System for 3D Computer Animation and Gaming

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CraniumNY

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Apr 11, 2013
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10,510
I want to replace a 6yo Alienware system. It was great for its time but now, my daughter needs power to handle working on 3D computer animations using Maya from Autodesk. She also uses the entire Adobe suite (Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator). We also want to continue to be our "big" gaming rig so it needs power for that.

Please advise and we would really appreciate it. We would like to keep the cost down to $1,500.

Thanks in advance.
 
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http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

You can play with that one a bit to suit your needs. I chose the 8350 as the amd cpu does better with multi threading which will help in the 3d computer animations. And its gaming is just below the i5 cpu's. I put 16 gigs of ram to help with the 3d other wise 8 gigs is more then enough for gaming. I added an ssd drive and 3 tetrabyte hdd to make for a lot faster loading and plenty of storage. But you can use this as a good base to start with.
 
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Hello CraniumNY,

A lot comes down to what kind of work you are going to do in 3D. My needs are extreme so I have an emphasis on different things to other people and drop a lot more money into things that other people would find superfluous. If you come back with the type of 3D scenes your daughter wants to work on then I can get more detailed. Also, I am assuming you are looking at building a system - or at least getting one made.

But without knowing everything except your budget I think I can first recommend an i7 3770k CPU, which is well priced considering its performance over anything that AMD currently has in the fold. If the scenes are not monstrous then 16 GB of RAM will suffice and I always choose between an ASUS or Gigabyte motherboard.

Your next biggest consideration is the video card. As I mentioned, my needs are extreme, so I go for the ones with the most amount of RAM per GPU, which has me currently saving up for a new GTX Titan with its whopping 6 GB of RAM for just 1 GPU. The Titan has a $1000 price tag, which is justified for me as I move more polygons around than anyone else I know, but if your daughter is doing lighter work, such as character animation or she is a student then you can get faster video cards for much less money that will play your games better than the Titan too.
 
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This is going to be a fantastic PC for your purposes.


CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1245 V2 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($276.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Microcenter)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($98.98 @ Outlet PC)
Storage: Western Digital WD Green 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($349.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($349.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $1505.88
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

First of all to get rid of the apparent stigma against the Xeon CPU it is in a nutshell the i7 without the ability to overclock, it's a FANTASTIC DEAL FOR THE MONEY.

The motherboard is z77 only because the z77 chipset support SLI/CFx which was a key technology in this build to be using 2xGPUs

16GB of RAM at a great price, you really cannot beat that, plenty of power for your system.

2TB of storage so you have plenty of room to store all of those rather large files you get from your software...

2x670s is the make it or break it. With the capability of these 2 being greater than that of a 690 or Titan at a $300 lower price you really cannot beat that. I had to go with nvidia on this as well because CUDA acceleration is simply fantastic on all of the Adobe series of products. This thing has more than enough horsepower for even the most intensive design you can create.

A nice simple case with good airflow, with a sleek business class design you really cannot beat that. If you do not like this look you could go for a HAF 912 instead they are both the same price and work fantastic.

With 750w of power you will have more than enough for this machine. You are set for any CFx/SLI setup in the future as well.

Simple cheap effective Optical Drive that gets the job done.

And to top it all off Windows 7 64Bit the perfect OS for all of these components.

Again this is the strongest system suggested yet, and you will be getting the most performance per dollar out of this compared to any of option. Best of luck with your build!

-Bob
 
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I tend to disagree a little on this one. The i7s are benchmarking faster than the XEONs. I have to ask why you would consider the Xeon a better choice than the i7 Ivy Bridge.

I agree with everything else and commend your effort there.

Keep in mind that the SLI will not assist in the 3D work so if that is the primary purpose then you would be better with just one of those cards or upgrading to just one with 4 GB of RAM instead of 2.
 
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What benchmarks are you reading, this is the 1245v2 not something else, just randomly labeling xeons as worse is simply wrong, they are equal in every way shape and form, your are saving yourself a chunk of change if you go with the eon in this build.

SLI is supported in 3D work Adobe is pretty good about that., plus you literally cannot fit a $1k card in a $1.5k budget...

 
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OK, more on this. I was very eager to check out burritobob's Xeon suggestion as it may have had some appeal for some of my own systems.

