Building a New Work PC and I Need Your Guidance Please

richard11992288

richard11992288

richard11992288

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Joined
14 Jun 2012
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24
Afternoon all.

I work as a 3D Designer for a Design Agency. We do a lot of 3D modelling and rendering on a daily basis and we are looking to by myself a new machine. My questions is what spec can I buy (most likely pre built as I don't think they will let me buy the parts and then build it) that is better than my current spec.

Here is my current spec, it is a Dell Percision T5400:

CPU: Intel Xeon E5410 Dual Core 2.33GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR2
GPU: Nvidia Quadro NVS 290 256MB RAM
HDD: 500GB SATA 300
Windows 7 64bit
19" WS Monitor

The applications I use on a daily basis are 3DS Max, Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign. I'm basically looking for a tower and a monitor for about £1200 tops that will beat the above spec. I know I can buy specific Workstations but some of these cost £1700 upwards which isn't in the budget.

From my own research and CPU/GPU charts Ive looked at some of the machines by other companies:

seem to beat my current machine and some a lot high on benchmark charts. I know for rendering I need CPU power and lots of RAM its the GFX side I'm not sure about, in regards to getting a non 3D specific graphics card.

Any links or specs would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks,

Rich
 
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Oh, and welcome to OcUK
there is an OcUK shop, and did you read the rules? Thanks.
Budget?
 
Looked at the prebuilts from OCUK and nothing seemed to match your requirements.

Graphics Workstation wants a few things:

As many cores as possible.
A pro level Gfx card
Lots of RAM
Good screen
Fast and plentiful disks
Proper support - I.e next business day onsite.

Go look at the big Manufacturers for this. And go and convince your bosses to pay more.
 
Thanks for the advice.

Theres a slim to none chance of me getting a bigger budget. 5 years ago when the studio got this machine (which I now use) they spec'ed up a machine work £2k and the boss wanted a machine for under £1k. Now you and I both know that's silly as for a proper workstation I need to spend like £2k and get a really good IPS monitor but that wont happen.

Is it at all possible with my budget to spec up a machine that would out perform the above spec? Even if it does break the rule for what a workstation should have i.e. not having a FirePro or Quadro card. If I know there is a spec out there that will yield better performance then the one above I can work with that :-)
 
Intel Core i7 3770
8GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory
128GB SSD Hard Drive
GTX 560Ti
600w PSU

Would this out perform the old spec? I don't need a big hard drive as everything is saved onto a server so just enough space for the OS and apps that's it.
 
It will **** on the old spec, but someone else needs to give you an answer on how consumer gaming cards work in pro level workflows.

We have 300-400 3d people at the place I work at and no one uses a consumer card - don't know if that's a policy or productivity thing.

i5/i7 generally work just as well for this stuff as Xeons.

The next business day (or better) is important.
 
The spec Id go for in an:

i7
12/16gb ram
Quardo or FireGL card
SSD System Drive.

The problem im finding is that workstations I see have the Xeon CPUs which is fine but only have 8GB of RAM and no SSD options.

It seems that wanting that spec id have to build it myself. Which I can do but dont know if work will let me.
 
I recently did all the same research as yourself (OP) about workstation specs with specific regards to graphic cards. I'm a photographer so my research was centred around requirements for Photoshop CS6 and various plug-ins.
The conclusions I came to were that Firepro and Quadro cards are overpriced and marketed to people who aren't spending their own money. High level consumer cards outperform them £pound for £pound (at least in PS CS6). However what I did also find out is that if you get a consumer graphics card you want one that is CUDA enabled (again I'll just remind you I was specifically looking at Photoshop) and that means a Nvidia rather than an AMD.
A rich source of information was the software developers own websites/forums where they talk about system requirements/recommendations, tested cards etc.

With regards to the rest of the spec:
a) You'll get a much better system by buying individual components and assembling (some computer shops will assemble a pc for you out of bits you provide for a fee (~£70?)). Is that something your bosses would be happy with?
b) Large complex 3D files will want lots of RAM. I just bought 32GB of RAM with Photoshop able to use 75% of it and it regularly will.
c) Do you need to factor in an operating system or monitor calibration hardware for that budget?
 
Hi Sifal thanks for the reply. I will go to Autodesks website and their forums and see what answers I can get.

If I can find a site that lets me pick the parts and they build it that is something I could get them to agree too.

In regards to CUDA, what is it?

I will need an operating system (Win 7 64bit) and a monitor but not Monitor Calibration software. Again I know what I need a decent IPS monitor and calibration tools but work doesn't seem to care and gets us TN Panel Monitors because they are cheaper. Its something I'm working on that paying more for the right equipment is good in the long run and I'm not just trying to waste company cash
 
CUDA is running code on the gpu. The idea is that the gpu can run many, many threads in parallel provided they aren't doing anything very complicated.

