New Daz Computer build - Uh Oh

ebergerly · February 2018

DustRider said:

ebergerly said:

If you think your situation warants it, go ahead. But it doesn't sound like you push your system that hard, and you have a fairly roomy case with good air flow.

I was kinda joking

Just to show that for someone with a reasonably high end machine with 2 GPU's and an 8 core CPU, the cost to do an AIO cooler on all three components is real expensive and just not necessary. And it seems to me if I do rendering (which I do), "pushing your system hard" or not is somewhat irrelevant. When you do a render, your GPU/CPU reach peak temperature in a few minutes and that temperature flattens out as the fans turn on. And that temperature stays fixed if you render for 1 hour or 24 hours. It's not like a longer render is more damaging or something, as long as your temps are in the normal range. And I've got two GPU's stacked right next to each other, and the 1080ti is only a single fan FE edition. And I only have 3 case fans (2 front, 1 rear), and no fans on top. But temps stay in the normal range (around 75C) no matter how long the render.

Of course there are always exceptions. Someone with a tiny case, or insufficient cooling, or they bought junk equipment, or it's old and the thermal paste is bad, or BIOS is messed up and fans don't work correctly, or there's a design or manufacturing defect, or 20 other reasons. But the cure for that isn't water cooling. And for most of us, even those who render animations for 24 hours at a time, a decent desktop will run fine without water cooling. And most of us know that from experience over many years.

nicstt · February 2018

ebergerly said:

nicstt said:

SixDs said:

Doing it for years, doesn't mean it's been correct to do it that way. I've seen posts where users report their PC dieing during a render, and not just on this forum. I doubt it happens often, but rendering (as has often been said) is tough on even powerful computers.

I for one advocate a person gathering as much info as they can, then making their own informed decission. In my post I said as such.

Of course, there are MANY reasons why computers would die under stress, but that doesn't mean that's a normal occurrence that you need to worry about. It could be due to old thermal paste. It could be a specific manufacturing defect for that particular device. It could be a bad BIOS version that screwed with the fans. It could be dust in the vents. It could be users covering the vents. It could be users blocking airflow. It could be poor design by a do-it-yourselfer (which you'll never hear about). But exceptions don't imply a rule. Like I always say, look at your specific needs, do the necessary measurements using ACTUAL data, and then decide what you need. Don't just go for more, better, and faster or you're guaranteed to waste your money and time. And certainly don't go out and buy a fancy water cooling system for your CPU and GPU solely because somebody once had a computer die.

ebergerly said:

drzap said:

ebergerly said:
Keep in mind that even before powerful GPU's and water cooling the CPU's were required to do massive calculations on the same stuff, like images and rendering, and huge and time comsuming matrix manipulations, and insanely complex weather simulations, and on and on. So stressing hardware is nothing new. And somehow the equipment survived, so....

You mean supercomputers. They are kept in expensive clean rooms with specially controlled air conditioners and cooling equipment. So, yeah, they survived.

Again, no I'm not talking about that. There's an entire universe of individual and small groups of engineers, designers, video editors, scientists, researchers, and on and on in many industries and universities who have been doing highly CPU-intensive and stressful tasks on their desktops since desktops were invented. Including many of us doing CPU-based rendering for decades. And few if any have special "enthusiast" water cooling loops, or put their desktops in refrigerators or move to Antarctica.

We don't know how much the life of those machines (some of those machines) has been shortened by it.

You seem to want to insist everything is fine; I don't think there is enough information to offer blanket assurances to everyone.

All a person can do is to try and make the best dicission for their situation.

I don't want to encourage someone to take a particular path; I don't feel that is a responsible option through the forum.

DustRider · February 2018

ebergerly said:

DustRider said:

ebergerly said:

If you think your situation warants it, go ahead. But it doesn't sound like you push your system that hard, and you have a fairly roomy case with good air flow.

I was kinda joking

Likewise

And it seems to me if I do rendering (which I do), "pushing your system hard" or not is somewhat irrelevant.

Hmmm, IIRC you've stated repeatedly that you hardly ever use more than one core on your Ryzen, maybe I'm mistaken??

