(Update) Buying/Building PC budget £2000/£2500 UK Brexit
Xtro
Posts: 39
Hi everyone I've been lurking for sometime I've now decided to join for some advise for getting the right Windows PC tower built for Daz3D with the budget i have and now need some advise from you guys. :)
So I've been saving up all year (2018) to get me a PC tower made for Daz3D. I currently have a budget of £2000 to £2500 this budget must also include the VAT. I really can't save up anymore because of what's happening within the UK with the Brexit. I will be using this PC to Render with the Iray engine since i prefer that over 3Delight engine. Also, at some point i want to use this new PC for VR gaming experiences. Basically this PC will be 70% used for Daz3D, Photoshop and 30% for VR ect. Regular gaming I'm happy to stick with my Xbox One X and PS4. Btw I will be getting either an Oculus or Vive VR headset probably later this year, so this budget of mine does not include the VR headset. the £2000/£2500 is for the pc tower only.
I will be rendering images that probably involve 1 figure (most common) to 4 figures in my renders that will probably be the latest genesis 8 and last generation genesis 3 figures. My rendering scenes won't be overly complicated. For bigger scenes I can work with layers within Photoshop. For now I don't plan to do any Animation, mostly it will be comics and concept art.
I have looked around on some similar topics on this forum and I've noticed that the GPU and Ram are important factors especially the GPU with Iray. I see people recommending the Nvidia 1080TI with 11gb of Vram and I see people saying minimum 16gb but recommended 32gb and more for your system Ram sticks. However it's the other parts of the PC that I'm not clued up on? things like type of RAM, CPU Intell or AMD, Motherboard, Power supply, ect to get with the price range I have? So when looking at some PC specialist sites I get way too confused on what parts to pick and i worry I will make some mayjor mistake.
As mentioned earlier, because of the UK going through this Brexit, i fear that the pound will suffer and drop pretty low spoiling my chances of getting something decent if I hold back and try to save more. When looking around I've notice that to get a Machine with at least 32gb of Ram and a good Graphic Card with decent other parts it's gunna probably cost me more then £2500 and I can't really afford much more then that. So I'm willing to buy a tower that I can easily upgrade in the future like adding more Ram and maybe an extra GPU. One more thing I was surfing around on PC World website to check out what rigs they have and seen this machine. https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/acer-predator-orion-5000-intel-core-i7-gtx-1080-gaming-pc-1-tb-hdd-256-gb-ssd-10180761-pdt.html it's obviously a gaming rig that has minimum ram, but when checking this machine out on YouTube, the people were saying you can upgrade it to 64gb of ram and fit another GPU at a later date if you want more power? Is a machine like this worth getting for Daz3D or should I avoid? or can I currently get a better deal on something more powerful on another site by getting one built within the UK with the budget i have?
I'm hoping there might be some person who's a member on this forum that's also from the UK that can point me in the right direction, on were to go and what to pick with my budget? I plan on buying between now and February before Brexit final deadline that's in March. So if anyone knows of any pre built rigs I can buy online from a trusted reliable pc specialist within the UK? Or can anyone on here do the part picking for me with the budget I have on some recommended UK PC specialist site? I would be very grateful.
Thanks awsome community by the way.
Post edited by Xtro on
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Comments
Hi. UK resident here. I would recommend having one built to your own specs, and I would suggest going to PCSpecialist.com to have a set up built for you (She says as she site here typing on the 3rd machine she has had built by this company. https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
I have only once, of all the PCs I have had, bought one of the shelf. Mine have always been built for me and the ones I have had from pcspecialist have been the best. most solid and long lasting.
pcspeialist have some already configured that can be delivered quickly and they also show basic configurations in eahc price range that you can start with and then build on from there.
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BTW unless you want specifically a games machine I would not recommend buying a machine configured with games in mind if you want the PC mainly for 3d work such as Daz Studio. Some GPUs that are used for games are not the ones recommended for using DS and Iray.
