Advice on Build for 3D and Video Workstation <£1500. 3DS Max. Vray.

[designosaur]

Hi All.

I have returned to harvest your large and juicy brains.

Ive had excellent advice here before and though I don’t have very much to contribute in return, please know I am extremely and genuinely grateful for it.

Looking to build a Workstation for large scale 3D work including heavy duty rendering, some video work and general graphic design. 3DS Max, Vray, Adobe.

I have researched into skewing the machine towards GPU rendering (this seems to be a growing trend) trading off more CPU for more and better GPU’s. My conclusion was that now is not the time. There are limitations to what the GPU can handle (certain techniques I use are apparently not available or have limitations, procedural textures for example). I also have a small render farm that might not want to play ball if used that way. But I am totally willing to be schooled by those more in the know here.

Otherwise, Im interested in a machine with:

-as many fast cores as possible (if at all possible, multiple CPU’s as more cores = quicker renders, which I appreciate is a simplification)

-The MOBO to support this

-a decent GPU (or more?), Nvidia, as this has advantages working with vray / 3ds max. I also fancy a third monitor.

-500gb SSD and a decent whack of normal SATA HD for storage.

-PSU thatll last (5 years Imagine)

-RAM, my last machine had 32 but I don’t think my work ever needed that so 16 will be fine and its an easy upgrade if not.

-a box

-Don’t need a disc drive or any peripherals.


I was looking at something along these lines as a quick fix, which seems to have ok benchmarks on its (admittedly old) components. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z620-Wo...UAAOSw9IpX0EYk

But as I began. The opinions of all here have been invaluable in the past.

What would anyone suggest for +/- £1500


THANKS!!


-T

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would probably wait a few more weeks to see how AMD Threadripper looks.

[designosaur]

Well indeed. That had not appeared on my (limited) radar.

I appreciate a beast like that may negate this point but, 3DS max has previously always called for Intel chips to maximise performance.

Also, i suspect that my blow my budget somewhat! Though i guess the knock on for the rest of the chip market is what you might be getting at.

Thankyou!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well indeed. That had not appeared on my (limited) radar.

I appreciate a beast like that may negate this point but, 3DS max has previously always called for Intel chips to maximise performance.

Also, i suspect that my blow my budget somewhat! Though i guess the knock on for the rest of the chip market is what you might be getting at.

Thankyou!

In Blender,Luxrender and 3DS Max 2015 the Ryzen 7 1800X is very competitive in performance compared to a Core i7 6900K.

Look at the 3DS Max 2015 results for example:

https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...9zaXRlLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...V0aW5nLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...9zaXRlLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...1wb3NpdGUucG5n
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...VyaW5nLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...VyaW5nLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...V0aW5nLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...1wb3NpdGUucG5n
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...9zaXRlLnBuZw==
https://img.purch.com/r/600x450/aHR0...9zaXRlLnBuZw==

Remember the Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 1700 are under £350 and quite close to the Ryzen 7 1800X in performance.

Edit!!

Some 3DS Max 2017 and VRay testing:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/956-...ray-v-ray.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/...0x-and-1700/18

Threadripper will have upto 32 cores.

[designosaur]

Thanks Cat.

Currently absorbing the info.

Wish i was as quick as even my previous PC.

As i read there is quite a lot going on CPU wise atm (Threadripper aside) i may try to resurrect the old PC for a few months then come back here with a proposed build to see what people think.

Thanks!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks Cat.

Currently absorbing the info.

Wish i was as quick as even my previous PC.

As i read there is quite a lot going on CPU wise atm (Threadripper aside) i may try to resurrect the old PC for a few months then come back here with a proposed build to see what people think.

Thanks!

AFAIK,the 25th is the launch date for the motherboards at least.