Rtx 3080 pc build for £1500...is it possible?
SolitarySandpiper
Posts: 468
Is it possible to put together a pc for rendering based around a rtx 3080 for £1500.
Thank you.
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Yes. Use PCPartPicker to put together a compatible PC and then using it's sorted price list along with your own searches direcly on Amazon to pick off the best prices. On Amazon try to buy Amazon Warehouse or returned parts because they most often aren't even used or even been opened but are just returned incorrect prior shipments to other customers. If you wait until the month of November through the 1st week of December and buy parts over the whole month you can even drive the prices down further.
You'll have to find a 3080 first. They don't seem very available at the moment:
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=rtx+3080+gpu
If this shortage goes on until November, well, you'll be waiting for like 5 months to get a card.
3080 £690+
Processor £170 - £300+ The realistic minimum is the AMD 3600, but its been going up in price during lockdown. And about to be superceeded late in October. If you want a machine now I wouldnt wait, but be aware it will drop in price by £30-40 in 6 ish weeks.
Mobo: £130+ Lets face it, you aren't going to put a 3080 in something that doesnt have PCIE4 anymore*. Some of the Intel boards will allow an upgrade to 11th gen later bringing PCI4, but you'd have to research this carefully.
PSU £75 Cutting it fine if you also want to go high power on cpu as well, though you dont have to.
SSD £100+ But realistically 1tb NVMEs start at £130, though like PCIE4, Daz struggles to make a huge amout of use right now on these, you'd be gutted if they update it next year and you skimped out here imo.
OS £10+
Memory £120+ 32 minimum. But in practice the temptation to spend more on over 3200mhz low cas latency means more like £160+
Case £50+
Miniumum imo : £1345 But yeah, if you start buying nicer cases, power supplies and faster/more memory then the £1500 figure is about right.
Edit: If you need a monitor.... erm, no :D
*Edit2: I mean if you are buying new. There is no detriment to the 3080 really in PCIE3 right now, just saying that your mobo is likely to last into the next gfx card, and we don't know if the new Microsoft incoming memory transfer from SSD direct to gfx memory standard will change the importance of PCIE in future for Daz.
a well constructed and really useful reply... gonna come in very handy for this project,
Thanks again.
its madness at the moment... gives me time to get things together.
May be worth the wait anyway if the cards arn't available... thanks.
No, well maybe, but don't... Getting a RTX3080 at the moment is madness, best to wait, save some more money and do it properly. I've recently loocked into this, a PCIe version 4 mother board would help future proof it and you could use a PCIe 4 m.2 SSD as well, there's a Corsair SSD that can do 4900MBs sequential reads. Problem is there are only AMD boards doing PCIe version 4 at the moment and the 3rd Gen Ryzen chips can only handle one x16 slot unless you go for a threadripper CPU on a TR4 motherboard. The cheapest threadripper CPU is £1299...
My advice... wait, that's what I'm doing...
If you want a list of the stuff I was looking at message me.
Best Wishes
Steve.
Thanks Steve all opinions are welcome...but how much are you prepared to spend on your setup and how long are you prepared to wait?
You can do that now but the rock bottom prices are most likely to occur in November. You're going to find it harder than you think to meet you 1500 GBP budget if you don't try to scimp in every part of the process.
I did exactly that last November - 1st week of December and it cost me $650 (500 GBP) to build a 100% new PC (inclusive of absolutely everything) sans monitor and Windows 10 Pro and other software licenses. However to keep the price low until much, much faster parts came out I chose 2666 speed RAM, AMD Ryzen 7 2700 CPU, and MSI Radeon RX 570 8GB GPU and since I don't game (at least the ultra-competive gamers type gaming) the tiny latency issues with the RAM are sensible and this year I'm poised to buy a 30XX series to replace the Radeon and next year replace the CPU with a 16 core 32 thread AMD Ryzen 9 4000 series CPU.