Of course there are always exceptions. Someone with a tiny case, or insufficient cooling, or they bought junk equipment, or it's old and the thermal paste is bad, or BIOS is messed up and fans don't work correctly, or there's a design or manufacturing defect, or 20 other reasons. But the cure for that isn't water cooling. And for most of us, even those who render animations for 24 hours at a time, a decent desktop will run fine without water cooling. And most of us know that from experience over many years.

Keep in mind that you are talking to someone who uses a laptop for most of my work - it definitely isn't liquid cooled. So, yes, most will work fine without liquid cooling, but sometimes it does make sense as a viable alternative. Maybe you haven't had a situation where it did (I'm guessing this, because you thought that it was difficult to set-up and maintain), but these situations do exist. For some people the fan noise required for air cooling is unpleasant or even unbearable, then liquid cooling may make sense. Space constraints may also require a smaller case that might not have optimal air cooling, again liquid cooling may be the best option. Yes, with proper planning and budget (meaning you can afford the proper case, you can afford adequate space, you can afford adequate cooling for the room where the computer is during the hot months, afford a residence with a separate room for the computer, etc.), possibly everyone could avoid ever encountering a situation where liquid cooling might be the best solution. But since I'm sure I can't imagine every scenario possible, I can't make a blanket statement that liquid cooling is never the best option. In fact, I have a situation where liquid cooling was the best option due to my wife being very sensitive to fan noise. You (or I) can argue all day long that I didn't need it, but she was the one that the fan noise bothered, air cooled CPU coolers simply were not quiet enough without the CPU throttling down, but thankfully the liquid cooling worked!!

For work, I have literally purchased thousands of computers, and never encountered a need to have a liquid cooled system ...... but I now realise there are circumstances where it isn't just hype, liquid cooling can actually be the best option in certain situations.

ebergerly · February 2018

My only insistence is that we are driven by facts, not general concerns unsupported by facts.

I certainly get that it seems intuitively obvious that heat is bad for your components. We've all seen heat damage stuff and melt stuff. No question about it. But "intuitively obvious" doesn't mean it's true. Of course there's a point at which stuff will get damaged. But that doesn't mean that cooler is better. I only think we should be guided by facts, not general, non-specific concerns. And by facts I mean actual temperature measurements, and compare them to actual equipment ratings. I still haven't seen anyone provide any data showing that liquid cooling is required in a typical desktop (one that doesn't have other issues/problems) for intensive uses like rendering. Instead it usually comes down to merely an assumption that "heavy usage" like rendering will overheat and damage your devices, so you need to protect for it. But I think it's clear the actual numbers show otherwise. As does the actual experience of most of us over many years. I've given actual numbers for not only my higher-end desktop, but also my piece of junk laptop after 24hrs of straight rendering. And neither was even close to any even slightly damaging temperatures.

Now I would be happy to change my mind if someone showed that "heavy rendering" caused a non-piece-of-junk (and not overclocked) computer to melt or have significant loss of life because it didn't have a liquid cooling system. But I haven't seen that. Only the assumption that, for some unexplained reason, it's needed because obviously heat will damage your components. And maybe someone heard of a computer that died, and the assumption was that it was due to a legitimate need for more cooling, not bad thermal paste or bad BIOS or blocked vents and so on.

Like I've said before, a great analogy is the human body. We dissipate about 100watts of heat, 24/7, 365 days a year for decades, our entire lives, and our temperature runs around 98.6F. Same as what my high-end desktop is generating right now. In fact, my motherboard temperature right now is 98F.

Does that mean we should walk around with hats that have big fans on them to cool us, or wear water cooling rigs? Of course not. Some of us live into our 80's or 90's, generating that heat every day of our lives and we're fine. In that case heat is good for us, it keeps us from freezing and keeps us alive. And our computers are actually designed with a continuous rating, and if they operate at that level they will be fine. And you can actually look up those numbers to remove all doubt.

