New build for 3D Animation/Rendering

Xandos

Xandos

Xandos

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19 Aug 2006
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596
Hi guys, I'm looking to build a new machine to replace my aging i7 920.

I'm a 3D Animator so the most important thing for me is CPU grunt for rendering. I would love some sort of affordable option for a dual hex core system but I think realistically my budget can't stretch to that.

What I've arrived at so far is the 4930k, overclocked to at least 4.5ghz - this will double my current clock which is generally the point at which I upgrade. I'd love some guidance on a cheap motherboard which will not too far limit the overclocking potential of the CPU. I've seen the MSI X79A-GD45 recommended in other threads, how will this overclock?

RAM is looking to be Kingston 4x8gb DDR3 2400MHz HyperX XMP Beast (based from another thread whos recommendations I'm stealing, it seems that there would be benefit from fast RAM and need 4 sticks). Would this maybe be too high profile for a massive cooler like the Noctua D14?

Given the choice, a quiet system would be fantastic, though not at an absurd additional cost. The Corsair Hydro H100i seems to be highly rated, though I would imagine any benefit of water cooling on noise reduction would be lost once a chunky air cooled GPU is added to the mix? The Inno3D GeForce GTX 780Ti seems to be highly rated, though honestly probably a bit over budget for my graphics needs - I was thinking of about £350 max, although if it's really that much better perhaps I could be persuaded....
I do use After Effects a fair bit too, so I think this means nVidia for CUDA? Maybe OpenCL ATIs can be hacked to work but potentially problematic.

How much would a suitable water cooling loop come in at for a system like this? (never watercooled before)

In terms of storage, let's forget about mechanical storage for now. I was thinking two SSDs, one for system and one for the current project I'm working on, maybe 128GB each (larger would be nicer of course but being slightly budget conscious).

The BitFenix Ronin Tower Case seems highly recommended, though I don't much care about a window. Does this have any advantages over something like the Lian Li PC-6B? I guess it's a tenner cheaper.

Which leaves the PSU really. I've previously always gone Corsair though the tides seem to have changed somewhat. I'm not sure how likely I'll be to add another GPU at some point.... It's possible though not extremely likely. Could anyone suggest good options for either eventuality?

4930k - £412
32bg Kingston 2400mhz - £242
Bitfenix Ronin case - £70
Mobo - ???
SSDs - ???
Cooling - ???
PSU - ???
GPU - ???
Totally open to radical suggests and rethinks, I'd love to have your opinions. Thanks for reading!
 
Hi,

I think you are on the correct lines here. The 4930k is a stunning chip and the overclock will help a little bit. :)

Do you use After Effects for you're rendering? If so have you tried GPU rendering, depeneidng on your GPU, its much quicker than CPU rendering.

Of course the CPU will be used for editing of your aminmations (while the GPU may help a little) but for rendering the GPU is the best thing to use.

I will look at doing you a spec later. :)
 
Thanks for the reply Doomedspeed.

I do some rendering in After Effects, in fact everything I do goes through it for post production, though the bulk of my work and rendering is with true 3d renderers, for which there is currently no true flexible GPU alternative, even after waiting years for the GPU to bury CPU renderers (MentalRay, vRay). Also, lots of AE plugins don't utilise the GPU properly. So the answer to that is that yes, I will be doing some GPU rendering, but not at the expense of CPU, which accounts for the majority of my work.

The reason to potentially leave some spare wattage in the PSU is in case GPU rendering becomes more of a reality in my field over the coming years.

Would be very interested in seeing your spec. :)
 
I think i know the thread you'r referencing: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=26236077

Is that right? :)

This is a updated spec:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Geforce GTX 780Ti 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £499.99
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £425.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K4/32X) £269.99
1 x MSI X79A-GD45 Plus (8D) Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £139.99
2 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £119.98 (£239.96)
1 x Seasonic M12II EVO Edition 850W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £95.99
1 x Antec P100 Mid Tower Silenced Computing Case £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x Prolimatech Megahalems Rev C CPU Cooler £42.98
1 x Corsair SP120 Performance Series High Pressure - Dual Pack (CO-9050008-WW) £22
Total : £1,886.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



As can be seen in the other thread, you can get a 8-core Xeon and a 780ti along with 32GB of RAM for around the £2100 mark, is that more of an interest?

