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For what it's worth, I am getting slightly better render benchmarks now than I did before the W10 updates that were going to rob me of my performance. I am running I7 7700K @ 4.6 GHz, 16 Gigs of RAM and (2) Geforce GTX 970's. I wouldn't rule out Intel or older GPU's if rendering is your main concern.
..which is why I mentioned the Dell workstations. Many have older generation dual 4, 6 or even 8 core Xeons and 16 - 48 GB of memory. OK not as fast as a 1070 or 1080, but better than what she has now (which sounds like it is fading fast).
Ack, misread GPU as CPU. Anyway, the system she has is a four year old notebook, not easy to drop a GPU into one of those.
I've been dealing with CPU rendering ever since Iray was introduced as I did not have a steady income until recently and what I get now barely leaves me with enough after basic living expenses (was saving up for a 1070 until the Cryptomining Rush caused prices to become stupid expensive). I would not recommend going below 6 GB (particularly with W10) which would mean a 980 Ti (Maxwell) or Titan/Titan Black (Kepler) and those are still pretty expensive these days even though they're older generation architecture.
Oh I had forgotten about those! Good idea thanks, I will go take another look at those!
1100$ is still a lot of money. You have some options
- get something lower that can do the job https://www.amazon.com/G11DF-DBR5-GTX1060-Desktop-Processor-DVD-RW-802-11ac/dp/B071WHGM9V/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1519063397&sr=1-2&keywords=ryzen+gtx+1060+6gb
- Still get what you planned but don't pay all in one go. You can still buy the alienware or whatever and pay in 10 time or more
...8 GB of memory and only 6 GB of VRAM (which becomes about 4.9 due to W10 WDDM) is really borderline for rendering. As mentioned even with 12 GB of memory I have render jobs dump to glacial Swap Mode.
How about this?
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item=9B-1VK-0001-0YPF9
24 threads at 2.5 GHz (effective 60 GHz) Use the Quadro K600 to drive the display
W7 OEMs are relatively inexpensive if you go the online key route.
For more than 1K you have no SSD and no OS. You forget the gaming part. And I find it expensive for a refurb. If you're just aiming at CPU rendering a new Ryzen is a better choice
Those workstation are a good choice only if you want to build a multigpu renderstation or if you take better CPUs and way more memory
And having a 4 or 6 GB Gfx card for rendering is better than nothing. There are some sacrifice to be maid if you're short on money
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16883795903
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6R46M05499
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S6YU1696
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA65C6YV8926
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883102097
...4 GB is pretty much bare bones minimum for rendering (single character portraits in a minimal setting and that is about it). Under W10, any GPU card of 4 GB or less is pretty hamstrung for rendering as you are left with only about 3.3 GB of usable VRAM.
The Lenovo system has an RX560 which is useless for Iray as well as has no SSD. Same for the HP Pavilion 580 which only has 2 DIMM slots so that one memory stick it has will be single channel mode. The Power 580 has an i5 with no hyperthreading so that will be slower than my 5 year old i7 should a render job dump to the CPU as well as it has a barely adequate PSU.
Of all the selections, the Dell Inspiron 5000 is probably the best in spite of only having a 2 GB GPU (with only about 1.65 GB of available VRAM, about all it will be good for is light to moderate gaming and running the displays) as it also has an 8 core 3.4 GHz Ryzen 7 and W10 Pro (which gives the user more control and options than Home Edition). I am a little concerned about the PSU, particularly if in the future she decided to upgrade to a higher performance/memory GPU card, as well as having only a 128 GB boot/application drive. I would almost consider a second HDD storage drive sometime down the line and route the DIM install files there as it will fill up quick.
Were it myself, I'd get something on which I could at least render in CPU mode in a reasonable amount of time until this crypto insanity comes to an end and GPU prices get drop back to earth. Also I prefer older generation Xeons to Ryzen (or Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Skylake-X) for one reason, I can still run W7 as well as not have to toss out perfectly fine peripherals because they are no longer supported.
