New Daz Computer build - Uh Oh
FWIW
Posts: 320
So I only have two months to come up with a build for a Daz machine (with some gaming) for around $1500. I was thinking i7 but after that whole kerfluffle about slowing them down, I am thinking maybe AMD after all. I am using pcpicker at the moment to try to put one together and I would love suggestions from people who know more about tech than me. (Which is pretty much anyone)
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Didn't you ask this same thing a few weeks ago and we discussed? Or is my memory broken again?
I'd buy an old used intel desktop and add good video card before I dropped any money on a new intel or AMD machine.
Then after the truth of the extent of the instruction set algorithm for the different CPUs is known and then next generations of CPU are sold with bug fixes for those bugs then buy a new PC.
This is an Intel hardware issue, why on earth would anyone assume it would affect AMD?
Computers are full of diminishing returns these days. Recently I upgraded my whole system, mobo, ddr2 to ddr4 RAM, an old i5 2500 to new i5 7500, upgraded my 960 to 1070. The only thing I really notice a difference on besides benchmarks, is compressing with 7zip. I should have stuck with my old mobo and chip, doubled the RAM, and got 2 1080's instead lol. I was expecting a bit more of a jump forward in performance for a ~6 year gap in chips and mobos.
I would assume that it will affect AMD processors runing Windows at least in the short term because it is likely that Microsoft will release a "One size fits all" patch that affwcts everyone. Hopefully, they will refine this to account for processor type - initially AMD and then hopefully future generation Intel chips. Until the patches are actually released though, we can only speculate.
That's what I'm always telling people. Most times a GPU and RAM upgrade is all you really need. Unless you are coming up from something like a Core2Duo, Core i3, AMD Phenom, or A Series CPU.
My Laptop has an old Core i7-3840QM (that's a Third Generation i7) and it performs like a champ. Much more important than that, I recently upgraded the GPU from an old 4GB Quadro K5000 (Geforce GTX 680M) to an 8GB Geforce GTX 980M. That upgrade alone rejuvinated the machine. Iray rendering is now completed in a reasonable amount of time and games play max settings at 1080p.
My Desktop is running a pair of old Second generation i7 based 6 core Xeon CPUs and I have it paired up with 48GB of RAM and a 11GB GTX 1080 ti. It renders Iray like a beast, and plays all games max settings at 2160p.
An AMD Ryzen refresh is expected in February, which 'should' have an effect on Ryzen 1 prices.
I'd say AMD, currently for a desktop. I asked a similar question on the forums here a few weeks ago. The Intel bug notwithstanding, it's all about making the PC last for a longer period of time. AMD will be supporting the AM4 socket that Ryzen cpus use for several years. I've read that four years is what's being talked about, so in a few years if you feel the desire to upgrade you won't have to buy a whole new motherboard. You can just swap out your old Ryzen cpu for a new one. Intel doesn't play nice like that. They seem to change motherboard and socket specs with alarming regularity, making upgrading difficult depending upon which I7 you hypothetically choose. Coffee Lake, for example, is reportedly not compatible with existing 200 series motherboards so if you just wanted to upgrade an existing I7 rig into a Coffee Lake machine, you wouldn't be able to as you would a Ryzen rig.
Prices could also come down in a month or two since Ryzen 2.0 is due to be released in late February or early March. It's really best termed as Ryzen 1.5 as AMD seems to be following the tick tock pattern and it isn't a full blown remaster of the architecture, but regardless the leaked benchmarks look eyewatering, if true. That should have the result of driving down the prices of existing Ryzen machines, so a nice 1700 or 1800X machine could certainly come down in price sooner rather than later.
That would be irritating if they didn't account for chip differences.
I asked something similar about 3 or 4 months ago, but at that point I has both a bigger budget and more faith in intel lol. Also I mentioned at the time I would probably ask again closer to the date incase anything new had popped up with either DS or the PC market. Since this was before dForce I wasn't sure if anything had changed. Considering I am running a 4 year old laptop that literally takes 3 days acting like a brick to render one figure with hair, and clothes and no background with iray pretty much ANYTHING is an improvement so I don't trust myself not to throw myself at the first PC that winks at me so to speak lol.