£1200 isn't enough. Even if you were building it yourself, £1200 isn't enough. The whole point to a fast computer for design work is reducing the man hours required. Rendering can run overnight if need be, however modelling is a decidedly interactive process. The quadro cards make a considerable difference to this in my (limited) experience & I haven't run across a gaming card anywhere at work. Everything is a professional card or the onboard graphics.

A model that I can put together in half an hour at home would take two or three on my old uni's lab computers- the latency between telling the computer to do something and it actually doing so is a killer.

I assume the agency is small since you're looking to choose your own system (my company is big- there are a number of pre-approved machines where you're allocated one based on expected workload). It should follow that you know the guy in control of purchasing. Work out how much your labour costs per hour to the company. Do your best to work out how much time you currently spend waiting for your computer to sort it's **** out per year. Base your argument that £1200 is peanuts on that figure.
 
Hi Jon. I really do understand what yourself and everyone else is saying that I do need a bigger budget for a decent workstation that will allow me to work and render as fast as possible which will in the long term save the company money because at the moment I spend a lot of time waiting for renders along with multiple crashes and the times I have to wait for my machine to catch up with me. But the truth is that even though I know this my work place wont listen because of the cost (I know it doesn't make any logical sense but they wont). While I know the specification I have put up isn't an ideal workstation spec because it doesn't have a Quadro or Fire GL, im hoping that the spec above will allow for a decent performance increase over my current spec.

I am looking around the internet for places wheres I can pick my own spec and get it built for me and see what is the best deal I can get.

In regards to Quardo and Fire GL cards which would you advise I get that will yield a significant increase the Quadro NVS 290 Im currently using?
 
From what Im seeing if I can convince them to let me build the PC myself I might be able to get a good WorkStation set up for £1250. The spec is:

Core i7 3770k 3.5GHz
16GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM
Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H MOBO
Gelid CPU Fan
Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD HDD
HP ATI FireGL V5600 512MB GFX Card
OCZ ModStream 700W PSU
Fractal Design R3 Case
24" TFT Monitor
Win 7 Home Premium 64bit

Do you think that will work?
 
What's causing the current machine to crash? The current hardware going bad would help you argue for a new one.

The processor you're looking at is considerably better than the current one and I think the tasks you're interested in are cpu limited. The rest of the specification looks reasonable, though I'm not sure the SSD is worthwhile. Work is saved to a network share I assume?

I'm more concerned about reliability. If you spec and build the machine and it crashes, it doesn't look good for you. It may be sheer bad luck, faulty components etc., but you're the obvious point for blame. If you want IT to support it, they're going to be unhappy if they've no involvement in selection and probably unhappy if it's different to other computers in the company.

I wouldn't do this myself. Buying components and plugging them into each other is trivial. Defending your decision when the thing goes bad it not, it's rather nice to be able to blame someone else. Ideally an external company like Dell or HP, but failing that I'd rather have management point the finger at IT than at myself.
 
Ive found a spec that is with my price rang and have a workstation gfx card. Can you please tell if this spec will yield signification performance increases over my current set up please?

• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit SP1
• Intel Core i5-3450 3.10GHz 6MB Cache (3.70GHz Max. Turbo Frequency) Quad-Core Processor
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Quiet CPU Cooler
• PNY NVIDIA Quadro 600 1GB GDDR3 Graphics Card
• 16GB Dual Channel (4x4GB) 1600 (PC3-12800) 240-Pin DDR3 Low Latency SDRAM - 32GB Max. Supported
• 64GB Crucial m4 2.5" SATA 6GB/s Silent Solid State Hard Drive - System Drive
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive - Storage Drive
• GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H Intel Z77 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard - SATA 6GB/s & USB 3.0 & 1x Texas Instruments FireWire IEEE 1394a (400) Port
• 600W be quiet! Efficient Power 80PLUS Gold Silent Power Supply - 92% Efficiency, 120mm silent bearing fan & Energy Star 5.0 Certification
• Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium V2 Silent Midi Tower Chassis w/ USB 3.0 & Sound Proofing Material
• 6 Port Internal Card Reader - Accepts microSD and M2 cards without adapters
• 22x DVD±RW with DL SATA Optical Quiet ReWriter Drive

Would this machine be the ideal one?
 
On another note from what I am reading on certain forums is that Nvidia haven't bothered to release any new performance drivers for 3D Studio Max 2012 which doesn't give the Quadro Cards a big performance boost and that a good gaming card would be the way to go because of this fact.
 
The spec in post 17 will be a good improvement over your current one indeed, with a very fast quad core. I'd aim for an i7 3770K though if you can afford it (you don't need such an expensive motherboard really, get a faster CPU instead) and if you can add it to the quote instead.

As it stands though will certainly be an improvement over the dual core you currently have!
 
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