Kyoto, you always emphasize max GB every time, but you really need to think how much the person asking might need. This person is coming from a system that has only 8 GB in total, so I am sure they are quite used to building scenes around that budget (and actually less since Windows takes some of it.) So 6 GB of VRAM would quite likely be fine for this user, and if I recall right, they said they are a hobbyist at Daz, and they play some games. Workstations are not gaming machines, and the ones you listed don't have a GPU for gaming nor Iray.
At this point, $1100 is still quite a bit of bank. The biggest roadblock is the cost of graphics cards, though. Prices are so out of control, even the 1050ti is stupidly expensive. The 1060 is $400, its so ridiculous!
But there are still options. While I don't like pre-built machines that have cheap motherboards in them, that might be the best way to go at this point in time. I was in Walmart a week back and I saw a desktop with an i7-7700, 16 GB ram, 256 GB SSD, 1 TB harddrive, and a GTX 1070. This was $999 on CLEARANCE. Obviously Walmart has no idea what is going on right now, LOL. Keeping in mind that the 1070 can sell for well beyond $600 by itself these days, this deal is a freaking steal. And its at Walmart, of all places. So maybe head over to your local Walmart and see if they have this in stock, LOL. I believe the 1070 would be perfect for you. Its 8 GB VRAM is what your entire sytem had before, and it will be literally 20 times faster at Iray and play pretty much every game on the market at 1080p and 60 FPS
The point is, you can make that budget if you shop around, and get a decent system. Costco has an exceptionally ugly looking PC that has a very similar price and build to the above. It has the same i7-7700 and a GTX 1070 as well, but DOUBLE the system RAM, 32 GB. The price on this one is $1099, exactly what you have budgeted. And it is available online, you just need a Costco membership. If you don't have one, perhaps somebody could lend you theirs. If they have the "executive" membership, this would actually benefit them because they get a percentage of their purchases back at the end of the year. I think they'd get like $20 or so for this one purchase.
https://www.costco.com/Acer-Predator-G3-Gaming-Tower---Intel-Core-i7---8GB-Graphics-.product.100342463.html
Alternatively, I found this same PC for $100 more at Microcenter if Costco is a no go. The base membership is $55.
If you were to custom build these, the part cost would easily exceed these offers by a huge margin. The i7-7700 is about $280 by itself, and the of course the GTX 1070 is nearly impossible to find under $600. That's almost $900 on just 2 parts. And we haven't even bought the vastly over priced RAM yet! 32 GB would blow your budget instantly.
So while in the past it was often more budget friendly to build a PC yourself, right now it is actually much cheaper to buy one prebuilt because of price inflation. I wish the PC I listed had a bigger power supply, but it is more than enough for a 1070. And then there is that case...one of the ugliest cases I have ever seen. Whoever designed that thing needs to be slapped upside the head by a fish. Anyway, it would fit everything you need. The 1070 will blow away the 1050ti and 1060 that other builds in this price range would have...do not fall for them. If you can get a 1070, do it! As stated before, the GPU is so important to Iray, there is no substitute. And since it has 8 GB VRAM, pretty much all the scenes you have created on your old machine will run at GPU rendering speed. You might just cry the first time you render something!
Well I just ordered my new system:
Intel 8700K
Gigabyte Aorus MB
32 Gig DDR 4 Ram
250 GB Samsung M.2 NVME SSD
4TB Western Digital Black
Nvidia 1070TI Video Card
CoolerMaster Masterworks 5 Case
And a Synology 4TB NAS
and everything else..
The system set me back AUD $4250 the bulk of that cost was the video card at $1100 AUD.. If I had gone for a 1080TI that cost would be about $4650 AUD so not worth it that is for sure..
The Nas set me back AUD $587..
With this setup going to make it last for at least 5+ years if not more well will be more going to get my monies worth out of it.. :)
...the reason I stress memory size is to have the overhead so a render job stays in memory, whether it is VRAM or physical. Excruciatingly long render times are discouraging to many, not just myself, and the OP mentioned that as well. Agreed that with the price lunacy surrounding GPUs today, one has to make a hard choice, and no way are all three basic components going to be the best under a tight budget there needs to be a compromise somewhere.