Let me explain some of the parts i picked, CPU, GPU, motherboard, HDD & RAM are pretty obvious.

SSD's - The EVO's are currently the best value SSD's around. And in RAID0 (which i why there is two) they can achieve nearly 900-1000mb/s read/write, which is insane. RAID0 does have its own issues but those aside, this is a great setup for fast file transfers.

Case- While the ronin is a great choice (and in stock) the P100 should also be considered, especially if a window isn't on your priority list. Its a silenced case with great features and a very classic aesthetic. With in-built noise dampening it should be awesome. :)

PSU - Seasonic are a great (if not THE great) maker of PSU's. This 'budget' 850W PSU has smart fan which will adapt to the power its using, so it will be silent. Its also enough to power another 780ti.

Cooler & Fans - I decided to stick with air cooling, you can easily get a h100i, or h105 in this case but i think air cooling is a great choice for noise and the budget. While big air coolers like the D14 and K2 will collide with Tall RAM, the Megahalems is slim enough to aviod this while still giving very good temps. Don't expect world record OC's though, 4.5ghz should be achieveable.

My other choice would have been the Thermalright Archon SB-E X2 but at 170mm tall, its size for size with the case compatible size.

The megahalems doesn't come with fans, so SP120's. I had a set, the were great. Quiet and cool. :)

Any questions? :)
 
Aye, that's the one. Saves you repeating yourself at least for the most part. Thanks for taking the time to spec this out, very much helping me to narrow down my build.

Regarding the Xeon 8 core, I'm in two iminds. Could this be overclocked to similar levels? (I'm guessing not). How much is the CPU and required motherboard? If it's only 200 more than what's currently specced... it gets tempting, though I do often find myself waiting on poorly coded single threaded tasks so do like the idea of 4ghz+.

I saw m500 240gb SSDs for about 80 quid, are those much inferior to the Samsungs you suggested? as i don't really do video editing in the traditional sense, I think raid SSDs are overkill, though definitely one for OS and applications and one for data that will be bottlenecking whatever project I'm working on if on a mechanical drive. PSU and case look good, though aesthetically I prefer the lian li pc-6b, would that have worse sound insulation then?

Regarding GPU, if you were to spec a CUDA card at around the 350 mark, what would it be? I assume the 780ti is capable of being quiet whilst not in full swing...

Will be more than I've paid for a computer before, though justifiable for work (1440p gaming a plus...)
 
Thats the problem with the xeons, they are great at what they do but they don't do single threaded applications very well at all (as they aren't designed for that). So the 4930k would be much better in those instances. The Xeons can't really be overclocked either.

Yeah i can mix the spec around a bit. You'r really looking at a GTX 780 for around the £400 mark. That'd still give you a lot of GPU power and of course CUDA.

I love Lian Li cases but the issue with that one is airflow. It only has two fans and for that amount of hot components you'll be putting in there, you need decent airflow. As its only Alimin ium panels it offers very little soundproofing, though tis naturally better than a pure steel case. Maybe the fractal R4 is more please to the eye?

Anyway, a revised spec:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail (BX80633I74930K) £425.99
1 x OcUK Geforce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £359.99
1 x MSI X79A-GD45 Plus (8D) Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £139.99
2 x Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/16X) £129.95 (£259.90)
1 x Seasonic M12II EVO Edition 850W '80 Plus Bronze' Fully Modular Power Supply £95.99
2 x Crucial M500 240GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - (CT240M500SSD1) £89.99 (£179.98)
1 x Antec P100 Mid Tower Silenced Computing Case £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x Prolimatech Megahalems Rev C CPU Cooler £42.98
1 x Corsair SP120 Performance Series High Pressure - Dual Pack (CO-9050008-WW) £22
Total : £1,676.78 (includes shipping : £12.50).



The case is a placeholder for whichever you like the look of. :)

2 of those SSD's would be grand.
 