That's all I'm saying. Check the numbers, don't assume, and decide based on facts not some non-specific concerns.

drzap · February 2018

"Like I've said before, a great analogy is the human body. We dissipate about 100watts of heat, 24/7, 365 days a year for decades, our entire lives, and our temperature runs around 98.6F. Same as what my high-end desktop is generating right now. In fact, my motherboard temperature right now is 98F. "

I hate to burst your bubble, but this is not a great analogy. At least not in defense of your case. Our bodies are great at dissapating heat as long as we don't stress it. Have you tried jogging 24 hours a day? Probably not, because we can't do that without falling dead. We have to throttle down. Without watercooling, our bodies would fry. Extreme exercise can shorten our body's lifespan. Ask any sports doctor. This is in part because our natural joint lubrication can't keep up with the extreme body motion involved in sports. Can we die of heat stroke in extreme weather? Yes and many have, and we have invented airconditioning to aid us in extreme weather conditions. Humans often use watercooling. It's called a drink of water. That is one of the functions of water for our bodies.. So your analogy is kinda supporting the watercooling, because nothing can operate at peak levels without some sort of cooling and liquid cooling is the most effective type of cooler. So, yeah, its a great analogy.

Also, do you know what sweating is? Do some research but I'll give you the short answer: It's water cooling. Humans have built-in water cooling. Your research on sweat should give you all the data you need. Hope you come back and share your data with us.

DustRider · February 2018

Like I've said before, a great analogy is the human body. We dissipate about 100watts of heat, 24/7, 365 days a year for decades, our entire lives, and our temperature runs around 98.6F. Same as what my high-end desktop is generating right now. In fact, my motherboard temperature right now is 98F.

Does that mean we should walk around with hats that have big fans on them to cool us, or wear water cooling rigs? Of course not. Some of us live into our 80's or 90's, generating that heat every day of our lives and we're fine. In that case heat is good for us, it keeps us from freezing and keeps us alive.

Sorry, but that is a horrible analogy What happens when we work our systems hard, like say run a marathon, play basketball, walk a mile in 105 degree weather? One of two things, we sweat, or we die (or go to the hospital if we are lucky). Seems like humans rely on liquid cooling (darn, I'm so slow I cross posted with drzap, by a few hours)

That's all I'm saying. Check the numbers, don't assume, and decide based on facts not some non-specific concerns.

Now that statement makes sense, especially if you add in " and analyze the data for your situation". Most of this conversation would have never happened had this been your assertion to begin with (and is actually what others have said).

Keep in mind though, that if you want a true "scientific" analysis, you can't cherry pick the data, and exclude an undefined class of systems as being "junk" systems. That's what we call pseudo science, where you pick the results that support your hypothesis, and simply ignore (or explain away) all the data that doesn't without applying any scientific rigor to show why the data should not be considered. By your "definitions", I'm sure the system I mentioned in my last post would be a "junk" system (obviously, since I needed to use liquid cooling). It has an Asus mATX mother board, but not top of the line, it has a mATX Thermaltake case, again, not top of the line, an AMD 8350 Black, a GTX 960 (full size), and no room for air to flow efficiently. With the stock air CPU cooler under full load after about 15 min. the CPU would start throttling down to ~3GHz,due to heat (about 1 second out of every ten), after a half hour it would throttle down to ~1.1 GHz (about 2-3 seconds every 10). Of course, the systems thermal protections kept it from overheating to the point of permanent damage ... maybe (I don't recall anyone in this thread saying that without liquid cooling their system would melt, but possibly I missed it), but this was not acceptable performance (and the fan was way to loud). With the Corsair H80 liquid cooling system, it never throttles down below 4.1GHz (due to heat on other MB components - not the CPU), even when the room temps are over 80 degrees in the summer. Could I probably keep the system at a safe level (no throttling) with a properly designed cooler? Probably, but it would be louder (note that due to case size constraints, many of the best air coolers won't fit in the case). Yes, I could cut a big hole in the side cover, but would rather not.