I have seen a few systems around that price or sightly higher which have a 1070, 16 GB, 6 or 8 core Ryzen CPU, as well as both SSD and HDD. However, one really needs to look at the specs closely as sometimes they do not match with the product description at the top of the page (for example, claiming a system has 16 GB when it only has 8 or in a couple cases I found it noted "NVIDA GPU" but the product page and specs indicate AMD [one even advertised an Nvida 1080 when it actually had an 8 GB Radeon GPU]) This is not ebay or craig's list either but actual store sites so definitely "buyer beware".
The system I mentioned in my previous post as being the best of the five Takeo.Kensei linked to has 2 of the 3 bases covered: a fast 8 core multi threading CPU (double that of the i7-7700), and sufficient amount of memory that will last for years without needing an upgrade. It is also in the OP's budget range. What this means is she gets a state of the art fast high core count CPU along with enough memory overhead to handle the biggest tasks. Yes the GPU is not really adequate for rendering but it would still work for gaming and with sixteen 3.4 GHz CPU threads, she will still see a significant improvement in render performance over what she has now. I have only 8 CPU threads at 2.8 GHz as well as only 12 GB and most of the larger Iray scenes I create render in an average of 3 - 4 hours, not two days. Even that 8.9 GB railway station scene I did with volumetric fog, a number of emissive lights, and 8 characters renders in just over 6 hours. If I had the CPU and memory resources of that Dell Inspirion, I would see at least a 50% reduction in those render times.
One other point is how would any of us know that she may not become interested in creating larger more challenging scenes with that type of increase in performance and power at her disposal. When I started in this ten years ago I had no idea I'd even stay with it. This is the single reason why I chose Daz over Poser, because I didn't have to shell out 250$ (at the time) only to find it may not have been what I was looking for. "Unfortunately" that did not occur.
Oh and I'm not in the market myself for a new system, just trying to help out here. I have two desktops, one: the original I built which is undergoing a couple upgrades including swapping in a 24 GB three channel DDR3 kit an GTX 760 Ti 4 GB GPU to and a 6 core 2.8 GHz Xeon X5660 (the most cores LGA 1366 supports) along with a second system I acquired that has a 4 core i7 Sandy Bridge CPU with 32 GB DDR3 and 1 GB GTX 560 to run the displays.
Oh, and about that case, oy, what were they drink- er thinking when they designed that. Looks like it was made out of leftover skin panels from the Batmobile from the first film. I actually found a similar system with pretty much the same specs (I think it was something like 1,129$) and a more "conventional" looking enclosure for around the same price.
I am more of the not too phased about what the case looks like as long as it has good air flow and room, the other is as long as the new system does what I want it too all good there as well.. The other thing I am going from a 2nd Gen Core I7 2700k to what I listed in my previous post.. It is a case of one of those once in a decade purchases, and well since I do more with 3DL than Iray was the other reason for the card I chose.. That and I do more gaming than anything else.. :)
You can see in my sig what my current system is..
...maybe I'm still old school but this is far more simple and elegant than something that looks like it will transform into a Decepticon when your back is turned.
Oh, and it has plenty of airflow.
Yeah does look nice, but a case of each to their own I suppose.. :) I have seen cases more outlandish than the one I am getting, some cases I have seen seem more suited to being used at an airport for runway lights than as a computer case.. lol :)
something that looks like it will transform into a Decepticon when your back is turned.
I am only here to express my enjoyment of that last comment. very funny.
I've been reading these threads and waiting for a clear choice to emerge. As it stands nnow, I'm going to suffer through this and wait for the prices to drop back to something sensible. I so badly want a faster machine. But the longer I wait, the better the options and the more money I can put towards a dream build.
...not being into games, I never understood the fascination with lighting a case up like a house during the yule holidays and showing off the guts. Gimmie a big fan on the left panel by the GPUs instead and I'm totally content.