Try overclockers.co.uk - I recently got a pc built there for around £1700, so well within your budget. They have a PC configurator where you can go through the case and all components and select what you want. Also, I guess to make the options managable, not every component they sell is available as an option, however, if there's something you want that isn't a choice in the configurator, just email them and they'll sort out the build with your prefered component.
They take a week to 10 days to build and deliver the machine - extremely well packed.
If you've got any queries about what to get, you can always ask for advice on their forum too.
Step 1: Go here: http://www.logicalincrements.com/ figure out what you should be able to expect to have in a PC of your chosen price range.
Step 2: Configure: https://pcpartpicker.com/
I have had poor experience of overclockers; Scan, however, are great; build it for you or pick up the components.
Agree; don't make it for both; either chose rendering as your main purpose or gaming.
A good gaming computer makes an average Rendering computer.
Build you PC for rendering; once that is done, determine what needs to be different to enable VR.
As Chohole said earlier, I would also recommend taking a look at pcspecialist. I had mine built there about 3-4 years ago and I've been very happy with it. Added a few upgrades earlier this year to bring it more up to date but the core components are all still there.
For your budget, start here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-z370-pc/
I've put together a build close to the pcworld one that you posted a link to. This would be at the top end of your stated budget, so you might want to play around with the graphics card. For VR though, you want the best card you can afford. I run an Oculus rift on a 1080ti. For most games it's fine, but for some it's not always possible to run everything at full graphics settings in VR.
For Daz studio, you could save a few hundred pounds by going with 2xGTX 1070, but you will be restricted on GPU memory for some scenes. You could go with one GTX 1070 and add a second card later when prices on the 2080ti fall a little, or pick up a second hand 1080ti. It is also worth noting that VR does not use more than one graphics card, so you need a good single card.
The best thing you could do is play around with the configuration on the link about and come up with something that suits your own uses and budget. I've put the build that I tried as a link below. The Power supply is a lot bigger than it needs - I found out the hard way when I wanted to add a second graphcis card that it's better to have some overhead for future upgrades, but again, you might not want to do that.
If I were buying a gaming rendering class PC in the UK to be made for me from a configuration list I'd probably start with the afformentioned overclockers.co.uk.
+1 on pcspecialists - my current desktop and my 'old' laptop were done my them and a friend just got a budget laptop from them - all bery happy :)
The 2080ti will run Daz Iray fine, its about twice as fast at rendering Iray than the 1080ti, and its also the best gaming card you can buy (unless you really want to shell out US $2500 for a Titan RTX, whatever that converts to in the UK).
There is one catch though, the new 2000 series only works with the Daz 4.11 beta, and nothing else. But there is little choice, the 1080ti is no longer available, unless you want to buy one used. (Which BTW, is what I did because the 2080ti is just too expensive for me.) All other gaming GPUs only have 8gb VRAM at most, so if you really want to turn it all the way up to 11, you need the 2080ti.
A gaming focused PC *can* be a good Iray PC depending on spec. For Iray you can use multiple GPUs though, but that doesn't effect your gaming at all. The other cards can just sit idle while you game. You might want a little more RAM than what gaming recommends. For gaming, the recommendation is 16gb, even for 4k and VR. This can do for Iray as well, it just depends on your scene, but 32gb would probably be better.
As Outrider42 said above, the 2080ti will work with Daz Studio, but at the present time only with the 4.11 beta which has to be downloaded and installed with the Daz download manager. If I wasn't going for an expensive graphics card, my next priority on that build would be 32GB RAM instead of 16.
The graphics card bit is the difficult decision - both because the 20xx series are so expensive and because the 1080 and 1080ti are no longer available. When I had my machine built three years ago, I ordered it with a 980ti, which was the best available at that time. Back then I was using Poser and Vue, so I had the machine built around a high-spec i7 with 32GB RAM. I used Daz studio iray for about a year with that build before adding a 1080ti, but with that was the consideration of running VR better. If I was to buy a new machine now, I think I'd put the money into the graphics card to give the machine a longer lifetime with iray.