Now, this system is seldom used for DS. But I have rendered several animations in Carrara on it (one taking about five weeks), and used it extensively with Agisoft Photoscan (which uses both the CPU and the GPU) where several photo sets have taken in excess of a week to process. We have a small house, and the only place where we can have the computer is in a location where fan noise can be easily heard from our bedroom, living room, kitchen, and dining area. So it's a huge plus to have a quiet system when it has to run 24x7 for weeks at a time.

Three years ago, I also thought that liquid cooling was strictly for over-clockers, or people who just liked the idea. Not so anymore, since I have had my own real experience with a liquid cooled system.

Enough beating a dead equine.

ebergerly · February 2018

Wow, guess you don't like my analogy huh?

The only purpose was to show that you can run a system at normal rated temperatures for a long time and not shorten your life or cause damage. That's it. Because the belief seems to be that normal rated temperatures can cause bad stuff, so you need to run cooler. Apologies if that didn't come across, but I think it's a reasonable point, isn't it?

And my point has ALWAYS been that you need to check the data in order to decide. And that's reflected in every one of my posts here. In fact I actually did many tests to show with actual numbers. And forgive my use of the term "junk", but it was referring to the cheapest, low end laptop I've ever owned, and I think it's a reasonable definition to show that it's a device clearly not designed for what most would consider "high end, stressful" work. And even that could render continuously with no problems.

And DustRider, with regard to your system. All I'm suggesting is that you post actual temperature numbers and device ratings to show unambiguously that your devices throttled due to temperature over their ratings, and that there wasn't something else going on (BIOS, paste, etc.) that caused the issue. Because in all my years I've never heard or experienced a computer getting damaged due to temperature. But of course I could have experienced throttling and not known it. Which is why I'd love to see the data. I really do want to learn. And I have nothing against water cooling. In fact I'm a tech guy who loves this stuff, and I've always wanted a reason to try an AIO cooler. But I just can't convince myself that it's of any use.

ebergerly · February 2018

And speaking of scientific analysis, I've been keeping a summary of my 4 computers in terms of specs and temperatures of the CPU's and GPU's when subjected to continuous rendering. Here's my spreadsheet. I think I've posted some of these results before, like in my thread on the laptop rendering tests where I investigated the issue of whether laptops are up to the task of continuous rendering.

In any case, over 4 computers which range from high end, dual GPU Ryzen to low end laptop, all the CPU and GPU max temps during continuous rendering are well within a very normal range EXCEPT for my old HP, which is about 5 years old. With that unit, the CPU temps max at 93C, which is probably on the border of throttling, if not really throttling. However, the GPU on that machine, which would normally do the rendering, stays at a max of 80C, which is more reasonable, but still a bit high.

Now I've never investigated why the temps might be high, since it's an old unit and could have old thermal paste that needs changing (like another old HP laptop I had to change the paste on years ago), or some other problem that I've never looked into since I never really use it. Now if it turns out that those temps are really due to a lack of ability to do rendering, and there's not something else going on, then yeah, it might be a candidate for a water cooler. On the other hand, it's a very old unit that I'd never render on and never use for anything but a backup, so it's kind of a moot point.

In any case, I'm all about data and scientific analysis, and encourage others to do similar tests and post numbers so we can have real data to go by rather than non-specific concerns.

Richard Haseltine · February 2018

These discussions on cooling have gone on quite long enough, and have taken over quite enough threads. There are technical forums in which debating the minutiae is the whole raison d'etre, the Daz forums are not devoted to that.

ebergerly · February 2018

Richard, for clarification, does that mean we shouldn't discuss technical issues in the future? My apologies, I thought it was okay to discuss technical data within the TOS.

Richard Haseltine · February 2018

It means we shouldn't have the same discussion in multiple threads, especially when it distracts from the purpose of the original thread which was to get general advice. Some mention of cooling options is fine and relevant, not these extended arguments.

ebergerly · February 2018

Okay, thanks.