This. ^
This is the exact computer I bought on sale, (for the same price) last August at Costco. I'm extremely happy with it. Plus, it will run any game on the market on full settings. Quad Core 8 Thread i7-7700 3.6GHz, SSD and HDD, 8 USB ports, 32GB memory expandable to 64GB, Hot Swap HDD Bay in the front if you want to easily add another HDD, 8GB GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, Memory Card Reader... this PC has a lot going for it for the price. I looked around a lot before I bought mine, and at the time, to get similar spec's elsewhere, it would have cost around $1700. Gotta love Costco prices, especially on sale!
If you have access to Costco, snap it up while it's on sale. I don't think you'll find a better computer anywhere for your budget.
You can find full specs here. https://www.acer.com/datasheets/2016/4871/PredatorG3-710/DG.E04AA.002.html
I think it's supposed to look like tank treads.
I really don't care what it looks like, I only care what's on the inside. I think it's a great computer for what Winterflame has to spend.
Oh, and the only LCD's in this puppy are behind the ON button.
What is also good is to have a really big fan on the top, the case I have at the moment, has a massive grill on the top with a giant fan to suck the heat out of the case.. Only problem is having to cover the computer when it is swtiched off to stop dust and muck from falling into the case.. The case I had prreviously was a nice case unfortunately it was small and had terrible air flow, and I think was one of the main contributing factors to killing my 570GTX among other things..
Unfortunately, I don't have access to a Costco. The nearest one is 126 miles (one way) away so not only do I not have a membership I don't know anyone who does who could help me with it.
This Acer is very close to what you need. Can't you buy it online and get it delivered (there's no Costco in my country and I don't know the rules for membership)
...the case I have (and posted the pic of) has two 200mm exhaust fans on the top.
Yeah covering the top is not that big a deal considering the nice airflow the top panel fans create. Installing a couple front end fans one to cool the primary drive bay and another in the lower front of the case where there is a secondary modular drive bay (that I removed as it isn't being used, yeah this baby can hold up to 11 drives). All intake fans have filter screens.
The other nice thing it is all steel and aluminum construction, very solid with excellent noise dampening.
Wish I could find another but as I understand this model was discontinued.
Having an unlimited choice of cases is one of the advantages you'll never get in a prebuild.
...the closest I could find matching that Acer (GTX 1070, 16 GB memory) that is in your budget is this one unfortunately it doesn't include an SSD.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-omen-by-hp-desktop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-1tb-hard-drive-brushed-aluminum/5759917.p?skuId=5759917
This one is about 120$ more but does have a 120 GB SSD and a 6 core/12 thread Ryzen5 1600X
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberpowerpc-gamer-master-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-1600x-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-120gb-ssd-1tb-hard-drive-white/5848608.p?skuId=5848608.
Costco one sold out, unfortunately. Money loads tomorrow at 8 a.m.. I found a refurb on new egg of the exact same computer. We decided New Egg Refurbs were probably a safe bet right?
I'm not sure about one your referring to at New Egg, but typically, if it's "factory refurb" (of a current model) it's a returned machine that either had nothing wrong (customer wasn't happy with it), or had a bad component that was replaced. Other than having been opened, and possibly briefly used, they are like new (does it have the full manufactures warranty??). Factory refurbs go through a full set of tests to make sure they are functioning like new.
...is this the one?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883101359
But she specifically mentioned gaming, so that has to be considered.
If we were to do a survey, I would bet you a large sum of cash that the vast majority of users in this forum have less than 8 GB of VRAM in their machines. Obviously we all would want a big bad machine with a Titan or four, but then reality kicks us in the balls. Or kids do, one or the other. I only have 4 GB of VRAM. Of course I want more, but I cannot afford it. I had planned on buying a 1070 but then this mining craze happened. I cannot possibly pay the inflated market prices. And I certainly cannot afford to buy a 1080ti. I might try saving for one, but its a tall task. Overhead is simply not an option.
As I mentioned Costco, if anybody is familiar with them, they have great customer service. If they happened to advertise an item with the wrong spec, you can get a refund, or even even get that item with the advertised spec. Knowing Costco, they would possibly offer a replacement that most closely matches that spec and give it to you for the advertised price, even if it is a better more expensive machine.. And Walmart would offer a refund. You can return any computer within 15 days for any reason whatsoever, even if you simply changed your mind. Walmart does not charge any restocking fee (and neither does Costco.) The exception for Walmart is if you buy online from a dealer hosted by Walmart. In that case, you are not actually buying from Walmart. But when you buy in store, you can return pretty much everything except when laws prohibit it. So if you buy Walmart online, make sure it is actually from Walmart before buying so you have the option for easily returning it if need be.