One other thing I didn't look at on the test build was fans and ventilation. A big graphics card can add a lot of heat to a case and fans are relatively cheap and easy to fit yourself if you want to save some money or spread out the cost.
I work in a school where I teach computing and am in charge of the school information systems. Occasionally (usually around November), colleagues will ask me about laptops, tablets, desktops, cameras etc that they are thinking of buying for their kids. I never mind helping and offering advice. What I really don't like is when someone says to me, "I just bought this laptop for my daughter for christmas - is it any good?" because then I can't give an honest answer and have to give a diplomatic one. When I needed a new camera a couple of years ago, I spent 6 weeks researching cameras and looking at prices because things had changed so much in just a few years.
So the best advice is to take your time and do what you are doing - look at all of the options, try different places and ask questions. People here on the forums will always offer advice. You are spending a lot of money on something that will be used a lot over the next 5-10 years. Getting it right now with appropriate planning will save you a lot of frustration later on.
Do please post back when you eventually have your new machine up and running - I'd very much like to see what you get and how it performs for you.
If it is good at rendering in IRAY, there is no reason to doubt it will be great at VR; I'm suggesting that you make sure it is after getting the best rendering machine you can for the cash
Xtro, that does look like a very nice build. Just to be clear, you have posted about a 1070ti card - the spec above uses a 1070 card (they don't have the 1070ti in stock). It would be worth looking at some benchmarks of the 1070 just be sure you'll be happy with it.
For the processor that you have picked, I would probably go with the NOCTUA NH-U14S FAN CPU COOLER (£32 difference on a build like this is not much). This seems to be the best non-liquid cooler they have on the site, and for graphics rendering you will be running your pc at full throttle for long periods of time.
In terms of the M.2 SSD vs SSD vs HDD I can only speak from my own experience as I am definitely not an expert in this area. Firstly, whether M.2 or SSD, put your windows partition on that drive - your boot-up times will hugely decreased over having windows on a HDD.
As for M.2 or SSD - sorry, I hadn't realised that I had picked an M.2 drive - they've moved the SSD drives from where they used to be into the "1st storage drive" section. M.2 drives are faster than SSD drives, but they are slightly more expensive and in my experience, a lot harder to set up. In everyday use, you are unlikely to see much difference.
My pc had an SSD when I got it, and as part of the upgrades this year I added an M.2 drive with the intention of cloning the old SSD onto it. I have to say that in 36 years of using computers I have never had a more frustrating experience than I had in setting up the M.2 drive. It took me two days of internet searches and trial and error to get it to be recognised by Windows as the boot drive and actually load. If it was installed from the start then that might be easier, but if you have to change it in the future then there might be problems. One of the problems that I had is that with HDDs you can just use an external drive kit for imagine them, but the M.2 has to actually be in the computer (not sure if there is a kit now). Also, the M.2 drive may stop you from using one of the PCI-E slots on the motherboard (could depend on the motherboard, it does on mine).
As both M.2 and SSD drives are relatively small (getting bigger, but still fairly expensive), my own opinion is that it's better to get a 500GB SSD, put Windows on that drive and then do not use it for anything else unless you absolutely have to (possibly a few often-used programs on there as well). Then have a couple of large HDDs - one for programs, one for data. Definitely keep your Daz Studio content on a HDD - it's no slower and the huge content folders are less likely to fill up a HDD.
I did experiment a few months ago with putting only Daz Studio and its content on the "spare" SSD, hoping that it would speed up loading of content when using Daz Studio. The result was that after 2 weeks I moved everything back to the HDD because it turns out that drive speed is not the bottleneck when loading content in Daz Studio.
This has been a much longer post than I intended - short answer, go for an SSD and have Windows installed on that (they're at the bottom of the list on the pcspecialist website under 1st storage drive. Then have a couple of big HDDs for everything else.