And if I need to upgrade the PCIe 3 motherboard I have for some absolutely stupendous speed increase or new feature made available I can and those parts will all so work but I had to start somewhere so I started minimizing my losses as I wait for hardware as capable as I need it.
Even going cheap by the time you add in software license costs it starts adding up to a big bill.
The bonus is that on PCPartPicker they check compatibility for your proposed PC build and warn when parts are not compatible. eg, I was concerned the new 3080 GPUs wouldn't fit into my miniATX case but they do. I deleted my old GPU on PCPartPicker and replaced it with the GeForce RTX 3080 GPU.
I'm a Mac user who is hopefully getting a PC for Daz purposes since I'm having so much fun with the program and Iray even on my Nvidia-less computer. I've been aware of the 3080 release madness so that made me wonder if I should wait on getting a prebuilt desktop somewhere when they become available or just get something with an RTX 20 series? All the research I'm doing is getting me swept up in the PC ecosystem with all talks of specs, fps, cuda this, tensor that...
If anyone could give me some advice that would be great. I just want to use a PC for Daz and I already have a PS4 and quite frankly, DAZ has kept me from playing video games in over a month which I'm happy about. Such a better activity for a creative person like many of us. Thanks
Gonna be difficult getting hold of a RTX3080 for a while so a second hand 20 series could be an option but it would be wise to build the pc with a future 30 series in mind ...whatever spec you get i would imagine Daz will do its best to belittle it, good that you have a Nvidia-less frame of reference to offset that (i do too).
Wise to be familiar with the current parts and prices to get the best bang for buck when the sales start... gonna have to wait for the cards anyway!
I'd wait a few more month as there are already rumors about rtx 30xx card versions with more vram Ti/Super/Custom Design editions.
*not confirmed
GPU
Kerne
Takt
VRAM
Release
RTX 3090
GA102-300
10.496
1.395/1.695 MHz
24,0 GB GDDR6X
24.9.
RTX 3080 Ti/Super*
GA102-?
8.704
-
20,0 GB GDDR6X
-
RTX 3080
GA102-200
8.704
1.440/1.710 MHz
10,0 GB GDDR6X
17.9.
RTX 3070 Ti/Super*
GA104-?
6.144
-
16,0 GB GDDR6
-
RTX 3070
GA104-300
5.888
1.500/1.725 MHz
8,0 GB GDDR6
15.10.
RTX 3060 Ti*
GA104-200
4,864
-
8,0 GB GDDR6
October
RTX 3060*
GA106
-
-
8,0 GB GDDR6
-
I'd wait until AMD anounce their new lineup.
See if what they offer would suite you more.
It may also have a positive affect on prices - and it might not. :)
Then there is the fact that the 3 cards announced are not going to be the only cards.
Saving and Waiting: this is always to our (the customer's) advantage.
EDIT:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/428026/nvidia-ampere-2080-ti-etc-replacements-and-other-rumors#latest
check out that thread; seriously: wait
That's the trouble with technology components, there's always something better on the horizon and you could wait forever so you have to make a decision, how much do I have and what are the best componenets I can get for my money. What I'm saying is sometimes it's a mistake to go in too cheap and it might be better to wait until you have a bit more money to spend.
Anyway lets see what we can do, this is what I was looking at recently at Overclockers UK.
Asus Prime X570-P (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard £169
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X Twelve Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail £475
Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming 10GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card £689
Corsair Force MP600 series 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1000GBMP600) £180
At £1513 that's already pretty much blown your budget but I already have the RAM, case, PSU and Windows 10.
So you could go for lower specced CPU...
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X Eight Core 4.4GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail £339
The previous motherboard and GPU...
Asus Prime X570-P (AMD AM4) DDR4 X570 Chipset ATX Motherboard £169
Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming 10GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card £689
and...
Corsair CX-M Series CX750M 750W 80 Plus Bronze Semi Modular Power Supply (CP-9020061-UK) £90
Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB (2x8GB) 3200 MHz AMD Ryzen Tuned DDR4 Memory Dual Kit £69
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive £95
That gives us a total of £1451, of course you still need a case and Windows 10 etc but all quality components and a good starting point.
