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...indeed. Rendering on the CPU gives you as much memory as you have on the board to throw at the process. That's where that 64 or 128 GB comes in handy. If you do large resolution high quality rendering, as I plan to do, it requires a lot of memory and CPU thread horsepower something I could never get unless I go to a 5,000$ Quadro P6000 and even then that might not be sufficient.
Really? Where did you see that? I'd be interested to see what Microsoft says.
I think the gamers here might disagree. In any case, we were discussing in this thread the OP's use of games, and what computer would be best. Hence the discussion of games. And some mentioned that CPUs might be very important for games. So the input from gamers seems relevant doesn't it?
I bought 4MB (yes megabyte) for my Amiga way back; it cost £400; scaling that up price-wise, is eye-wateringly expensive.
RAM has dropped in price disproportionately more than any other item.
... Largely due (it is considered) to Microsoft pushing the requirement of RAM for Windows, which was greatly reduced with the advent of Windows 7 (iirc).
Heh, I spent abour £600 on 84MB for my Atari St - 84MB hard disc, that is.
When it comes to something like memory, IMO you should only buy what you need right now. Heck, if you find out you need more you can always buy another stick or two and it will arrive on your doorstep in a few days. Just keep in mind you want to keep a slot or two open for future upgrades. Especially now when prices are so much higher than a year ago. And honestly I don't think anyone paying $800 for 64 GB would feel better that 5 years ago it was a lot more expensive. Fill a couple slots with less expensive, low frequency RAM and you're good to go. If it was up to me, I'd buy two 8GB sticks and fill 2 of the 4 slots, and if that turns out not to be enough later on, buy 2 more. For the vast majority of people 32 GB is more than they'll need between now and the next time they buy a new computer. And don't worry about memory speed, it's pretty much irrelevant.
As far as power supplies, yeah, don't buy junk. And that applies to every component of your computer. Don't buy junk. Because every component is the heart of your computer that you can't do without. The CPU, the fans, the motherboard, the memory, they're all the heart of your computer.
In many decades of using computers I've never had a power supply problem, and as long as you don't operate right near the upper ratings you should be fine. Yeah, maybe if you live in an area with lots of lightning storms then unplug your computer when there's a storm nearby. But otherwise you should be fine. At least in the US I think the utility system has a lot of stuff to make sure your equipment doesn't get damaged, and I think every power supply has filters to make sure bad stuff doesn't get into your computer. Again, don't buy junk. Oh, and if you're living overseas in an area where the power is horrendous (yeah, I've been in those places), you might want to consider a UPS to filter and protect your power. Otherwise, an average power supply is probably fine.
Regarding CPU's, IMO don't get overhyped and buy something you don't need. Few people really need a Threadripper. Very few. Yeah, the name sounds awesome but unless you're doing CPU-intensive stuff, most of us can get buy with an older CPU. I think AMD vs Intel is also pretty much irrelevant for most of us.
Storage-wise, I've become a big fan of SSD's, but only because they are so much faster with windows file access and startup. I've got 2 x 500GB SSD's on my main computer and a couple of 1TB backup hard drives. But that's mostly personal preference, if you're concerned about a snappy response. I do think you should be careful about sizing your main OS SSD, since that can get filled pretty quick when you start adding apps and content.
I also think choice of motherboards is somewhat irrelevant, as long as you get a name brand (don't buy junk), and allow for some future additions of storage, GPU's and whatever else you might need. But a lot of the differences are more about marketing hype than real benefits to most users.
If it was me, I'd try to save as much $$ as I could on all of those things, and put the saved money towards a more powerful GPU.
But bottom line right now, I don't think this is a good time to buy a new computer if at all possible. You might be faced with some junk choices, and that goes against rule #1: don't buy junk. If you luck out and find something that fits your budget and needs, then that's great. Just don't buy something that will make you kick yourself next year.
I still have an Amiga in the attic; I should check on it, see how it is (three years since that last happened), and that has a 40MB Hard Disk in it; it wasn't in the 600 range, but it was bad enough.
Kind of reminds me of the introduction of the Macintosh in the mid-80's. It was an awesome piece of junk. The original had something like 128k of RAM which was virtually unusable. And it cost something like $2,000 or more, which at the time was like paying $5,000 in today's $$). And then they offered a 512k version for over $3,000. Which was when I decided to sell it because my 128k version was unusable and no way I could afford to upgrade.