IMO, all this talk of Intel vs. AMD and this recent Meltdown vs Spectre is pretty much irrelevant for the OP's question until the following happens:
Without that info, all of this is just wild speculation.
BTW, I did see some Linux results for a few games showing that the fixes were irrelevant in terms of performance for those particular games, and made virtually no difference in FPS.
Skyrim, Fallout, Portal, Morrowind, Halo, Borderlands, Alien Isolation none of which needs to be on Ultra or whatever as well as more low intensive games like West of Loathing and Knock-Knock that type of thing. Netflix, spotify, youtube, Skype. Literally, all I do is Daz, Blender, Gimp, and HitFilm and some gaming, I got Cararra on sale like a month ago or something but I have never used it and I don't know if I intend to so it doesn't factor into it. Very very minor video editing in Hitflim.
Preliminary tests using an Intel i7-8700 show that Blender doesn't appear to be affected at all with these Meltdown/Specter fixes, nor do a bunch of games. I suppose maybe sometime next week when people start to get the fixes applied we can do some tests of the Iray benchmark after the fix and see if DAZ Iray is affected.
...for example you currently have an X58 MB (like I do) you are stuck with DDR3 memory with a cap of 24 GB and a maximum of 6 CPU cores (i7 Extreme or Westmere Xeon X5680). Expansion slots are also PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0.
To upgrade to DDR4 and more than 24 GB of physical memory would mean getting an entirely new MB which will have a different socket, that in turn means you will need to get a new CPU which is compatible with that socket (you can't install a LGA1366 CPU in an LGA2011-3 socket and vice versa). You can install a PCIe 3.0 GPU card in a PCIe 2.0 slot with slight performance degradation (primarily when loading scenes into the card for rendering), however room on the board and/or in the enclosure for a long double width card may pose a fit issue.
So upgrading even just physical memory and GPU can for some mean effectively building a new system.
I'm considering this build at the moment since the damn GTX have skyrocketed in price.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/dreams_of_ice/saved/XDwccf
I know the 1060 isn't the best thing out there but right now I am rendering strictly on CPU on an i7 - 4710mq with 8gb of available ram on the system so pretty much ANY GPU rendering will be an improvement for me. I wish I could wait to see if prices go down again but this laptop won't last much longer.
...I'd go with W10 Pro as it gives you more options and control than Home Edition, particularly as it allows you to defer updating for up to a month (to allow for any potential bugs to be dealt with) and use the workgroup option to turn off features you may not want (like Telemetry and Cortana).
I would also use the system graphics to run your displays and dedicate the 1060 to rendering in order to sidestep W10 locking out about 18% of the card's VRAM. Under W10, normally that 1060 will actually only have about 4.95 GB of available VRAM for rendering. OK for tests, portraits, and small to modest scenes but that's about it.
If you can hold out a bit you can have Nvidia notify you when 1070s are available directly from them at the base price of 399$ (10$ more than the 1060).
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Tried to set up an account there to save a build scenario and it kept giving me grief over the password even though I was using the proper format. For some reason it kept popping up a drop down box with my email addy whenever I tried to paste the password in, bad site design. I run a randomiser routine, copy the result that I feel is the best, then paste it in the field as I am dyslexic and have difficulty entering cryptic passwords by hand, never had such trouble with this routine until tonight.
GPUs are hugely expensive right now because of bitcoin mining. You’ll be paying 50% to 100% more for a gpu than you would have a few months ago. The market will likely settle at some point in the future so if you can wait a bit and be flexible I would do so right now. Or perhaps keep an eye on Craigslist if you’re in the US for a good used card (980Ti?) instead of buying new.