You would need to confirm that CPU supports PCIe version 4 on the motherboard I suggested. Note that motherboard only supports one PCIe slot at x16.
Hope that helps.
Best Wishes
Steve.
Thanks for the advice and the link... lots of usful info to try and digest.
it might be a tad dearer
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/an-rtx-3080-graphics-card-just-sold-on-ebay-for-us70000-96040/?fbclid=IwAR0n-Mh3e-QBhPicD3i955IjfmCOubb5idX2NVmbzm1du2m6slukyqOUFRY
Thank Steve thats really helpful... pretty much all of them items (all except the Ryzen 9 cpu) have made it on to at least one of my lists.
i'm hovering round the £1000 mark (not including the GPU) for all my parts and my consider a cheaper secondhand GPU to tide me over untill the dust settles on the 30 series.
Never Done a Pc build before but its been on the backburner for a number of years.
Lol...i've heard a couple of these stories too and i agree with many who suggest these are bogus bids designed to get under the skin of the scalpers who swallowed up most of the released cards with their bots!
At least i hope thats whats happening!
There is no point in buying a PC on a buget especially if you're going to use it for content creation. Buy the best and it should last you for a comfortable 5+ years before anohter full upgrade is needed.
All impulse buys are a waste of money and time. You won't get the most out of your 3080 because you're going to lack in one area or another, whether it's RAM, or cooling, or whatever. There's always going to be a better component right around the corner. So when you have money for a better CPU you'll be temped to spend it on the new fancy nVidia graphics card with more letters added to its name. This cycle never ends.
With ~5k$ you'll be able to get the best at that point in time so save up and pay no attention to the hype.
Beside being actually able to afford it, you mean?
Of course there's nothing to stop you going down the Intel route. Start with a Core i5 (as long as it's got at least 4 cores) and you could upgrade to a Core i7 later. The Nvidia GPU is more important when iray rendering. Of course Intel do not support PCIe version 4 yet so the AMD solution future proofs you better. It could be months before the RTX30XX card supply situation settles down so if you look at getting something second hand you need at least 6 or 8 GB of VRAM so your renders don't drop back to CPU rendering.
Steve.
So do you really think that to realise the full pontential of the 30 series cards you need to spend 5K?
Thats not a whole lot of money if you create content for a living or it was a real passion ...it works out as less than $20 per week after all.
However this time round i need to spend what i can afford on aquiring my first suitable machine... i stumbled across daz earlier this year when looking for figure posing software and it has since taken on a life of its own but unfortunatly for me my current 4 year old bog standard laptop struggles with the task!
Hence the reason for this thread which is basicly me just fishing for info on a subject i know very little in order to make the best investment on my current budget of around £1500 but if i can steer clear of the daz store and keep saving for when the cards truly become available i may have a couple hundred extra to spend.
Thanks for sharing your perspective... it truely is useful to me.
Looking a top of the line consumer oriented but not top of the line technically what you want if you have 2000 GBP is:
a) PCIe 4.0 MB with WiFi 6 with 2 or more PCIe 4.0 NVMe slots, capable of 128GB or more system RAM, capable of two PCIe 4.0 x16 GPUs
b) A power supply to handle such outrageous peak power demands in a home PC, so a 1000W Gold PS
c) 2 2 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs or more
d) AMD Ryzen 9 16 core 32 thread series 4000 CPU
e) 1 nVidia GeForce RTX 3080 with 20GB GDDRx6 VRAM
The CPU and GPU both there will be almost 2000 GBP by themselves and truth be told, according to the "tech rumours" both nVidia and AMD are said to have multi-GPU cvhiplet designs for consumers in the generation after next on offing so think the AMD Ryzen CPU chiplets but instead that design technique applied to GPUs. However 2 generations from now equates to 4 years with the intermediate years giving us 'Super' GPU type refreshes.