So no, that doesn't make me feel any better about buying expensive computer parts today. But it did teach me a very valuable lesson: NEVER be a first adopter of any hardware or software solely because of hype and emotion. Let the rest of the world work out the bugs, then decide if it's worth it.
WHAT?? You have an Amiga? Is it a 2000? Damn, I was even thinking about buying one for old times' sake, but quickly came to my senses when I realized it would end up in the attic after a few weeks.
Does driving a car make anybody's input relevant when it comes to the motor or brake system or any other technical part?
No gamer will say anything else than "the GPU is the most important component for playing games". That's previsible. That makes the input even more useless
If using an integrated graphic card, which memory do you think it uses ? In that case memory frequency, timing and quantity do play a role.
Good competition make price going down and is a motor of innovation. Without competition Intel could do whatever they want. Now they begin to sell 6 core as mainstream processors and we can hope that applications become better optimized for processors that have more than 4 cores
Because of Nvidia's competition, AMD and Intel are collaborating to replace Intel's IGP with an AMD Chip which will be decent for gaming
Memory and GPU shortage could last for a long time. Memory price may stabilize but I don"t think it will significantly drop anytime soon. Same for GPU
It reminds me something similar aka 150$ for a 20 MB HDD
Found history of memory and HDD prices
http://jcmit.net/memoryprice.htm
http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte
Even if memory prices have increased we still pay a lot less than 20-30 years ago
I'm going to throw my hat in on this discussion:
Second hand business class and workstation class computers are a very good alternative to purchasing a new computer for Daz Studio work.
I just scored a pretty sweet deal on a Dell Precision T7610 (under $600 after shipping)
Mine came with a modest set of two E5-2609 V2 CPUs, 16GB (4x4GB) of REG ECC DDR3 RAM, and a Quadro K4000.
The Precision T7610 is compatible with both the E5-26xx (up to 8 core) and E5-26xx V2 (up to 12 core) CPUs.
Each E5-2609 V2 is a 2.5GHz quad core (without hyperthreading) but can be upgraded up to any E5-26xx or E5-26xx V2 CPU
The E5 and E5 V2 line of CPUs have 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes (per CPU) So this machine allows for 2 GPUs at 16x each with one CPU or 4 GPUs at 16x each with two CPUs.
They are also quad channel Memory CPUs or eight channel with two CPUs installed (16 DIMM slots on the motherboard totaling up to 512GB)
The power supply is a 1300w modular server power supply, and is rated to power up to 675w worth of video cards.
You can get REG ECC DDR3 on ebay for about 1/2 the price of same speed desktop grade name brand DDR3
The only drawback that I've found on this tower is that you may have issues closing the side panel with some GPUs that are equipped with oversized fans. Idealy you will want to use GPUs with blower style cooling as the fan setup in the tower directs all of the airflow in the front and out the back (it even has ducts that give dedicated airflow channels for the system RAM. This setup makes sure that your GPUs recieve a constant supply of room temperature air. (HDDs and Power Supply are sectioned off behind the Motherboard and have their own dedicated fans.
I hear ya, and that's a nice idea, but my personal opinion is that it very likely breaks the primary rule of "don't buy junk". You may get lucky, but businesses generally run their stuff hard and long and employees are much less likely to take care of company equipment. I would never buy a second hand system, especially on ebay, unless I was somehow sure I knew the details on condition, age, usage, etc, and could, somehow, trust the seller. Maybe I'm too paranoid, but I would be extremely wary of second hand systems. Yeah, if you have a private seller with tons of positive reviews who's selling just a GPU or something then maybe, but even then I'd be very wary. Who knows if they were doing mining or something.
I have purchased several business class computers (and notebooks) from ebay and craigslist over the years and have had no issues. These machines are designed and built to a higher standard than consumer throwaway systems, and most are off lease systems that sat at a desk and where never abused. Heck my most recent Notebook (Precision M6700) looks like nobody ever used the built in keyboard and mouse.
Most ebay sellers with positive feedback are very good about item descriptions and photographs of the item being sold. (I do not buy big ticket items from people who post with stock or generic photos.)