You can do what your were looking at earlier and get a 1070 or 1070ti now and get a better card added as a second card later. I put an 1070Ti in my 2010 ASUS PC then bought a new PC with a 1080 Ti in it and added the 1070 Ti to the new PC.
The 1070 ti renders as fast as a 1080 8gb card and in most video game areas performs as well as or close to 1080 8gb card. 1070 has 1920 Cuda Cores anda base clock speed of 1506 mhz, the 1070 ti 2432 Cuda Cores and a base clock speed of 1607 Mhz. CUDA cores are IRAY processors and dictate IRAY proccessing Speed. With the SickleYield Benchmark Test, a 1070 8gb card rendered the schene in 3 minutes, a 1070 Ti in 2min 30 secs. But it should give you an idea of relative speeds. For comparisons a 1080 Ti would render the schene in about 2 minutes. Those tests were by different PC's with diffrent supporting hardware setups, so times may be off a little.
For comparisons, I ran the Sickleyield Benchmark Test with a 1070 Ti on a 2010 Assus CM5571 with 6GB DDR3 in 3 min 26 seconds. With a modern PC with 32 GB ddr4 instead of 6gb of ddr3: 1070 Ti: 2 min 51 secs. 1080 Ti: 2 min 14 secs. 1080ti + 1070 Ti: 1min 25 secs
Please also note, you can get a 1070 or 1070 ti now, and add a second card later if your system is designed for it. DAZ can render with multiple GPU's. It does not need an SLI link so you can use diffrent cards. Infact some have reported an SLI link slowing DAZ rendering down. I got a 1070 Ti card to upgrade my old PC used it for a bit, then later got a new PC with a 1080 ti. When I bought it I got one that was rated for multiple GPU's and added the 1070 Ti as a second card when I got it. It can easily work the other way around. Get a 1070 or 1070 ti now, set asside the money you would have paid for a better card and add a second better card later.
Please note 1080 8gb and 1080 ti 11gb are also diffrent cards.
An HDD is still viable, Its slower than an SSD and wont last as long, but you prabably wont miss the SSD you never had. If you are doing high end 4k gaming then you may want to recosider it then since load times would be faster. But one thing to think about: If you think you may eventualy want to go SSD, might be better to get it now when soneone else is setting up the PC then not worry about the potensial headaches dimm reaper pointed out if you upgrade later yourself.
One other thing, their is a product in the DAZ store called Scene Optimizer. In larger schenes where fine details are less important it can reduce the size of a schene by decresing texture map sizes and fit larger scenes in less Video RAM than would normally be needed.
I think that bk007dragon gave a very informative post, so I won't add anything to it regarding graphics cards.
HDD or SSD is just a matter of preference on a new pc. I have an old backup machine that I occasionally use for work and my girlfriend uses it for web browsing. Because it is old and has had too many installations / deinstallations it was taking around 4 minutes from switch on to being useable. Cloning the C: drive to a new SSD cut that down to about 30-40 seconds. But, as bk007dragon said above, you won't miss what you've never had. If you're happy to switch on your pc and wait a couple of minutes then stick with HDD.
I used https://pcpartpicker.com/ to select my parts. It will let you know if you have selected a part that is not compatible with the system you have chosen
My specs - I went with the LGA 2011-3 series:
Intel - Core i7-5820K 3.3 GHz 6-Core Processor - (upgradeable to an 8 core processor)
Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler - customized my fans for maximum airflow
RAMPAGE V EXTREME EATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard
Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory - (Up to 32 gB - I think it states more, but haven't tested it yet)
Corsair - 750D Airflow Edition ATX Full Tower Case
Corsair - 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
EVGA - GeForce GTX 960 2 GB Video Card
I need to upgrade my video card desparately, I am unable with my schedule to wait hours for a render, so I will be upgrading my video card sometime this year.. cant at the moment due to other priorities
I saw that Intel has now introduced the new Core i-9 while AMD has introduced the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X (16-core/32-thread); technology always advancing
2nd hand 1070 is viable. I just about mange ok with the 8GB of my 1070. Its rendering speed is OK. But struggles with lack of grunt when trying to use Iray in the editor window itself. I might have been tempted by the new cards if they had more memory. After inflation/currency devaluation, £480 for a £2070 is about the same price as I paid (£400) for the 1070 2.5 years ago. But to still only have the same 8GB memory as 2.5 years earlier was increadibly dissappointing.
