time polygon model rendering. What is more important that you card is certified (or known to be well compatibel) to work with your CAD applications. If I am not mistaken this usually means some kind of Nvidia Quadro card.

My main bottleneck is the GPU. I simply can't do GPU Compute in Blender (and I think this is the case for Octane, V-Ray etc.) because it's compute capability is too low (have 1.1, need 1.3), meaning that I'm stuck with my CPU. Other than that, I have no idea what part of my system is disproportionately weak to the others.

You have to find out where you bottleneck is in order to benefit from new build (in addition to GPU Compute that you just mentioned). I used to do 3D graphics for a living years ago and one thing that was true back then is still true now: you can never have enough of RAM or CPU power for software rendering.