Here's a little list of used business class machines that I've owned over the years:
Dell Precision M60 (Notebook) (craigslist)
Dell Latitude D800 (Notebook) (craigslist)
Dell Precision 690 (ebay auction $150 after shipping)
Dell Precision M6600 (Notebook) (ebay $519 after shipping)
Dell Precision M4600 (Notebook currently surviving usage by my toddler tornado) (ebay auction $145 after shipping)
Dell Precision T7500 (ebay auction $203 after shipping) (had to replace the motherboard after over a year of ownership)
Dell Precision M6700 (Current Notebook) (ebay $800 after shipping)
Dell Precision T7610 (Current Desktop) (ebay $580 after shipping)
all of these have been second hand and none of these machines have had any issues. (Except for the T7500)
One more thing with Dell systems... Most sellers put the service tag in the auction description (or will supply it if asked) so you can check the warranty status and age and original hardware/software configuration of the system. Most systems come off lease before the maufacturer warranty has expired.
Wow, sounds like maybe I'm a bit too paranoid
So I assume that the PC's (like your T7500) aren't really outfitted with a good GPU, m.2 SSD, and RAM when you buy them from ebay, so you're just buying the case, CPU's and motherboard and then adding that other stuff yourself? Still it sounds like a good deal.
...I've looked into pre owned workstations and it seems to be a YMMV situation. They do however make a good base for upgrading.
Here are a couple I found with a quick search
Dial 2.4 GHz quad core Xeons with 24 GB memory
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z800-Workstation-Xeon-Dual-E5620-2-4GHz-24GB-RAM-1TB-HD-Win-7-Pro-8-Core/391683689181?_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIM.MBE&ao=2&asc=44040&meid=48a43350a4da4093b795bfb321fe2d28&pid=100623&rk=4&rkt=6&sd=172079167431&itm=391683689181&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1
A birt more expensive but has dual 2.53 GHz 6 core Xeons and 96 GB three channel memory as well as a 240 GB SSD and 2 TB HDD.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z800-Workstation-2x-E5649-2-53GHz-12-Cores-96GB-RAM-240GB-SSD-2TB-HDD-Win-10/232578572637?_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIM.MBE&ao=2&asc=44040&meid=81f0831d119c4d98823d33cf8d8d2942&pid=100005&rk=5&rkt=6&sd=361435362054&itm=232578572637&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851
Has an AMD Firepro V7900 (2 GB) which would be OK for running the displays, useless for Iray but with 24 CPU threads and 96 GB of mmemory CPU rendering would definitly be a major improvement over the old notebook. Get on the notification lists at Nvidia, EVGA, and Best Buy (all offering 1070s for less than 500$) and for a total of about 1,300$ this would be a beast of a system.
Crikey if I had the 800$ I'd consider this myself.
The T7500 came with an old single slot Quadro FX card (equivilent to an old 9600GT). Pretty useless for us. The computer happily ran my GTX 1080 ti though.
One really nice thing with the Dell workstations is when there is a hardware fault it will blink a code on the front pannel. Because of this I knew that the motherboard was the bad component (one of the CPU voltage regulators went bad). So I ordered a new factory refubished motherboard off of ebay for $50. I knew it was a legit refurb from dell when I installed it and it asked me to input the service tag for my computer on first boot.
The T7500 came with 4GB (4x1GB) of ram, then I ordered 24GB (6x4GB) for around $30 at the time. Then later upgraded to 48GB (6x8GB) for $147 (with both CPUs installed it has 12 slots that can be populated with 16GB sticks for a total of 192GB of RAM)
kyoto kid :
Not to impressed by those HP Z800 workstations. most of the incoming air used to cool your GPU, CPU and RAM comes through the HDD bays, so it's pre-heated to well above room temperature.
Here's a quick and dirty airflow diagram for the Precision T7600 and T7610 towers.
...true if all the bays are crammed with drives but only a single HDD and SSD means there is still alot of empty space for airflow.
The reason I suggested the ones above is that they wouldn't necessarily require a memory upgrade (particularly the second one) as even DDR3 memory has gone up in price. A 24 GB kit I was looking at to upgrade my system with increased in price from a low of 114$ in December 2016 to a over 220$ in September 2017 (the same exact kit). This is for older generation memory.
