Rig for 3D modeling/rendering - £1000

Twincharged

Twincharged

Twincharged

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Joined
25 Jul 2013
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75
Location
Kent
Hey guys

I am here to seek the expertise of you helpful people in building my first computer. Have frequented these forums for quite a while now but never got around to signing up.

Anyways a friend and I are looking to build 2 new rigs which will primarily be used for 3D modelling, simulation and rendering. Including software like 3DMax, Maya, Realflow, Vray and Keyshot.

I am currently using a 2011 Macbook Pro with 2.2Ghz i7, 16Gb DDR3 and 1Gb 6750m graphics, which so far hasn't let me down but we are looking for something with that extra power and peace of mind. (Macbook running 90+ degrees for days on end while rendering is slightly scary)

Budget: £1000-£1100 per rig. We do not need monitors, mouse, keyboard etc.

I would love to hear your input on this, In this field where processing power is king, is the superiority of a quad core i7 going to be better than a significantly cheaper 8 core AMD?

Many thanks for the help.
 
I think this would be a good starting point:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £259.99
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) £249.95
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £169.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI316G160C9QK) £99.95
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £76.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £74.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.95
1 x Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £40.00
1 x Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler *Manufacturer Refurbished Unit - 90 Day Guarantee £39.95
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.95
Total : £1,119.12 (includes shipping : £17.85).



If you can afford to up the budget by £200, I think you'd do well to go for a 3930K CPU, 6 cores and 12 threads, which would speed up rendering by quite a bit.
 
Stuck a Nivida GPU as some of your software main use the CUDA cores:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £269.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 680 Phantom 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £269.99
1 x Adata XPG Xtreme v1.0 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C10 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AX3U2133XW8G10-2X) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £103.99
1 x Toshiba (7K3000.D) 3TB SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £83.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £74.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black £69.95
1 x Thermaltake Smart 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Raijintek EreBoss High Performance CPU Cooler £31.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.95
Total : £1,105.81 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
That software doesn't use CUDA, it'll be OpenCL if anything.

With 3D modelling, viewport performance is very reliant on VRAM too, which is where the 3GB card will do a better job.
 
Thanks spoffle, really appreciate the effort, some food for thought there. From the looking around I've done it does seem a slightly higher budget would be more beneficial in the long run. Looking forward to any more set-ups people may suggest.
 
Yep, in the long run I think a 3930K would be very beneficial, especially if you give it a decent overclock.

That was my line of thought when I built my PC. :D
 
spoffle said:
Yep, in the long run I think a 3930K would be very beneficial, especially if you give it a decent overclock.

That was my line of thought when I built my PC. :D
Click to expand...

Definitely something to think about, a nice stable overclock is definitely a consideration too.

Anyone else have any setup suggestions?
 
The 3910k may be out soon. Should be a low clicked hex core way under £400. That could be a good upgrade from the 3820 above.

I would go for the antec 300 though. A rig that good deserves a better case. My choice would be the 500r. :)

Really pushing the budget now though.
 
You could save some by not having a SSD, checked the software and all use Open GL bar Vray which seemed to recommend Nvidia GPU'S.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £479.99
1 x Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £169.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards £143.99
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PVI316G160C9QK) £99.95
1 x Toshiba (7K3000.D) 3TB SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA300) HDD £83.99
1 x Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 Drive SATA 6Gb/s 3 2.5" (7mm height) Solid State Hard Drive - (SV300S37A/120G) £76.99
1 x Thermaltake Smart 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black £47.95
1 x Raijintek EreBoss High Performance CPU Cooler £31.99
1 x LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.95
Total : £1,213.38 (includes shipping : £10.50).

 
Doomedspeed said:
The 3910k may be out soon. Should be a low clicked hex core way under £400. That could be a good upgrade from the 3820 above.

I would go for the antec 300 though. A rig that good deserves a better case. My choice would be the 500r. :)

Really pushing the budget now though.
Click to expand...

Oops! How did I forget about that? I've been wanting to build a second and or third PC with 3910Ks in as well when they come out!
 
Yeah it's OpenCL, So other than VRAY I'm assuming the main use of the graphics card will be improved responsiveness of the viewport when handling large/complex models?
 
By looking at everyone's suggestions I'm guessing AMD processors aren't worth a look in this situation. Also what are peoples view on the amount of RAM, with 16Gb in my current machine I certainly haven't noticed a time where I have run out but there may be a time where I'll be required to handle some real complex stuff. Looking at some pro machines 32/64Gb isn't uncommon but is it necessary?
 
It depends on what you're doing, I opted for 32GB myself, with the aim to go up to 64GB in the future.

Personally, I'd say go for 32GB if you're looking to go for some complex stuff in the future.
 
spoffle said:
It depends on what you're doing, I opted for 32GB myself, with the aim to go up to 64GB in the future.

Personally, I'd say go for 32GB if you're looking to go for some complex stuff in the future.
Click to expand...

Awesome, well thank you and everyone else for taking the time to give me some advice :)

Still open to suggestions if anyone has any completely different builds to suggest, it's interesting to see what people come up with. :)
 
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