FWIW · February 2018

So two computers, exactly the same except one is a i7 8700 and the other is a Ryzen 1700, $100 price difference. I doubt the Ryzen vs i7 would affect the types of games we play too much, the question is which would be better for Daz/Blender/Maya (I have a student edition)

outrider42 · February 2018

WinterFlame said:

So two computers, exactly the same except one is a i7 8700 and the other is a Ryzen 1700, $100 price difference. I doubt the Ryzen vs i7 would affect the types of games we play too much, the question is which would be better for Daz/Blender/Maya (I have a student edition)

If you use GPU rendering, then probably no difference. The i7-8700 is a little better for gaming. The Ryzen 1700 is going to be a little better at production and any application that makes use of its additional cores. So it depends on your priorities. I personally I would go with the Ryzen. The difference in price is probably the motherboard, as Ryzen motherboards can be cheaper.

FWIW · February 2018

I was leaning that way as well, but I wasn't sure. Like I never really game on ultra or anything like that anyway, so it probably won't make a huge difference for that. Saving money is always good. We are getting a discount on an HP I only found out about this week because he can go through his work benefits for it. So it has a 1080 Ti and 16bg ram (I freaked out when I saw the GPU) but we have to pick between the i7 and the Ryzen before we can order it in a couple weeks. I was leaning toward more cores even if it is a bit slower. But I wasn't sure if it would make a HUGE impact on our moderate gaming or on say Blender or something.

kyoto kid · February 2018

...plus if you ever get into doing large scenes that may dump from VRAM (particularly if you go with a 6 GB 1060), 16 CPU threads will give you better rendering performance than 12.

FWIW · February 2018

The main difference seems to be the Ryzen version only supports up to 32gb ram, while the intel supports up to 64. But both only come with 16gb.

kyoto kid · February 2018

...Ryzen will support up to 64 GB but depends on the board. Some Ryzen boards have only 2 DIMM slots. Those with 4 can go up to 64 GB.(4 x 16 GB)

FWIW · February 2018

The HP person I talked to said this model only goes up to 32gb, that the slots only go up to 8gb ram each. Which seemed odd to me.

kyoto kid · February 2018

...that does seem odd. I just surveyed a good number of Ryzen MBs and the only ones capped at 32 GB were the ones with only 2 DIMM slots. All the 4 slot boards I looked at supported 64 GB.

My 5 year old PT6 X58 Intel MB can support 8 GB sticks and that's first generation i7 with DDR3 memory.

I would ask him what model of MB the system has for as I understand all Ryzen boards can handle 16 GB sticks.

FWIW · February 2018

I will definitely do that. I will let you know what he says tomorrow.

FWIW · February 2018

This is the link they sent me about the board. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05521044

nicstt · February 2018

Personally, I'm not keen on it, you're always going to be limited to some extent.

Takeo.Kensei · February 2018

WinterFlame said:

I was leaning that way as well, but I wasn't sure. Like I never really game on ultra or anything like that anyway, so it probably won't make a huge difference for that. Saving money is always good. We are getting a discount on an HP I only found out about this week because he can go through his work benefits for it. So it has a 1080 Ti and 16bg ram (I freaked out when I saw the GPU) but we have to pick between the i7 and the Ryzen before we can order it in a couple weeks. I was leaning toward more cores even if it is a bit slower. But I wasn't sure if it would make a HUGE impact on our moderate gaming or on say Blender or something.

I personnaly root for AMD because I think they deserve it, but on this one, the Alienware Aurora is way better.

- Better IPC. The Ryzen 1700 must be overclocked to beat a stock 8700 in productivity apps. The one from the Aurora is overclocked and I wouldn't bet a 1700 overclocked could beat it. And the Omen may be locked for overclocking http://www.overclock.net/forum/11-amd-motherboards/1645516-r7-1700-oc-can-t-set-over-3-55-ghz-hp-omen-higos-mobo.html. So here in CPU power, the 8700 wins hands down

- Lower latency. Due to the architectural difference, the i7 8700 will be better at real time preview with iray

- Integrated gfx card vs none

- 2 slots for GFX card vs 1

- max ram 64 GB vs 32 GB

The only points for the AMD rig is CPU evolutivity : AM4 platform should stay for a while