1°/ Do you really need the 7700 ? There are cheaper processors unless you really want the best perf for gaming
AMD's Ryzen 2400G APU which should come in Februar could be a good starting point for a cheap build if you plan to only have one GPU
2°/ I find a 128GB SSD to be too small. I don't go under 256GB
3°/ Why a Full Tower ? You only need a mid tower
4°/ You can buy memory with lower frequency as Intel's processors are not that much sensible to that. That would be cheaper. Sweet spot for AMD is 2666 Mhz
...for Intel boards the default memory frequency is usually 2133.
Yeah as I mentioned I tried top build a system on their site but lost all the specs when I could't open a membership there.
I was using a 3.3 GHz Haswell 6 core (30$ more than the 4 core 7700-K) which supports four instead of two channel memory (which does help reduce CPU render times) on an X99 LGA 2011-3 MB (that has 8 DIMM slots supporting up to 128 GB or memory) with 4 x 8 GB sticks for 32 GB. I added a both 256 GB boot and a 1 TB library SSD supported by an 850W gold PSU (overhead for future expansion) and two 2 TB 7200 RPM storage/backup HDDs. Did not include a GPU card as even for the 1060 prices are about 120$ higher than they normally would be (MSRP 249$) . I'd almost opt for 64 GB of DDR4 2133 memory (4 x 16 GB 4 channel memory) instead which along with 12 threads at 3.7 GHz (Turbo) of the i7-5820K would reasonably improve CPU rendering times and just wait for GPU card prices to settle down. Maybe just get a GTX 1030 for 95$ to drive the display.
Oh and running on W7 Pro with SP-1.
The one caveat with the Ryzen 2400G APU is it uses Radeon integrated graphics which while fine for driving the display, is useless for Iray rendering as well as not having been launched yet.
Like I mentioned Nvidia's direct sale prices for the 1070 are not inflated but availability is a bit "come and go".
I agree about the case, I have a "mid tower", and it is more than large enough to offer a generous "breathing room" inside. Also there are more design options in this size class (I'd go for one with the most fans for superior airflow and a left panel fan instead of a side window) As I understand the Antec P-193 is still available (what I have). Nice and professional looking with 2 x 200 mm top exhaust 1 x 120 mm rear exhaust and 1 x 400 mm side vent fans and provision for three additional 120 mm front intake fans (all intake ports with washable filters).
http://www.centralcomputers.com/p-224679-an68-v3-antec-p193-v3-advanced-case-0761345-81904-supports-eatx-atx-matxproduct.aspx
IMO, now ain't the time to buy a computer if you can at all help it.
Memory is way overpriced and in short supply, GPU's are insanely overpriced and in short supply (partly because of the memory situation), and if it's just for a hobby and there's no real reason you must have one now I can't imagine buying anything right now. And what's worse, I can't imagine that supply and prices will come down very quickly. I assume that getting enough new supply to cause prices to drop significantly will take months.
If you really really need a new computer and think you can find a pre-built Dell or HP or whatever at a reasonable price, good luck. But I'm guessing even those computers with a decent graphics card and memory will soon be way overpriced if they're not already.
..the OP mentions that the Notebook she is using is old. It may even still be be a duo core CPU with limited memory resoruces.
Even just in CPU mode that new system would be a makred improvment . Crikey my 5 year old 12 GB system will render a resonably "heavy" Iray scene in 6 - 8 hours, not 3 days. One can always add a capable GPU card when prices come down (or Nvidia is able to restock the ones they sell directly).
@ WinterFlame, what are the specs of the notebook you are using?
The exploit problem exists for both AMD, Intel and ARM processors, AMD is susceptable to both versions of Spectre, while Intel is susceptable to both versions of Spectre and Meltdown.. Not sure on ARM..
Yeah this is the biggest issue right now, and well it is not the best time to build a new system.. As at the moment what vendors are charging double if not triple the RRP for video cards right now.. And example would be say the RRP for a 1070 is $350 right now you are paying about $650+ for the same card due to bitcoin mining.. And on that Nvidia are combating this by limiting the number of video cards you can purchase to two per customer from their online store..