Its the lack of drive in the console market meaning gamers don't currently need more than 8, and the memory cartel pricing holding this back.
In my opinion Daz doesnt make much use of hyperthreading. Currently. Its the perenial question of futureproofing. Is the current extra £100 worth it. Actually maybe if you are the sort of person to keep a system 6 years. There is the question over the heat increase even on things using hyperthreading effectively lowing the overall clock speed. If you upgrade every 2-3 and are manually overclocking, the consensus tends to be the I7 is better no worse and cheaper.
On 64GB. Again if you are squeezing renders (textures) into 8GB graphics in my opinion you won't need more than 32gb system memory to begin with. Just upgrade to 64 later and keep the money in your pocket for now.
This is just too much to spend on a machine with only a 1070. You must make some cost savings somewhere. You could buy a 6 core AMD machine and the staggeringly priced 2080ti for less than this. And upgrade to a 7am 8 core AMD chip later when things need more than 6 cores.
The Intel machine would give you better editor responsiveness (non-iray) and render set up speed (until upgraded to 7nm), but the 2080ti has the memory and iray performance.
I just checked. You can get an AMD 2600, 32gb top mobo/psu 2 hard drives and 2080ti for £2100 on OCUK. Still a huge price to pay and doesnt include keyboard, mouse, monitor!
You have to have the OS installed on solid state... or a £75 no name tablet from a supermarket will outrun it when browsing the web.
I dont know much about M.2. They are pretty pointless for game loading times but I don't know enough about how Daz loads files to comment.
Only you can answer the question about how big the scenes are that you are wanting to make. Upgrading a 4/6 core AMD system later is an alternative viable strat. The way gfx card prices are, I would buy a 2nd hand 1070 and invest more in the monitor right now.
I have an 8 GB 2080 from Zotac and it works great, for what its worth. Its not a 2080Ti, but its plently powerful enough and FAST for moderate scenes. I might also recommend an AMD cpu for the socket upgrade path assuming you are planning on keeping the machine for awhile an potentially upgrading it down the road. .
I agree... an AMD CPU would probably be to your benefit, they are very powerful and of a decent price.
Interesting to read your question... I just finished comparing the prices (Canadian dollars) of the current Nivedia cards, with their memory and cuda core count.
Using two 1070Ti cards looks like a powerful rig... that gives you almost 5000 cores at $1400 Canadian... sorry I can't convert for you. The comparisons are certainly worth making.
I know the 1070Ti has "only" 8gb of memory but that is still substantial, and there are ways around that problem.
Hope that helps.
Welcome to Daz's state of the art forums! LOL. Yeah, on mobile they will not break paragraphs apart, which sounds totally insane but that is how it is. There are 2 work arounds. You can either type "<p></p>" between each paragraph, or force your mobile browser to use desktop mode. Desktop mode will make text pretty tiny but at least the hypertext works.
The 2080ti in the beta has no issues. I'm not sure why the beta takes so very long to push to the full version, because it has been out for months now, but I actually use the beta most of the time now. There are some plugins that do not work in the beta, like GenX and some others I can't think of. You can actually run the beta and the full pro version side by side, though if you have a 2080ti the pro version will crash because the GPU renders the viewport as well.
For GPU:
And if you decide to keep the 1070, it can be used to help speed up the better card. Also I did render 2-3 character scenes in a 1070 Ti myself, you might find the 1070 handling most of your scene needs, especially if you are doing photoshop layering.
For SSD vs HDD:
If you decide to go SSD, I would not go SSD instead of HDD, I would go SSD alongside HDD.