Firstly, the Xeon is $277 and Cinebenches at 7.03. The i7 3770K $330 and CBs at 7.91. That isn't much of a difference and breaking it down the Xeon gets you .025 CBs per dollar and the i7 0.024. The Xeon is 83% of the i7s price and 89% of its speed. For me I would choose the i7 for the speed boost.

So what about the other advantages of the Xeon, like ECC memory? Well, as soon as you shoehorn that Xeon into the consumer motherboard you lose all of that. You cant overclock the Xeon and you cant walk into your local CompUSA store and buy a replacement off the shelf. I am afraid to say that the only benefit with using the Xeon is the bragging rights of saying you have one. Yes, it is a great buy if you need a XEON chip and are putting it on a real Xeon motherboard, but that is the only time it is.

On video cards, as I mentioned, Maya and the other professional packages don't use SLI. I really wish they did/could as I would go out and buy more cards in a blink. What most system builders don't understand is the inherent difference in 3D as a gaming machine and 3D in an authoring/artist environment. The hardware can be similar but the use is different. For example a gamer will run his video card at 100% for hours on end whereas the 3D artist will run it at 100% in spurts. A 3D artist will run his CPU at 100% most times whereas a gamer will run it in spurts. So with the video card you have a difficult decision to make.

Burritobob suggests an excellent gaming setup of 2x GTX 670s with 2 GB of RAM that have a current Newegg price of $370 (I will stick to one vendor in my figures for simplicity). That gets you 4 GPUs, each with 1 GB of RAM, running in an SLI configuration - a GREAT gaming setup that would be my choice too. Adobe products don't care about SLI or even if the cards match each other – they will utilise each CUDA core they find, and with this proposal they find a LOT of them!

But, back to creating 3D and video cards and my point above of 1 GB of RAM per GPU. Unfortunately in 3D you are limited to just the RAM that is assigned to one individual GPU and unless you are doing small scenes you are going to run out very fast. 3D games are tuned and stripped down to fit into lesser amounts of RAM but when you are working in 3D then you don't have that advantage - you work with what you have and if you are creating a real-time scene you will strip it down and bake in detail after you created it. When you run out of video RAM on a big 3D scene things start running painfully slow, and if your livelihood relies on it then you are going to get frustrated. Your decision here is whether you need to spend more money, about $90 each, and get the 4GB version of the same card. If you can afford it then I would suggest just getting 2 of them for the extra $180 but if you cant then think hard about the system usage and whether your daughter's 3D work is more important than the gaming side. You could also consider, instead that the $700 that burritobob has budgeted for, one GTX 680 with 4 GB of RAM, which is a little faster and newer than the GTX 670 and only around $570.
 
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You 2 do realize that the amd 8350 is better at multithreading and multitasking right? And it is for this reason i strongly suggest it over the over priced xenon and i7. With the 8350 you get gaming compared to the intel king cpu the 3570k with the multithreading and multitasking needed for the 3d animations the op needs. This serves both needs that of the father the gamer and the daughter for her 3d work. So i strongly suggest the 8350 in this circumstance. if it was strictly gaming the 3570k would be best. but in this case they need the multithreading and multitasking that the 8350 delivers.
 
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The Xeon is much stronger than the FX-8350 in every single case. Apparently you've never heard of this CPU before and therefor have not seen benchmarks on it. It technically has 8 cores and is like a non-overclockable i7 3770k. Therefor if the stock i7 beats the 8350 10 times out of 10, even when it may be overclocked it will do it again. If you have the budget for the CPU you should definitely get it, instead of getting a weaker CPU that can hardly handle a thread. IT MAY have 8 cores but that does not make them strong.
 
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I have read up on several cpu's. and can tell you that the i7 and xenon while decent cpu's also cost far more and do little better then the 8350 in multithreading and multitasking. Multithreading and multitasking swings in amd's favor. While single threading wswings into intels favor.

You will not find a lot of gaming benchmarks or benchmarks period on the i7 or the xenon. Why? Xenon is more of a server type cpu and the i7 is really high priced for the small gains. Look into it yourself. Seeing how their pc will be shared its best to have a balance. The 8350 serves both. Its a very well capable gaming cpu. And it is extremely good at multithreading and multitasking compared to intel.

Yet you want them to take from a budget to purchase a higher priced cpu with no real gains and will not serve their purpose? that money is better spent on better gpu's and ssd's which will show a better increase in performance.

