System Builder Marathon Q4 2015: $1055 Prosumer PC

[blazorthon]

I picked up some performance in Photoshop's OpenCL filters and 3ds Max over the GTX 750 Ti so these apps are obviously using something of the card's abilities (even if they're not optimized for its newer architecture). Anandtech has an article on its compute capabilities, where it looks pretty good.

I remember when guys were modding their GeForce 2's to trick the OS into treating them as otherwise-identical Quadro models to gain huge benefits in Autodesk applications. This type of collusion (refusal by Autodesk to support the consumer card) would have me recommend that people who do these types of projects from home look for alternative application developers.

Photoshop doesn't require much other than having OpenCL 2.0. That's one program out of many that require Quadro or older flagship GPUs for prosumers. So I really don't see your point. Photoshop is not all, the reason I bought a Lenovo P300 30AH004MUS (Xeon E3-1241 v3, Quadro K620) for $849 is because I'm getting a certified card in SolidWorks and I'm getting 8 threads, both of which may actually beat out your build in terms of features and multi-threaded loads. And my graphics card is the professional dialect of the OEM card GTX 745.

And also, as for the Quadro hardmod you're talking about, it doesn't work for Maxwell cards solely because the developer of the mod, gnif from EEVBlog, hasn't been on the forums recently. So far it works on GTX 770, GTX Titan Black, GTX 690, GTX 680, GTX 660 Ti, and a couple of cards that has the Quadro correspondent. Older flagship cards are hard to get and very expensive, but lacking the performance of today's GPU of the same level.

The GTX 970 is theoretically capable of the mod, but until someone gets a Quadro M5000 and figures out how the process goes, the reply to your second paragraph is no.

Please note the bold text. Crash didn't suggest that the mod works on the GTX 970. He suggested that the mere fact that the mod worked in such a way on any cards for Autodesk is good reason to use competitor's alternatives to Autodesk because they are intentionally gimping consumer cards to get people to buy a Quadro despite the consumer cards clearly being no less capable in that software.

 

[okcnaline]

I didn't leave a question, so I guess the answer must be yes? Will we next be discussing the meaning of life?

Eh.... Yes? No? I don't "no"? x)

Please note the bold text. Crash didn't suggest that the mod works on the GTX 970. He suggested that the mere fact that the mod worked in such a way on any cards for Autodesk is good reason to use competitor's alternatives to Autodesk because they are intentionally gimping consumer cards to get people to buy a Quadro despite the consumer cards clearly being no less capable in that software.

I remember when guys were modding their GeForce 2's to trick the OS into treating them as otherwise-identical Quadro models to gain huge benefits in Autodesk applications. This type of collusion (refusal by Autodesk to support the consumer card) would have me recommend that people who do these types of projects from home look for alternative application developers.

It doesn't really matter what Autodesk's actions are, it to me what the audience of the build is. If this is a prosumer build, what is looked for is price, efficiency, and speed when creating or editing content, not dealing with some 3rd party programs or poor business practices. That is why I criticized going for the GTX 970. While the GTX 980 is supported for acceleration and extra features allowing for more efficiency, the GTX 970 is does not get extra features nor get acceleration in many professional programs. Also, anticipate some discrepancies from switching from AutoCAD to other programs.

 

[MasterMace]

I'm actually going to find fault in the top loading PSU case. With an i5 and a 970, enough heat will be generated to advise for a bottom loading case. I'd hate to look at the heat for that 400w. I have no issue with the wattage amount, as people typically give a lot of extra wattage to their builds for overclocking and expansion (the latter rarely happens)

 

[Crashman]

I'm actually going to find fault in the top loading PSU case. With an i5 and a 970, enough heat will be generated to advise for a bottom loading case. I'd hate to look at the heat for that 400w. I have no issue with the wattage amount, as people typically give a lot of extra wattage to their builds for overclocking and expansion (the latter rarely happens)

I checked it, it wasn't hot. Beyond touching it that's all I can say.

Remember that the graphics card has external exhaust. If I'd selected the card myself, it would likely also have external exhaust.

 

[-Fran-]

Bad idea not having a local storage form. That assumes either: the user has few or little GBs worth of information that would constantly travel around or a *very* good internet connection (in terms of speed and reliability). Plus, Steam libraries can't run off the cloud and I'm a DropBox user, you insensitive clods!

In any case, you guys are finally ditching the ODD. Good.

Cheers!: P

 

[Onus]

I edited out the foul language; hopefully the poster gets a clue without further attention. In any case, it wasn't you.

 

[Crashman]

Bad idea not having a local storage form. That assumes either: the user has few or little GBs worth of information that would constantly travel around or a *very* good internet connection (in terms of speed and reliability). Plus, Steam libraries can't run off the cloud and I'm a DropBox user, you insensitive clods!

In any case, you guys are finally ditching the ODD. Good.