Hang on, why not wait for Z97 chipset and maybe new CPU's (maybe not those) but then get an M.2 SSD, which will have like 1GB/S transfer speeds?
 
Shivy011 said:
Hang on, why not wait for Z97 chipset and maybe new CPU's (maybe not those) but then get an M.2 SSD, which will have like 1GB/S transfer speeds?
Click to expand...

Z97 chipset is for the 1150 socket, not the 2011 platform. It was established earlier he wasn't too concerned about transfer speeds, so i see no need for a PCI SSD.
 
Doomedspeed said:
Z97 chipset is for the 1150 socket, not the 2011 platform. It was established earlier he wasn't too concerned about transfer speeds, so i see no need for a PCI SSD.
Click to expand...

Of course, it's a 2011 cpu, sorry! The transfer speed I thought may be useful either way, but not too sure with 3d modelling etc.
 
Honestly I'd take another look at GPU rendering, in particular, www.redshift3d.com

I've tackled several projects using it which would not have been close to feasible with my 2 workstations and CPU rendering. I picked up a couple of titans secondhand, and rendering times were just jaw-droppping. Like 2 hours in mental ray down to 2 minutes in Redshift. The only problem is its limited to maya and softimage right now.

I'm still on the old i7 920 as well, and have been able to put my planned complete system overhaul on hold until X99 appears at least.
 
Doomedspeeds setup is pretty good but i would drop the 780ti to a 780 and get a better quality hdd, i just lost 2tb of textures/tutorials. You don't say what 3d app you're using, if it's 3dsmax then you're spoilt for choice, if it's maya you're going to be much more limited on the gpu rendering front.
My jump from a 3.5ghz i920 to 4ghz 4770k was pretty big; a jump to 6cores at 4.5ghz is going to be massive.
 
I set up a workstation for a friend last year, he works for one of the Broadcasters. He wanted to make the jump from mac to pc. We spent around £3.5k on the components. Like you he lives primarily in AE.

Like smilertoo states, consider his point on HDD.
I think, SSD while awesome, are still an immature tech. HDD are tried and tested, and in my mind at least a safer bet for your data.

SSD for the OS, and a HDD for data, if the budget allows.

How will you be backing up your data btw?
 
Thanks for the replies good people.

I think the 780 will probably be good enough, so seems worth saving 140 quid there.

Regarding storage and backups, the SSDs would just be one for OS and applications and some other stuff, and one for the current working project, perhaps being automatically backed up to a mechanical drive at the end of each day. I haven't mentioned mechanical drives but I will probably add 2x2tb. Further backup would be copying data onto my current workstation, which I will be keeping around as it's far from useless. Though admittedly this won't save me from a house fire. I haven't ever really been stung so I don't really take backups as seriously as I should.

Sorry to hear about the lost data, but glad it wasn't actual project files!

I'm quite out of the loop on hardware these days, would it be worth hanging around for z99? I'm not currently being crippled by my machine but it seems to be about time...

I spend most of my time (and most demanding work) in 3ds max, not after effects. In terms of GPU rendering perhaps I'm a little behind the times now, but I've used iRay and found it lacking in a lot of flexibility, though potentially great for photorealistic architectural visualisations etc. VRay RT was fun for previewing. I haven't heard of red shift but interested, will research it when I have some time. I'm sure if it's all that it will come to max sooner or later, I should probably learn Maya anyway (though loads of studios seem to be taking up cinema 4d these days, grr.

3.5 grand must have made for quite a beast.
 
I think ssds are a great idea for this use. A faster transfer speed will be important for writing edited/rendered data back to the HDD(SSD).

The way id play it is have an SSD for OS and programs (For AE). Then another SSD for files your currently working on. Then a big HDD for files you're storing. If it was me id have the SSD's in RAID0 for nearly double read/write speeds. RAID has its risks though.
 
Good idea Stu,

I did point that out in my previous post (one of them) but i also mentioned the fact the height of the cooler is the same as the max allowable by the case (170mm). Its a close run thing.
 
Yeah, but at least it certainly fits with the tall RAM, the clips supplied with the Megahalems stick out a fair way.
 
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