A base membership to Costco is $55 per year. If the savings are good enough, it may still be worth getting a membership and buying from them just for that one item. If you have a Costo nearby, they are good stop. Plus they have a hotdog and drink for $1.50, which is the same price it was when the store started offering them back in the 80's. They have never once increased the price on that item. And it is not a skimpy hotdog, its like a quarter pounder. Sometimes I might stop in just for a cheap lunch. Their pizza is pretty decent, too. The cheese pizza is piled with cheese. Its also fun to snack around the store as the often have numerous people offering samples of all kinds of things. They have a whole staff dedicated to sampling. Sometimes you can get some new recipe ideas from them.
Many of you may not have a Costco. A Microcenter would be a good place for PC deals. Their deals on motherboads+CPUs are often the best deals of that nature. Buy a CPU and mobo combo and save an extra $20 on the pair. However their best deals are always "in store only" deals and not available online. And Microcenters are only in the biggest metro areas.
...as mentioned in her last post, she found the same Acer system at Newegg (factory refurbished) which does ship. I just posted that link to confirm if that was the one she saw.
I've been sticking it out with a 1 GB GPU for over 5 years now (before that, 5 years with a duo core 4 GB 32 bit notebook with Intel integrated graphics). I only came into possession of an older 4 GB GT 760 Ti through good fortune. This will do fine for proofing characters and subsets for scenes but that is about it. I still will end up waiting wait hours and hours to get a full scene rendered in Iray. When I had the financial resources, 2 - 3 GB was a raging amount of VRAM but meant nothing for rendering as all we had was 3DL, Firefly, Vue, and Carrara, all biased CPU based render engines. As I am not into games I really had no reason to get a more powerful GPU than what I have. When Iray hit the scene, I was in the midst of of an SS disability appeals case and barely able to keep a roof over my head. 380$ for a 1070 pretty much meant not eating for a couple months. Now that the situation has settled down and I could put a little away each month for that 1070, what amounts to another "get rich quick craze" has sent prices into the ionosphere.
I cannot afford to buy an entire new system whether at Costco or Wallyworld (and as I mentioned I already have two very functional systems [one undergoing an upgrade], just no big GPU to handle the scenes I create in Iray, many of which have been put on hold). I can only afford to upgrade what I have the best I can. It isn't just home builders who were hit by this it was also us folks who started small because we had limited finds and looked add on and improve what we have when we had enough available again.
Oh, I am on the Nvidia wait list for a 1070, but not holding my breath.
Yeah I know, we all need to make compromises, For myself it pretty much looks like the best option is going back to 3DL for the majority of my work and only occasionally putting together a scene for Iray.
That would have been good yes. Unfortunately, it was not the one I saw. The one I ended up getting (and it should be here Saturday which is WAY faster than I thought it would be) is still okay though. It's a 7700 (not 7700k unfortunately) 16Gb ram, Windows 10 Pro, GTX 1070. 2TB HDD and 256GB SSD. I can upgrade the ram/CPU/whathaveyou when I can afford it. It had pretty good reviews. It's a Dell. Fiance decided not to get something so he threw in an extra $300 as a wedding present. (WEDDING IS THE 6TH OMG)
Thank you all so so very much for all the help, the education, the ideas, and everything else. I could not have figured this out on my own. And now I know what parts to save up for as well!
Congrats on the computer, and even more so the wedding!!
..this one, correct?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883164005&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Desktop+PC-_-N82E16883164005&gclid=CjwKCAiAlL_UBRBoEiwAXKgW57eJx6ypUdbdFiQsAOEknpcPMoc6oLl2IqAAyGBVXwNs5JrPvXZ6jxoCOxcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
.... Of course it goes on sale the day after I buy it. Of course it does.