Student rendering/CAD rig

qbazdz · 22 Sep 2020 at 22:08

Hi all,

Hope you can help me out here.
I've been a bit out of the loop on most recent developments in hardware world and don't know what currently seems to fit best performance/price ratio.

I've got a friend who's daughter is starting Uni soon and she needs a PC rig for her architecture course, where they will use CAD tools heavily and most likely do a lot of rendering work.
Their budget is not massive, about £700 for the lot (excl. Windows, screen, keyboard, mouse).

I immediately though of Dell outlet and found a Precision T3630 system with Xeon E-2274G, 4.9GHz and Quadro P620 2GB GPU, 512GB SSD, within their budget. 3 year warranty on a refurb so seems pretty solid. Only would have to upgrade Ram as it was 1x 8GB.

However, perhaps a more gaming orientated machine with more regular setup could do the job?

Thoughts?

Quartz · 22 Sep 2020 at 22:16

qbazdz said:
I've got a friend who's daughter is starting Uni soon and she needs a PC rig for her architecture course, where they will use CAD tools heavily and most likely do a lot of rendering work.

What spec PC does the course specify?

qbazdz · 22 Sep 2020 at 22:24

It's rather vague
Minimum i5, i7 recommend or AMD equivalent.
Minimum 16GB Ram, but 32GB recommend.
256GB SSD
Integrated graphics they said would be OK, but sky is the limit and will help

Quartz · 23 Sep 2020 at 09:58

qbazdz said:
Only would have to upgrade Ram as it was 1x 8GB

That spec seems fairly solid for the price, especially with the warranty.

qbazdz · 23 Sep 2020 at 10:52

I configured this as an alternative:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tita...MHk1.65Tbs3_UzTQi1#V?bDTt3:$zbEfP3(?UbEfQ3(/0

Looking at raw benchmarks, that Ryzen 5 3600 with 6 cores kicks Xeon's a**.

In most CAD tools the GTX 1650 was also better than dedicated CAD Quatro which suggests it should handle this type of work OK.

Can anyone recommend alternative CPU and GPUs to consider as contenders to above?

mickyflinn · 23 Sep 2020 at 11:40

Do you mean Intel alternative ?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk...-ddr4-gaming-pc-fs-1ee-og.html#t=b1c0d0f7g0i2

I don't think that 256gb ssd is going to enough storage.

qbazdz · 23 Sep 2020 at 11:54

Thanks!
My focus was on CPU and GPU at this point in time, but a good spot - I'd go with ~500GB SSD - not a massive difference in price these days.

mickyflinn · 23 Sep 2020 at 12:10

qbazdz said:
Thanks!
My focus was on CPU and GPU at this point in time, but a good spot - I'd go with ~500GB SSD - not a massive difference in price these days.

If you check out the intel build it has a slighty stronger gpu.

You should compare the 2 cpus in benchmarks.

qbazdz · 3 Oct 2020 at 23:24

Hi guys,
Finally put something together as a self build so would be keen to get your opinion on the following:
Mobo - MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX
CPU - Ryzen 5 3600 (benchmarks suggest better performance to i5-10400)
GPU - GTX 1650 Super TUF OC 4GB
Mem - VULCAN Z T-FORCE 16GB, 3200MHz
SSD - Crucial P1 1TB NVMe, alternatively WD Blue M.2 1TB
PSU - EVGA BR 600W or Seasonic S12 III 650W
Case - Zalman T7 Mid
Cooler - Arctic Freezer 34 esports Duo or Corsair H100 (need adapter plate for AM4)

All comes to just under £700.

I think the next most logical upgrade would be extra 16GB RAM if this becomes a limit (in 1-2 years time), than upgrade of motherboard and CPU (2-3 years time) before upgrading GPU (3-4 years).

Adam_151 · 4 Oct 2020 at 20:32

Id be wary of a big tower cooler on a machine for someone who is not necessarily into pcs to take to uni, chances are at some point it''ll end up in the back of a car, the normal way up with the heatink stressing the mountings and board as its driven along, perfectly fine if it stays in one place, or its carted round by an ethusiast who will at the very least transort it on its side, or even take cooler off for transport