My turn for system building.
Richard Haseltine
Posts: 96,863
My current PC will be ten in the spring, and I've been dithering over updating for years (which does at least mean there's a substantial budget, though I wouldn't want to max it out). The impending round anniversary has finally prodded me into soem form of action.
So far, my provisional specs are:
- Motherboard Gigabyte AMD Ryzen X570 AORUS PRO AM4 PCIe 4.0 ATX Motherboard
- CPU AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Gen3 12 Core AM4 CPU/Processor with Wraith Prism RGB Cooler
- RAM Corsair 32GB DDR4 Vengeance LPX 2666MHz Memory Kit
- GPU 1 EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB XC GAMING Turing Graphics Card
- GPU 2 EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB XC Black GAMING Turing Graphics Card
- SSD Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 500GB M.2 PCIe High Performance NVMe SSD/Solid State Drive
- HD Seagate 4TB BarraCuda 3.5" SATA HDD/Hard Disk Drive ST4000DM004
- PSU Corsair 1000 Watt RMx Fully Modular RM1000X ATX PSU/Power Supply
- Case Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow Edition Full Tower PC Case
to which would be added my data and content HDs from the current system.
I was thinking of two GPUs as, with my current system, an Iray render brings everything else to a crawl - it's really hard to type a forum post due to the lag on characters appearing (sadly, that isn't the reason for most of my typos). Another option would be to go for a 2070 or 2080, which woudl still be leaps and bounds ahead of the 750Ti in this system, and see what the next round of GPUs bring - though presumably there'd be a wait for those, and then for Iray to support them - but I don't know what the odds on there being more memory at equivalent levels in those would be. Of course if they did bring more memory, and assuming it was a couple of years before they are out and suported in Iray, I could always switch the 2080Ti to the display card and add one of the new mdoels beside it without too much regret for the 1660.
Cases are a big query - that was just grabbed as reasonably well reviewed, and although it has all the ports at the top (which seems to be the standard) at least they aren't upward facing to act as dust traps. Ideally I'd like the system to be as quiet as possible at idle, and no louder than necessary when busy. That is very open to alternative suggestions. (It would be nice to be able to add an internal DVD or BlueRay burner, too, for backups.)
I'm not sure if that's the ideal RAM, though PC Part Picker OKs it (and the rest of the bits) - I can't recall what the current advice on optimal speeds is, and the MB manual is not long on suggesting what attributes are recommended (sadly Crucial didn't seem to list the MB, otherwise I'd have used their system to get specs). Not sure whether to stick at 32GB or go for a full 64GB, certainly don't see any need to go up to 128GB.
The PSU may be a bit underspecified if allowing for the possibility of a second big GPU, and with a total of three mechanical HDs.
I'd be grateful for advice, especially on bad or missing choices. Thank you.
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Comments
That's crazy. I regularly have more than one Iray render running CPU only, and it doesn't even affect Youtube playback unless DS is currently selected.
Well, as noted in the opening paragraph this is an ancient system with many limits (the GPU is newer than most of it, bar the drives)
Richard, look long and hard at cases. The RTX cards w/ 3 fans are almost 13 inches long.
I have a six year old machine w/ i7 4770k 32gb RAM, Win 7 and a 980TI.
I don't have any problem running youtube, or the forums etc while rendering.
Fans in general are much quiter than in the past. Much better blade designs.
I think there was a build on PC Part Picker using that case with a 2080Ti, not sure if it was that 2080Ti though.
Most brand name cases have their GPU clearances published in their specs.
The corsaid case says it will support GPU's up to 450mm long. The max height of the CPU cooler is 170mm so any GPU that height should fit as well.
2 suggestions that might improve your build.
If I was building a new system for myself I'd take a long look at the AsRock X570 creator, it has Thunderbolt support. If you don't intend to use external drives then that doesn't matter though.
Ryzen's performance is greatly improved by faster memory, to a point. At present a 32Gb kit of Vengeance LPX at 3200 is just $11 more than the 2666 kit on Newegg. For that small difference I'd definitely get the 3200.
https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820236317
New cases generally do not have external bays for DVD burners so you'll likely have to stay with an older case like the Corsair if you want such.
The case you mentioned has 3 5.25 inch external bays, so plenty of room for a DVD writer. But I wouldn't use it for backups. I had two sets of over 40 DVDs of DAZ content from back before DIM. Once I tried DIM I picked up a couple of external 2 TB USB drives for backups and scrapped the DVDs.