8350 $199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284

cheapest i7? $289.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116502

You want them to throw $90 down the drain for what reason?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-core-i7-3770k-gaming-bottleneck,3407-3.html

That kind of compares the 2 a bit. They are pretty close. Except the costs of the mobo and the cpu which the 8350 wins hands down. Add to that amd's better multithreading and you can easily see the 8350 as a better choice here. Gaming wise it loses a bit performance wise to the intel line. So strict gaming its a no brainer of getting a 3570k. But here they are also doing a lot of multithreaded types of apps so the 8350 is sufficient for the multithreading work as well as taking care of the needs gaming wise.

And the xenon is not listed here at all and last i checked it was primarily a server cpu unless they have released a desktop version of the ivy or sandy line i've missed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007671%2050001157&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICED&PageSize=100

And the am3+ board is getting at least one new cpu line possibly 2. While 1155 is dead in the water at ivy bridge.
 
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The FX-8350 is smoked by a 3770K in both single and multiple CPU Cinebenches. I love the price of the AMD but I am depressed by its performance. It also draws more power so needs more cooling, etc. You can also overclock the i7 if you want to compare it that way. Burritobob's points are valid and I have to conclude that it is definitely NOT the best option for 3D at this point in time.

Here is a good comparison: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2055/12/

Also keep in mind the single CPU performance, which is what affects day to day editing - both the i7 and Xeon are way ahead.
 
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http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2055/12/ Shows the 8350 exactly 0.87 behind the i7 3770k

Your next article says to use cinebench to get your answer about the cpu. And as such it clearly shows that the 8350 is perfectly fine for the 3d rendering as well as for the gaming that will be required of the cpu. So that you can spend the extra cash for more ram a better gpu and to add a ssd to really give the best possible performance.

And your second link tells me the person is not well versed in pc building with their comparisons of the 8350.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/345 Shows the 8350 as number 6 in top multithreading cpu's in cinebench.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2012/compare,3143.html?prod%5B5744%5D=on&prod%5B5745%5D=on&prod%5B5754%5D=on&prod%5B5877%5D=on

Comparing the i7-3960X Black i7-3960X Black i7 3770K FX-8350 comparing it to cpu's that cost at the least $146.3 more then the 8350 and up to $824.01 more then the 8350. To me the 8350 is the better choice putting the extra cash into other more important things such as a better gpu more ram and a decent ssd drive.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/QNfl To me this is a better over all build for the needs of the op. Base Total: $1461.84 That can be adjusted a bit as need be. But its a good base build.
 
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I don't think you understand how those benchmarks work. You are correct that the AMD chip isn't that much slower than the 3770K overall but take a look at the single CPU benchmark - the AMD is about one third slower. This means the little things like moving around, adding stuff, general performance is significantly slower – and thats the performance you really feel. The Intel is faster over 4 cores than the AMD is over 6, so each core of the Intel is significantly faster. You will see on my chart that the AMD is clearly the best value for money, hands down, but when you are a pro you have to sacrifice a little money for the sake of moving faster.

Don't get me wrong - until the Sandy/Ivy bridges came out I was building my render farm out of AMDs but now the Intels are faster and cooler for just a little more money and both of them are critical for me.
 
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AMD CPU's have increased in speed quite a bit especially with the 4300 the 6300 and the 8350 and have increased more with some hotfixes that were recently released. Any time you try to sacrifice graphics processing for more cpu processing you will lose gaming fps and also have more slow downs. With 3d rendering you are doing multiple things at once meaning having more cores is a huge plus. And it is why i'm saying the 8350 build is a better one over all in this case.

They are not just gaming they are also doing a lot of multi threaded apps. In these cases amd is a better choice as intel has weaker cores when it comes to multi threading. Intel is better with single threading apps such as games. But even that edge has been pushed by the way side. Also with the intel route your dead ended using the 1155 socket as haswell is a whole new socket. While the am3+ has 1 possibly two new architectures of cpu's coming. Meaning that there will be at least 1 maybe two upgrade path's available later on.
 
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Your article and overall advice is very good. In fact everyone's advice has been quite educational for me as I know nothing about building PCs. I've changed a drive or two and a graphics card or two, but that is it. To be honest, I am not even sure I can put the entire system together from scratch!