My DAZ library consumes 600 GB of Hard Drive Space. I admit my library is not small, but not the largest by any strech. I would get a standard HDD for Data Storage. Run the OS and Key Programs on an SSD.
The bottleneck for DAZ load times is not the HDD. Someone in another thread I was in had tested putting a DAZ library on an SSD and according to them the load times were not affected.
For CPU's:
Intel is better for gaming. Casual gamers might not notice the diffrence though unless your into high end 4k gaming. AMD is (slightly) better for rendering and most other things. CPU wont affect IRAY render speeds as long as the Scene fits in the GPU's memory, hence the desire for a better GPU.
Put the content on the Hard Disc Drive. A content libraby can eat the SSD's capacity fast. My Content library is 600 GB. You will want to change the installation paths in install manager from defult. That way if you do use install manager for anything it will install your content libraries on the HDD. I Installed mine to D:\Daz 3d Libraries\My Daz3d Library. I also have my render librabry and install manager directories there instead of on C:\. My HDD is on D:\, My SSD is on C:\.
On CPU's:
You should always go with what you think you will be happiest with.
People talk about upgrading CPU's and Slot compatability with future CPU's. Fact is you are basically dissassemlbing your computer to put a new CPU in. If I am going to spend US-$500-600.00 or more to buy a new state of the art CPU I will prabably spend the extra $150 - $200 for a descent motherboard to go with it and swap over the other components anyhow. I would prefer a motherboard that is designed specificaly to use that chip instead of relying on a BIOS upgrade to a previous series of board that migh not run it if you forgot to do the BIOS upgrade.
The 9th Gen i9 is probaby the best, and prabably most expensive, option unless you move up the the AMD threadripper series. And the i9 is your best video gaming option, Current AMD chips not even close to an i9 in most Video Gaming areas. That may change though, when the 3rd Generation Ryzen 7 is released. If your going to use the PC for High End VR gaming the i9 is the better option due to a combination of a faster single core speed and still having 8 cores/16 Threads like the 2nd Gen Ryzen7. Intels also run hotter than Ryzens. People here are compairing 6 core 8th Generation Core i7's to 8 Core 2nd Generation Ryzen 7s. They see the intel as a Hotter Running more expensive CPU.
For CPU rendering,
You might not even need to worry about CPU rendering. With a 1070 and a little help with an add-on product you may be able to do what yuou want on the 10070 for now. Look at a US-$24.95 product called Scene Optimizer before you even consider thinking about the horrible nightmare that is CPU rendering. Scene optimizer will let your 8 GB card handle most of your needs.
I personally think Ryzen 7 vs Intel for CPU rendering IRAY is a stupid argument for buying a CPU. By the time you get to a scene where IRAY CPU rendering is neccessary your prabably going to go to bed and see if the scene is done when you wake up in the morining with either the intel or a Ryzen 7 anyways. You only truely care about CPU speed if you plan on rendering in 3Dlight instead of IRAY.
The big reason AMD's were doing slightly better is they have 8 Cores/16 Threads compared to an i7's 6 Cores/12 Threads. I doubt anyone here has actually tested an i9 Vs a Ryzen 7. DAZ makes use of more cores. The i9 has the same core count at a 2nd Gen Ryzen7: 8 Cores/16 Threads. It also has a faster core speed. It should be fine, maybe better than a 2nd gen Ryzen 7. I have not CPU rendered on my current CPU yet, it takes something like 20x as long as GPU rendering. Slow CPU render speed is also why most computers with 2 GB of Graphics RAM take 4 - 8 hours or more to render a small 1-2 character scene that would render in 10 - 30 minutes on a Graphics card. If a scene does not fit into graphics memory, it dumps the job to the CPU and the CPU, even a top end one, will take an eternity to render IRAY. So comparing one chip to the other might be like something like 4 Hours vs 3.5 Hours. Best to use GPU when possible and save the CPU rendering for if you choose to render 3dLight. Now one place the CPU is used is when using IRAY preview mode in the main window instead of texture shaded. My i7 works fine in it, the i9 should work even better.