I now run weekly System Image backups to a pair of 2 TB externals (alternating between them) and all other backups to 4 TB externals (paired, and alternating between the drives). I use the DVD drive to create selective archives and to watch DVDs or rip audio.
Speaking purely as a person who currently has 32GB RAM -- if you do large or complex scenes or work, and can afford it, go for the 64GB. I find that especially as G8 goes on and I pick up more characters and whatnot and the character bases get bigger, for lack of a better word, the workplace can sometimes (frequently) get sluggish. Also, it is a tiny bit of future-proofing that seems sensible, if you can afford it. (I plan to go to 64GB with my next computer, which I'll have to get in the next month or so, given the Microsoft sword of Damocles hanging over it.)
Also: TEN!? My goodness!
Noctua fans are IMO the best fans made. They are more expensive but it is a case of higher quality does cost more.
Even when I had a single 980ti for rendering, I was still able to browse the internet whilst rendering. With the 2080ti, I try to avoid watching videos whilst rendering, but everything else runs fine, so you probably don't need the 1660.
I've found that since Daz Studio 4.12 released that my renders tend to use more RAM. Proir to this version, I hardly ever got to above 30GB of RAM use, but it happens fairly often now. With that in mind, I intend to up the RAM on my next build. Maybe you could go for 48GB to keep costs down?
I would definitely recommend taking a look at:
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk
I've been very happy with the pc that I got them to build from me four years ago, but even if you decide not to buy from them, their website pc builder will give you a good idea of what you could put together.
...DVDs can also go bad. I have several on which most of the files have become corrupted and no longer will transfer. Lots of old freebies, some of which are no longer available (including from the old Daz freebie vault).
Backup drives are the only answer. Crikey 64 and even 128 GB USB sticks are pretty cheap these days.
I would for sure do 3200 speed ram with RYZEN 3rd gen. It seems to be the sweet spot with noticeable improvements across the board from everything I've watched between gamersnexus, jayztwocents and linustechtips. Probably worth the extra cost if you keep this one as long as the current one.
How long do usb sticks last? Curious as I've had several DVD backups go bad after very few years.
I agree for 3200 rams with the ryzen 3, also 64gb will do better if you don't plan to resize textures (aka use the scene optimizer). As for the 1660 it seems a little oversized to me for the viewport, since the 2080 will be used anyway for the iray preview, so the 1660 will only do opengl and for this purpose any card will be fine.
You may also like to reserve the two main pcie slots for two 2080 rendering cards, and the third auxiliary pcie slot for the viewport card. As a side note this would also do fine for out of core rendering in other engines.
Flash modules last a very long time. They are rated, depending on manufacturer, for thousands to hundreds of thousand writes. If you store them safely and are careful about inserting and removing the stick from the USB port they should last for at least a decade.
However like any electronic device early failures can occur. If you have irreplaceable data do not count on a single backup for such data. My photos and wip renders get backed up to a cloud service and a USB stick.
Thanks for the comments on the RAM, I had a feeling that the optimal speed had gone up but wasn't sure where to. 64GB of 3200 it is.
Sounds as if the display GPU could be dropped, though on the other hand with the instancing support in the next build of DS 4.12 it might be useful for running and rendering separately. I'll see how the price looks after bumping up the RAM speed (and amount). I'm not sure how much lower I'd want to go, for that reason, though the new 1660 Supers are about seventy pounds cheaper so I might do a swap there (if I don't drop the whole idea).
Yes, I do use external HDs for back-ups - but an occasional read-only back up back up to optical disc is an extra layer of defence.
The case specification at Scan lists only the internal bays, I'd missed the rather obvious panels at the top for the externals - thanks for pointing that out.
Seeing the recommendation of 64 GB of RAM gave me an instant flashback to my Commodore 64 (KBs of RAM).
I have owned a few different GPUs, all better than your 750, and in each case I had just one GPU in the system. In each case I did not suffer from any significant lag of the rest of the system whilst rendering, but that is because i always render GPU Only. If you render CPU and GPU you will get lag.
So you do not need a second GPU to avoid lag, but obviously it should speed up your render times.