I think the Intel I7 cpu sounds like the best option. I also think I would prefer to get 1 bigger graphics card rather than two right now (I can add a 2nd later on). It would be nVidia becuase of CUDA...not sure of which. I am still overwhelmed by the number of cases I can get. I think I want a full tower...more room for my hands to get in there but some cases are very heavy and I am not sure why. I won't be overclocking anything. I'm too afraid to! I'll live with it and so will my daughter with her Maya and Adobe needs. Actually my younger son will be entering college next year and he uses all of the Adobe products as well.

So if anyone wishes to provide another parts list using the I7 than I would appreciate it. I like that HAF 912 cpu cooler, but do I need it if I do not overclock? Perhaps fans in the case can handle everything. I also definitely want two hard drives but I am very interested in the SSD but worry about the storage limitations. And the OS....I believe it should be WIN 7 64bit Pro? I would also like to get 32G of memory.

I am sorry I don't know more about this. I only buy a power PC every 6 or 7 years and as I said, I have never built one. I know my brother tried...he ordered everything...and now a dozen boxes are in his den...it's been too daunting for him to get started!

Anyway, your part lists would be very appreciated. And all of your advice has been really great.
 
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What do you think about this build? Remember that I will not overclock anything most likely and I probably won't buy a second video card.

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Microcenter)

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V PRO ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Amazon)

Memory: Corsair DOMINATOR 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($219.99 @ Best Buy)

Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($229.99 @ Adorama)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.99 @ NCIX US)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 4GB Video Card ($427.99 @ Amazon)

Case: Corsair 500R White ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($128.54 @ Newegg)

Optical Drive: Asus BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($59.99 @ Newegg)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Full (32/64-bit) ($177.65 @ Amazon)

Total: $1894.11
 
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I like it, but with a few notes:

I started with exactly the same size SSD and now I wish it was just a little bigger. Keep in mind that it is in my workstation only, so my personal files are on another computer. If your build is also going to be a personal system then I would strongly recommend a bigger SSD.

I would also recommend, if your budget can stretch, a closed loop CPU liquid cooler. They are inexpensive now, do a terrific job and I now find them valuable even without over clocking.
 
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One thing I forgot to mention...I want to whittle down the price to under $1,500. It's too much now.

As for the SSD, I am not even sure I really even want it. This will be the main desktop for the house. Everyone uses it and as I first said, my daughter will use it for Maya and Adobe, my younger son will use it for Adobe and video editing, and I will use it for everything else....including gaming.

With that all in mind, is there anything I can do to cut the price? I am not married to the SSD and I am not even sure I need a Blu-Ray as well as a DVD/CD burner.
 
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Sometimes I relate other people's needs to my own too much. I live and breath 3D and computers so everything has to be totally snappy and fast, but for you I am certain that you would still be totally happy with something that had to make you wait a millisecond longer.

Maybe just forget the SSD for now and get a drive that can be startup and data - they are so cheap now. Then you can get a big cheap drive as your backup.

If your daughter is only starting on 3D then she isn't going to be pushing CPUs to the limit to unless you live in a warm climate, as I do, just stick with the CPU cooler that comes in the box.

Cant Blu-Ray drives now do DVD-CD as well now? Why would you want both? I know I sound vague on this one but to be honest I haven't bought a BluRay at all. Bill Gates made a very true statement when he backed the wrong side of the Disc format wars and lost – it doesn't matter anyway and optical media is dead.
 
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I wasn't clear enough in my answer earlier. I *do* only want one optical drive. I just wasn't sure if I wanted it to be a blu-ray/dvd combo drive.

Anyway, what I am really trying to do is to cut down on my budget. Here again are some important points.

o I will not be overclocking. Not the CPU or the video card.

o I need the power for Maya and the Adobe Suite. This is the main use of this PC.

o I defintely want a Seasonic PS. Modular.

o I know that means I need 32Gb of RAM. I want a good brand.

o I do use it for games and want very good results but only with one card. Not two...though I might change my mind later on. I prefer an nVidia card (becuase of CUDA).

o I am still undecided about the SSD for my main drive. I definitely want and need a second drive with at least 2Tb.

o I feel that the Corsair Carbide 500R will be a great case.

o I am definitely sold on ASUS motherboards and am thinking about the P8Z77-V-Pro or Deluxe.

o I definitely need WIN 7...probably pro.

o And I would like to spend $3.98 for everything. (I can dream can't I?)

So if there are any more suggestions to my original build to shave the price, I would appreciate it.
 
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