BUT

If I read correctely, you're saying there's a GTX 1080 Ti with the AMD Rig for about the same price. Then you'd get way better Iray performance and better game performance at the sacrifice of evolutivity. And really you may not need to evolve in the 5 years with that rig

kyoto kid · February 2018

WinterFlame said:

This is the link they sent me about the board. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05521044

...that explains it, a factory HP MB. All the boards I surveyed are third party brands like Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI etc, and all will support 16 GB sticks whether they have two or four DIMM slots.

outrider42 · February 2018

That board looks like a micro ATX and might not have enough physical space for a big GPU. These GPUs are monsters, especially the triple fan designs. They can be as long as a full foot. That board also has only one GPU slot, so you will not have any choices for scaling up later on if you wanted to. Plus I just wouldn't trust a board from HP, they are cheaply made.

The motherboard is one part you don't want to skimp too much on. It doesn't need to be the best thing out there, but I think this one is too limiting. Get something that gives you options for upgrades. Having 2 GPU slots means you can upgrade easier later by simply adding a second GPU (provided your power supply is big enough to handle 2.) Otherwise, the only upgrade path is to replace the GPU you have, which only offers small gains in most cases. There are plenty of decent AMD boards out there for reasonable prices.

I'm not going to say you need 64 GB of RAM. I honestly don't believe so, especially right now with the outrageous cost of RAM. But it would be nice to have that option later on, and RAM is the easiest upgrade you can make on a PC. So getting a board with the cap of 64 GB is still a sound idea, even if you you do not install it right away. It is perfectly OK to start with 16 or 32. You can decide if you want more later.

Also, here is a review that pits the 8700 vs the 1700X

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3230369/components-processors/core-i7-8700k-review-prices-specs-benchmarks.html

The 1700X has the edge in most, but not all, productivity apps, while the 8700 has the edge in games, with an exception. Games that are DirectX 12 run much faster on the 1700X. So it depends on what games you are playing. Most games are still DX11 for now, but times are changing.

I would very strongly urge not overclocking anything for Iray. Overclocking leads to more heat, more heat leads to bad things happening. I don't believe it is worth. Plus you would need liquid cooling for overclocking the 8700, it has a reputation for running hot.

kyoto kid · February 2018

...from what I understand the 8700K uses a lower grade thermal paste than the 1700X to attach the heat CPU's spreader. This is also an issue with the Skylake-X i9 series. Prior to Skylake-X Intel soldered the heat spreader a more expensive process but one that helps the CPU dissipate heat better. The move to using thermal paste is to get costs down to where they are more competitive with AMD's Zen series

FWIW · February 2018

It was a nice thought while it lasted. Our car died and we had to get another one. My budget is blown. The only computer I can afford now would probably barely be able to limp along 3dlight let alone iray. My budget just dropped to $1100 tops including shipping and taxes. No way am I going to find something worth buying at that price point. So looks like I am going to be retiring from Daz for at least a year. This thing I am on now is literally overheating and shutting down when I try to do a 3dl render at this point.

Richard Haseltine · February 2018

WinterFlame said:

It was a nice thought while it lasted. Our car died and we had to get another one. My budget is blown. The only computer I can afford now would probably barely be able to limp along 3dlight let alone iray. My budget just dropped to $1100 tops including shipping and taxes. No way am I going to find something worth buying at that price point. So looks like I am going to be retiring from Daz for at least a year. This thing I am on now is literally overheating and shutting down when I try to do a 3dl render at this point.

Have you tried using a can of air to blow the dust out, or reseating the CPU heat-sink (or getting a tech to do that for you)?

kyoto kid · February 2018

WinterFlame said:

It was a nice thought while it lasted. Our car died and we had to get another one. My budget is blown. The only computer I can afford now would probably barely be able to limp along 3dlight let alone iray. My budget just dropped to $1100 tops including shipping and taxes. No way am I going to find something worth buying at that price point. So looks like I am going to be retiring from Daz for at least a year. This thing I am on now is literally overheating and shutting down when I try to do a 3dl render at this point.

...there are those refurbished Dell workstations, would work for the time being.

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