The last two PCs I bought was from this UK site, quietpc.com which specialises in pcs that are very low noise, and both mine are as quiet as mice,
I'll check out both PC Specialist and QuietPC, see how their systems compare (though I'm assuming ti will be simpler to build myself rather than try to make sure they leave the cables in place for the extra HDs).
Is the PSU looking sensible, or does it need a bump up?
I got a new PC two month ago.
Basically I'm happy, but instead the MSI RTX 2080 Ti GAMING X TRIO I would take the "next time" two Inno3D ICHILL GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Black... but I'm not sure if there's enough space in my tower for two radiators.
Inno3D ICHILL GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Black is a very good GPU. Not very loud and the GPU keeps very cool (around 60°C when rendering only with the ICHILL GPU, around 70°C when rendering with both).
Thanks, interesting spec - and reassuring on the PSU needed. I've heard of the BeQuiet! brand but not looked in detail. Edit -ah, it has a sloped panel at the top for the ports - I still think that's a dust trap.
Specing out your system really fast got me to around 600W draw as built. Adding a couple of drives would push that up by roughly 15W per drive. So unless you add 4 or more you'd still be under 650W. 65% load on a PSU isn't peak efficiency but its pretty good. With an 80+ Gold you'd do fine. If you do add something like a second 2080ti with a bunch of HDD's that would be pushing things so if you want to thoroughly future proof you should go up to 1100 or 1200.
Those Be Quiet cases have fairly limited fan mountings, to keep the number of case openings low to keep it quiet. If you want multiple AIO GPU's you could easily enough find a case but that one likely wouldn't work. Just look for a case that has support for 2 240mm radiators. Or just get the regular ones and a case with better airflow.
two radiators are possible with the be quite! case... one one the top and one on the front (which is not the best solution, after it'll blow warm air into the case.
maybe this PSU calculator will help you
https://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator
I like the top ports.. usefull for usb HDDs
I went with the Fractal Design Define R6, which is not only beautiful, but definitely the most customisable I've ever had. I converted it to open plan for a longer card, and it'll take 2 cards, no problem..
I've also abandoned HDDs altogether. I was using 10,000rpm Velociraptors and have now switched to a Samsung M.2 + 4 Samsung SSDs. Never going back to HDDs. Btw, depending on where the M.2 goes in your mobo, it may get hotter than normal. Mine goes under the heatsink on an Asus board, but the Gigabyte may be different.
Other than that, I can't add anything. I've stuck happily with Intel/Asus for the last 20+ years, so we're on different paths there, and I don't know enough to comment on the other hardware. The only thing I can say is I spent weeks researching every single piece, andit was definitely worth the trouble. YouTube is a great resource for hardware checks.
For a case I can't say enough about the Corsair Carbide 450: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Cases/Carbide-Series™-Air-540-High-Airflow-ATX-Cube-Case/p/CC-9011030-WW . The thing is a beast. Will take the largest ATX and EATX motherboards. The PSU and drives being in the back bay frees up tons of room and you get good airflow to any video cards in the lower slots.
Thanks, I probably will bump it up to the next rating then.
Last tiem I was building it was quite easy to find lots of side-by-side reviews for things like motherboards, this time a lot of sites justs eemed to pick oen or two "best" and say nothing about the rest or how they picked. Quite a few "reviews" were clearly previews at best, reading the spec sheet at worst since they mentioned things that weren't locked down yet or would be clear only nearer release, which doesn't inspire confidence.
Looks good, but I went with the Corasir 1500 watt unit. Quiet as a mouse, even with both my 2080ti's going full tilt. You probably don't need that much power, but I would look at the 1200 watt unit at least. I like being able to use Corsair's tool to see what my PSU is doing.
Gamers Nexus does a lot of case reviews with lots of side by side data. Motherboards don't get a lot of reviews, there are an awful lot and the differences are pretty much features. However Gmers Nexus also does some motherboard reviews, they tend to focus on the quality of the power delivery systems and the board cooling. Level 1 Techs do some reviews as well and they are very production usability focused.
For X570 motherboards any of them should handle the 3900x if its not overclocked. The mid tier ones, like the one you chose, have lots of I/O and fan connectors (the biggest things I look for in picking a MoBo).
On HDD's, If you have a reasonably small asset library and other data to store then SSD's are fine. I've got something like 6 Gb of assets plus another 4 Gb of music plus other data. That would be very expensive on SSD's.