Cheers!: P

Yes, I mention that it's not a fair comparison to the other machines using a complete system price when the complete system has less money spent on storage. I then go on to refer to the chart that shows value without including the cost of the case or added storage, where the competing systems get a bigger discount equal to the money I didn't spend.

 

[-Fran-]

Yes, I mention that it's not a fair comparison to the other machines using a complete system price when the complete system has less money spent on storage. I then go on to refer to the chart that shows value without including the cost of the case or added storage, where the competing systems get a bigger discount equal to the money I didn't spend.

And it was a good idea to include that. Well done.

My point is another though, a less obvious one, but bordering the awful semantics wars. I will leave it here, since it was not a bad review in my eyes at all. I just don't share the idea of not having local storage.

Now... If you humor me though... What if you could assemble a little NAS machine for the home along the usual SBMs? Divide and conquer are usually great ideas. I know QNAS has sweet sweet things, but they are less tailor made and way more expensive. That way you would play on even grounds and focus in what's important without making "special" graphs to justify this or that decision.

Cheers!

 

[Crashman]

Yes, I mention that it's not a fair comparison to the other machines using a complete system price when the complete system has less money spent on storage. I then go on to refer to the chart that shows value without including the cost of the case or added storage, where the competing systems get a bigger discount equal to the money I didn't spend.

And it was a good idea to include that. Well done.

My point is another though, a less obvious one, but bordering the awful semantics wars. I will leave it here, since it was not a bad review in my eyes at all. I just don't share the idea of not having local storage.

Now... If you humor me though... What if you could assemble a little NAS machine for the home along the usual SBMs? Divide and conquer are usually great ideas. I know QNAS has sweet sweet things, but they are less tailor made and way more expensive. That way you would play on even grounds and focus in what's important without making "special" graphs to justify this or that decision.

Cheers!

I used to review NAS boxes. I'd pull them apart at the end and figure out what kind of PC was inside After a while I just set up a personal server on my own PC, its extra storage is the NAS for other devices on my network. But perhaps I'm just being stubborn and backwards.

 

[mapesdhs]

... Adobe doesn't support any Maxwell-based GeForce cards at all. ...

AFAIK it works fine with Premiere (MPE). It's really just AE where they've not yet added support for Maxwell CUDA V2, though anyone with half a brain who wanted good performance for Adobe apps would hunt down two used 3GB GTX 580s instead of a 970; better performance by miles, though at the expense of more power consumption (though I wouldn't use a 400W for a pro build anyway). My AE system with four 580s is quicker than two Titan Blacks for CUDA. My guess is Adobe is skipping Maxwell entirely for CUDA support, or just switching to OpenCL, thoug the C4D setup seems to be replacing the RayTrace3D function in AE from what I've been told, and the former can use the newer cards ok.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the PSU. A GTX 970 under stress with an I5-6600K under stress will use around 280W combined. The rest of the system makes 330W under stress. Normal conditions would be more like 100W of power draw, or during intense gaming around 250W.

Storage is fine, any prosumer reading this would know if he/she needs more storage and can easily add an internal or external hard drive. The only thing I would have gone for is DDR4-3000 since the frequency/latency ratio is simply better. Anyway, great PSU choice, people who shun it just overestimate wattage and underestimate internal quality.

 

[Onus]

Yep, I too thought the PSU was an excellent choice. Some people might moan a little that it isn't modular, but since it isn't a 1KW spaghetti monster, I'd even let that go too, especially since it isn't a mITX build.

 

[RedJaron]

While I like modular PSUs, having a bigger case makes it easier to hide unwanted cables. And like Joe said, smaller PSUs tend to have fewer cables to tuck away anyway.

 

[Draven35]

Our GPU-accelerated pro apps use OpenCL, it works great for that I actually look at the benchmark set before making any choices, but I didn't pick this specific card. The card was a reader decision from the last SBM that I found no good reason to reject.

Autodesk doesn't support GTX 970 in any of their applications like Revit, 3ds Max, AutoCAD (I checked, all 2016 editions). Adobe doesn't support any Maxwell-based GeForce cards at all. I doubt that Dassault Systemés has ever supported GeForce cards. What "pro apps" were you talking about? Having certifications go beyond performance - you get extra features like RealView in SolidWorks and real-time rendering in Adobe video-editing applications.

And Onus, who were you referring to with the foul language?

As for the SSD, if it's enough for the programs and maybe some footage, it's good enough. That's because the professional infrastructure for video editing or 3D modeling is that a centralized server with a really powerful GPU and CPU would render and store the final file that uploads to other places. Workstations use captured footage, and after completing the work on the footage, they would be sent to the server to render.

Workstations also usually store a copy of the footage locally while working on it rather than trying to pull it over the network.

 

[akula2]

It was an interesting build suggestion. Well, my "Prosumer" complete workstion build (the first Skylake 'K' one) hit the roof by breaching $4K barrier*

*prices of new ROG GPU & LCD annoy me...no drastic 'fall,' yet!