When it comes to scene size, the biggest issue is the size of texture maps. Texture maps are by far the single biggest consumer of Video RAM. If you need to Render Iray scenes larger than your 1070 will handle, look at a product called Scene Optimizer. By reducing the size of the texture maps you can fit your 3-4 person scenes into an 8GB card. In scenes where you are not doing closeups you might not even notice the reducd textures. Scene Optimizer can be your short term solution to 8 GB Vid Ram vs 11 GB and would still be useful in large scenes that dont fit in an 11 GB card.
The Scene Optimizer previews show a simple 4 person scene done on a less capable card than the 1070 your getting. Its a simple scene + 4 Genesis 3's, 2 male + 2 females. The scene optimizer previews show before and after optimization shots.
Link to Scene Optimizer Below:
https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer
As for going with an SSD over a HDD I'm in two minds still
The biggest mistake you can make is not buying an SSD to put the operating system (and browser) on. There should be laws against selling computers without a primary SSD. I'm not saying it will make Daz any faster. It will make windows and web responsiveness night and day different.
Your reasoning on wanting an I9 now and temporary 1070 are sound! When Intel re-introduced hyperthreading on 4 cores you were hard pressed to find benchmarks showing any benefit. Ironically rendering software was about the only thing. 3-4 years after Ivy bridge and suddenly plenty of games were seeing 20% increases on frame rate minimums with hyperthreading. The same could happen with the I9 vs I7 8 cores here. I'm tight and wouldn’t spend the extra. But I did regret it (slightly) on buying I5 during the Sandybridge era.
Why I was favouring Intel now I'm hearing AMD.... I know AMD seem to be cheaper but Intel seem to be more common with gaming.
Gaming usually (usually) requires the highest single core performance possible.
This is why in 2016 AMD release an 8 core Ryzen chip, but still couldn't quite manage to price it higher than Intel's best 4 core chip.
You might wonder why the global price of 8 vs 4 core cared about a few game benchmarks?
They dont. Most workstation/business sofware is also bottlenecked on single core performance.
Daz is a prime example. Unless you are rendering animation, most of your own actual time is spent battling with the Daz editor (which gives no ***** about more than 2 cores currently). But it does depend on single core efficiency and mhz. And therefore you might question my 'advice' above about considering a 'temporary' AMD right now.
Caveat: Daz uses more cores when you begin a render before shifting back to 2 again. This can sometimes take a bit of time.
Or is it the live rendering preview mode ur talking about?
Yes
You said about the 1070 card being ok for rendering, but struggles with lack of grunt when trying to use Iray in the editor window itself? Can you give me a better explanation on this?
The normal performance bottleneck as described above is 2 core CPU grunt. Trying to use Iray in the editor turns this on its head back to GPU. I find it avoids having to test render for individual item changes, setting up initial scene lighting, testing converting old product materials to Iray. Its also mandatory for using Iray Decals. I want to make it clear you cant work on an entire scene in Iray in real time! Well, not with a 1070 :D The hope is that future RTX gpus and updated Daz sofware will allow real time rendering an editing. And maybe when that engine is changed, you might need more threads than an I7 9700K! Who knows?
Edit: Trying for a better explanation on 1070 performance:
Usually 8Gig does allow me on most scenes to render at 4x resolution (6880x2880) and then use GIMP to return it to normal res. Most renders I do like this are <10 minutes. To me this is nothing compared to what it used to be and I just leave the PC whilst its doing it. And hence why I have not yet upgraded my GPU this generation. What I do struggle with is the Iray in-editor performance... which I find awful on the 1070, but I find myself constantly having to deal with. I know many people may not use it at all! For people doing animation rendering performance is the be-all-and-end-all.
Holy heck I hate this forum's quote options. As you can see I gave up on it :(