....OK on your recommendation did a little more shopping around and found this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T7600-8-Core-2-9GHz-E5-2690-32GB-1TB-HD-Quadro-2000-H310-Win7/173086942871?_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIM.MBE&ao=1&asc=20160908110712&meid=1b6987f6d4c1417ea5cfaa1fb77e608a&pid=100677&rk=10&rkt=30&sd=173086943179&itm=173086942871&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598
Only has a single HDD and Sandy Bridge Xeon CPU but it is an 8 core/16 thread at 2.9 GHz (3.7 Turbo) with provision on the MB to add a second CPU (second CPU heatsink is included). Drives are relatively inexpensive so you could use the 1 TB as the app drive and install say a 2 TB for the content library/runtimes.
The system comes with 32 GB of four channel DDR3 memory. (8 x 4 GB) with room for another 32 GB expansion (the board will support up to a maximum of 512 GB however those 32 GB sticks are espensive).
Found a second E5-2690 at Newegg for 375$. 2 of these would yield 32 threads for a total CPU clock factor of 92.8.
Think I'll change my mind if an an extra 800$ happens to float my way.
I would not buy a older Xeon at a retail outlet.
ebay : $150
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SR0L0-Intel-Xeon-E5-2690-2-9GHz-Eight-Core-CM8062101122501-Processor/202203863259?epid=116012818&hash=item2f144a18db:g:-isAAOSw1RVaanPA
Then you could spread the ram across both CPUs for 8 channel memory.
...yeah I know, still for a CPU that used to cost nearly 2,100$, 375$ isn't a bad price.
So using 2 CPUs also increases the memory channels? I knew it increased the number of PCI lanes. Hmm 64 GB of 8 channel memory. Now that is tempting. With the extra memory that would come to around 1,100$, 400$ less than it cost to build my 12 GB system 5 years ago.
Usually I don't go ebay unless there are other means of payment than PayPal and the seller has have a high positive dealer score.
ETA
I've been researching around but still cannot find what the exact core limit for Daz studio is for CPU rendering in both Iray and 3DL. Seems whenever a a thread is started on the topic, it shifts to GPU rendering.
As far as I know Iray has no upward limit, and scales very linear. I did a series of test renders with my dual 6 core Xeons (24 threads) and Iray happily used all of them.
For 3Delight, https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44515/fyi-some-rendertime-numbers-on-various-xeon-cpus
The user in that thread tested 3Delight in Daz Studio using dual 10 core E5-2680 V2 CPUs (20 cores, 40 threads)
..thanks. So that workstation with a second E5-2690 would be pretty good rendering 3DL and even Iray on the CPU.
Was on another thread during my researching where someone had ordered a dual E5-2699 v4 system (total 44 cores/88 threads) with 128 GB of memory. Now that is some major league horsepower and financial commitment as one of those CPUs alone can set you back some serious zlotys
Yes, though I would be patient and wait for a good deal on a T7610.
Both machines use the same chasis and sell for close to the same price on ebay. The 7610 adds 2 more USB 3.0 plugs and support for the E5 V2 CPUs. This way you will max out at dual 12 core CPUs instead of Dual 8 Core CPUs. Also some of the V2 CPUs support DDR3 1866.
An upgraded 1500; it has the 4.1 ROM chip (iirc); I did have a 4000, but that develloped a fault, and despite being repaired never worked again really. I considered Apple, before deciding on the PC back in the 90s, 95ish. I was initially disappointed I chose the PC, but the last few years, have no regrets.
IRAY uses all the cores on my Threadripper 1950x
That's what I did, I picked up a bare bones Dell 7910 and built it up myself. It's built like a tank and very well designed. I highly recommend them.
Nice nicstt....what mobo? What cooler? What M.2 SSD? You probably built a nice machine I'm thinkin'
What does Bitcoin Mining have to do with the cost of technology?!
Read all about it:
https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/26/16936984/graphics-card-gpu-prices-nvidia-amd-cryptocurrency-mining-stores
My favorite feature on the T7600, T7610, and T7910 is having the HDDs and PSU in a seperate area behind the motherboard. This opens up so much space for long GPUs.