One potential fix is for the crytpocurrency bubble to burst..
Yeah that is the funny thing, that the best way to get around the problem is the buy a HP/Dell/IBM prebuilt PC which is ironic considering how bad some of those PC's can be, but with the over the top high cost of components buying pre built seems to be the way at the moment though not ideal..
Hi WinterFlame, that video card you have in parts picker is WAY overpriced for what your getting. Consider this card....it's a baby iRAY card with 768 CUDA and 4GB VRAM to get you by until the cards come back down to actual value. Heck...I almost want to buy this little card myself. 200 bucks....and you can always use it later to drive your monitor(s).
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487290&ignorebbr=1
...and even that is overpriced as the MSRP is 139$.
Yeah for sure. But more value bang for the buck.
Pair that up with this https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113428 ; 290.00
and this https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132964 ; 160.00
and it's just a tad bit more than that one 1060 video card.
..ugh for some reason I can no longer view specs on Newegg as the sections of the page that just above and below the details section have perpetual loading swirlies that lock out being able to open any of the tabs. This just started a couple days ago. Even with adblocking turned off for their site it still persists.
4 GB is the bare minimum for rendering (6 GB preferable) and even then you would be limited to very modest scenes. Below that, a card is pretty much useless for rendering (under W10 that 1050 Ti would only have about 3.3 GB available).
From what I understand, all Ryzen CPUs only support 2 memory channels. If you are going to find yourself rendering a fair amount on the CPU, 4 memory channels is preferable as anything that can help lower render times is a plus (my current system supports three memory channels and there is a difference). The only Zen based CPUs that support 4 memory channels are the more expensive Threadripper series. The other matter is unless you are somewhat savvy at system configuration to wrangle it to be compatible with W7, you are stuck with W10 reserving 18% of your VRAM when you do get a GPU card.
CPU is an i7 4710MQ
GPU is Intel HD Graphics 4600
8GB of Ram
Windows 10 Home
With random black screens, and 'your graphics card has failed and recovered' randomly but frequently. For example, it's happened twice typing this. Also, it froze up and wouldn't catch up to the fact I was typing once already writing this, and I literally ONLY have this window open. No render, no video or music. If I don't get a new computer when I can, for in budget I'll be on a phone and not rendering period.
....kind of what I thought. (save for W10). I never took much stock in those hybrid CPU/GPUs
My suggestion, build for the future. Get the best you can afford in CPU, and memory and wait until the bubble bursts or Nvidia has replenished their own stock. Again an 8 GB 1070 from them will only be 10$ more than the 1060 in your specifications. For now I would suggest:
At least a 6 core CPU that supports four memory channels (either the i7-5820K I mentioned,or if you can swing it, a Threadripper 1700 with 8 cores/16 threads)
64 GB of four channel memory memory 4 x 16GB).
An 850W PSU. Always better to have more than barely enough in this department for if it goes, it can take your whole system with it.
Both a 256 GB "Boot/Application" and and 1 TB "Library" SSD with at least on 2 TB HDD for backup/storage.
Check into the P-193 case I linked to, it is a "big" and a very solid case with excellent airflow (some who see it think it is a full tower).
If you need a GPU card just for running the displays a 95$ 1030 will suffice until higher VRAM cards come back down in price. You can then dedicate say, the 1070, 1080 TI or whatever bigger card you settle on for rendering only thus sidestepping the W10 VRAM hit.
You won't get "one minute" renders (although even with a 1080 Ti, a big complex scene can still take several hours).but it would be a vast improvement over your failing notebook, and even over what I have.
My current budget is around $1800 because I also have to get a monitor, I will definitely see what I can do with your suggestions. I 100% do not care if I am rendering with CPU or GPU so long as I can stop rendering iray for 24 or more hours for a scene with one g3 decent lighting and a backdrop instead of an actual environment.