Oops, now I think we are talking closer to 2500+ GBP instead of 2000 GBP because the 1000W PS, 2 2TB NVME PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and PCIe 4.0 MB with such specs will cost you a pretty penny indeed.
So if you have a AMD4 Socket PCIe 3.0 MB, 500W+ PS, and SATA III SSDs already and want to meet your 1500 GPB target best to reuse and slowly replace as you are forced to by new technology specs. There are plenty of capable PCIe 3.0 AM4 socket MB available for less than 100 USD (not sure how much they price gouge in the UK but I now it's for substainly more than in the US).
I say, knowing the technology capability increases and price cuts that are going to be happening in 4 years if you are on a strict budget at all what you set your maximum price target and you work to meet that while restricting the tech you buy to be modern enough to be compatible with this year's newly released tech products.
But yes, you can 'future proof' yourself if you can spend an outrageous sum like 5K GBP on building a PC but if you got that kind of money you can more simply buy a 2000 GBP PC every new technology GPU release every two years and get the other tech improvements as standard instead of priced like new tech like, eg, NVMe SSDs and very large amounts of system RAM.
Generally there are two types of responses you'll get. Content creators will always say to buy the best pc out there then focus on your work. Tech people can talk endlessly about components and they will literally spend thousands of dollars just so they can get 10 more fps' one some game they have no desire to play. It's probably best to think what your pc will be mostly used for then go that route.
Thanks for all the responses,especially jmtbank for that helpful guide that i referred to a lot and stephenschoon who's suggestions reassuringly matched my list ... as it is i know some will feel i could have made a wiser choice and in a couple of months i may well agree but right now i have the time (week off work) and the motivation together with the funds to go ahead with my first build.
GPU - Now i'm not gonna be able to get hold of a RXT 3080 for some time i would imagine so i have decided to wait and save for a version with more vram... in the meantime i have a RTX 2070 super.
CPU - Ryzen 9 3900X
Motherboard - Asus Prime X570 P
Memory - Corsair vengeance lpx 32gb ddr4 3600 MHz
Storage - Corsair MP600 force series Gen 4 1TB
Case - Fractal Design Meshify C
PSU - Corsair RM 750 Gold Cert Fully Mod.ATX.
i'll post how i'm getting on...wish me luck!
Its an exciting time to build a PC. From 2011 for 6 years Intel increased processor performance an average of 6% per year. I pretty much switched off.
Here is hoping AMD can similarly invigorate the graphics card market, though that never slowed down so badly.
I'm up and running and currently downloading all my Daz goodies!... its such a relief as just a couple of hours ago i thought the situation hopeless lol
Did the build yesterday and it powered up ok with all lights and fans running but i couldn't get a signal on the monitor... went through all the internets trouble shooting suggestions which led to dismantling and reassembling on numerous occasions so at least i'm now very familiar with my Motherboard, CPU, GPU,cooling fan and Ram!
In desperation i even bought a new monitor which thankfully i can return now... not really 100% sure why it suddenly started working but for the vast majority of the failed attempts i had the monitor plugged into the motherboard and although i had tried plugging into the GPU (and failed) that ultimatly is where it is detected and working.
i have since read that you can go into the bios and activate the one that isn't working.
Can't wait to try my new pc on daz aswell as a few games but for now i am shredded!
just done a quick render... i used Cyd hair which comes in low medium and high resolution, my laptop can't even handle the high res in fact to freezes up for about half hour then crashes and even at medium res it freezes for about 20 mins then when it finally comes round it done less iterations than minutes.
With this new setup it raced to over 1000 iterations in 8mins at high res and 1800x2400 pixels... however i did check task manager expecting to see my gpu hard at work only to find it was my cpu that was 100% and gpu about 5%?
Also how come i can still navigate around my OS lightning fast when the CPU is max'd out?
Btw, don't use iterations as a judge of when a render is done.
... Use the eyeball; if it looks done, then it is.