Workstation

bigmaz2000 · 19 Jun 2012 at 16:14

Hi guys

I am looking to price up a 3D modelling workstation. I seen this spec online:

2 x Intel Xeon Six-Core E5-2620 2.0GHz 7.2GT/s 15MB CPU
Supermicro X9 Series Motherboard
32GB DDR3-1600 ECC/REG Memory (up to 512GB)
600 GB/15KRPM 16MB Cache 6Gb/s SAS Hard Drive
2TB/7200RPM Hard Drive For Storage
Nvidia Quadro 5000 2.5GB GDDR5 PCI-EXP with Dual Monitor Support
(Driver certified for AutoCAD)
Super Quiet ATX Full Tower & 1000W Xeon Supported Power Supply

But to buy them built is a hell of a lot of money. Just wondering if you guys could put a similar build together, and what price I could get it down to?

Cheers
Martin

Doomedspeed · 19 Jun 2012 at 16:37

It depends how much you are willing to spend. What type of 3D modelling do you do? does it include lengthy stress and flow simulations, or just standard 3D models?

Like you say top of the line systems can reach £10,000 or above. Though they can also be had for £800 (though id be cheaper to buy the bits seperately)

This is a low end spec i found for a dell system:

Processor One Intel® Core™ I5-3550 (Quad Core, 3.3GHz, 6MB, 1GT)
Operating System English Windows® 7 Professional (64Bit OS)
Memory 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
Hard Drive 500GB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7.200 Rpm) Hard Drive
Video Card 1 GB NVIDIA Quadro 600 (1DP & 1DVI-I) (1DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter)

Is this PC just for CAD work or is it for gaming too?

JonJ678 · 19 Jun 2012 at 18:25

I'd look at an overclocked single socket intel system. Back in the X58 days, this would be a 32nm six core chip at 4.5ghz or so- hopefully some progress has been made since.

Dual socket boards are very attractive but invariably stock-speed-only, which is bad in terms of bang-per-buck. I never got around to checking how a six core chip at 4.5ghz compares to a couple of same-family quad cores at 3ghz, it *should* be favorable.

The drawback is set-up time and slightly diminished faith in the model's predictions. I can't see a business going down that road, but for a home computer it's an attractive option.

edit: professional graphics cards are ruinously expensive. Doesn't seem to be a way around that

flippant · 19 Jun 2012 at 18:52

JonJ678 said:
edit: professional graphics cards are ruinously expensive. Doesn't seem to be a way around that

Quadros are silly money, so I don't use them anymore, and I've not had an issue.

I'm mostly doing interior style visualisation and animation, but I can usually shift multimillion polygon scenes around on screen without any lag using a GTX580.

If you look over in one of the CPU benchmark threads my twin x58 xeons at 3.8 only just beat a single x79 at 5ghz so a single chip offers pretty good performance these days.

Doomedspeed · 19 Jun 2012 at 20:52

a 2011 system seems the way to go, if its within your budget.

Your core components will look like this [this is not a full spec, just identifing core components] Is this within your price range?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £459.95
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 670 Superclock w/Backplate 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-2673-KR) £419.99
1 x Asus X79 Sabertooth Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £259.99
2 x Patriot Viper Xtreme 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Quad Channel Kit (PXQ316G1600LLQK) £74.99 (149.98)
Total : £1,301.30 (includes shipping : £9.50).

You'll obviously need a cooler to allow 5Ghz OC performance.

bigmaz2000 · 20 Jun 2012 at 21:12

It would be for 3ds max, navisworks and civil 3d, so not just plain AutoCAD. Doomedspeed, would that spec match my original spec then?

olivier renault · 20 Jun 2012 at 22:38

bigmaz2000 said:
It would be for 3ds max, navisworks and civil 3d, so not just plain AutoCAD. Doomedspeed, would that spec match my original spec then?

only bench I could find.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=[Dual+CPU]+Intel+Xeon+E5-2620+@+2.00GHz

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

17K CPU passmark vs 13K CPU passmark, not overclocked.

Really not conclusive unless you can have a direct comparison. But for me, the 3930K looks a sensible option, in terms of price-performance. ECC memory is gonna be expensive too.

Doomedspeed · 20 Jun 2012 at 23:44

bigmaz2000 said:
It would be for 3ds max, navisworks and civil 3d, so not just plain AutoCAD. Doomedspeed, would that spec match my original spec then?

CUDA is good at handling thing like that, and CPU wise, the 6 core and hyper threading will make a huge difference.

As oliver said, it comes near [nearer when OCed] but for what would be a third of the price of two Xeon, i wouldn't complain over a minimal loss in performance.

The more RAM you can have the better too, though you'd pay more for the same amount of RAM, just to have room for more [if you get what i mean]

Have you got a budget of yet?

Im sure for around £2000 you could get something super special.