Looking to build a computer specifically for DS

I looked around in the forums and didn't find this, I'm sure its hanging around but I was probably using the wrong search terms. Forgive me.
My current machine works great for everything else, but my IRAY renders take too long for my liking. I need to constantly test render things as the viewport often 'lies' about what the end version will look like. When a test render of a 2x2 inch area takes several minutes, fine tuning is hellish, especially since I am still trying to learn what each slider does. What sort of specs am I aiming for for maximum performance and quality? What part matters most, the video card or gpu? Lets play and pretend that I have 2000.00 to spend on motherboard, cpu, and video card!

Comments

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805

    What matters most is the graphic card. You need a GTX or RTX card or Quadro or Titan card from the last couple of generations of Nvidia microarchitectures.

    Render speed is strictly a matter of CUDA count. The amount of VRAM, which increases with CUDA count inside each generation of cards, determines whether a scene can be rendered on the GPU at all. If you run out of VRAM it drops to CPU which is incredibly slow.

    For $2k, if all you really care about is iray rendering then you'd be best off with the 2080ti, that would leave you about $800 for the rest of the system which is doable.

  • LenioTGLenioTG Posts: 2,116
    edited May 2019

    The video card is the GPU! :D
    It's the most important component, here you can see how powerful each model is: https://www.cgdirector.com/octanebench-benchmark-results/

    I won't bore you with the explanations, also because I've said the same things a thousand times xD (ask if you want to know something :D), assuming you're in the US (like the majority of Daz users), here's a build I've prepared for you for around 2000$ (I mean that I've made it for you, I don't sell anything, I'm from Italy xD):

    https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Bp38pG

    NEVER cheap out on the rest: you'll probably change your GPU before anything else, while you'll keep the rest.

    EDIT: have you set "Display Optimization" to "Best"? Maybe your PC is already good enough. By the way, what hardware does it have?

    Post edited by LenioTG on
  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437
    edited May 2019

    I'd recommend to keep a separated card for the viewport. With your 2K budget there's no limits that I can see. But I'd keep a good performance/price ratio anyway. You could get a i7-9700K or a TR 1920X with a 1650 for the viewport and two blower 2070 for rendering. Unfortunately pcpartpicker doesn't seem to allow more than one video card so I can't make a full list but you can get the idea.

    https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Padone/saved/4sBjpg

     

    EDIT. The threadripper is good for multi-gpu because it provides three full 16x pcie and quad-band ram. That's why the four ram modules in the rig. Plus this is good for out of core rendering too if you like to play with octane or cycles other than iray. In this case 64G ram would be more fun.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,760

    Honestly, depending on what 's in your computer right now (if it's a desktop/tower), you might want to keep most of the system.
    Add a new Video Card (Geforce RTX 2080 ti)
    New Power Supply (600W or more)
    More RAM (Bring it up to at least 32GB)

  • Mr ScottMr Scott Posts: 51

    Its all about the graphics card. That is what is important. The rest of the computer only needs to be good enough to run the card and that mostly means having enough of a power supply. Secondary reqiremmet would be enough RAM to run DAZ, which now would probably be 32 GB.  

  • LenioTGLenioTG Posts: 2,116
    JamesJAB said:

    Honestly, depending on what 's in your computer right now (if it's a desktop/tower), you might want to keep most of the system.
    Add a new Video Card (Geforce RTX 2080 ti)
    New Power Supply (600W or more)
    More RAM (Bring it up to at least 32GB)

    Yes, I've made that build but I tend to agree.

    We need more info, simply! :)

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:

    I'd recommend to keep a separated card for the viewport. With your 2K budget there's no limits that I can see. But I'd keep a good performance/price ratio anyway. You could get a i7-9700K or a TR 1920X with a 1650 for the viewport and two blower 2070 for rendering. Unfortunately pcpartpicker doesn't seem to allow more than one video card so I can't make a full list but you can get the idea.

    https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Padone/saved/4sBjpg

     

    EDIT. The threadripper is good for multi-gpu because it provides three full 16x pcie and quad-band ram. That's why the four ram modules in the rig. Plus this is good for out of core rendering too if you like to play with octane or cycles other than iray. In this case 64G ram would be more fun.

    This is crazy overkill for Daz. You don't need x16 PCIE slots for cards you're just using for Iray rendering. x1 slots are fine, There are many people running far more than 3 cards using PCIE risers.

    TR is only useful if you render 3Delight or some other CPU renderer. Quad channel RAM isn't at all relevant in the case of Daz. quad channel means the CPU has twice as much bandwidth to the RAM over dual channel but Daz doesn't do a lot of CPU intensive things during an Iray render. The CPU simply hands the job off to the GPU and that transfer is never going to be slower than reading the drives, unless you've gone the x1 PCIE route and even then you'll likely have enough GPU's to keep up with SATA or NVME drives.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437

    This is crazy overkill for Daz. You don't need x16 PCIE slots for cards you're just using for Iray rendering.

    I agree. But that rig is ready for out of core rendering if you like to play with octane or cycles other than iray. Because OOCR requires full 16x slots and fast memory access. And as you say the TR is good for 3Delight and cpu rendering in general. That is, it's more a general purpose overall rendering rig. Since the budget was 2K for cpu and gpu only I felt to "overkill" a little cheeky

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:

    This is crazy overkill for Daz. You don't need x16 PCIE slots for cards you're just using for Iray rendering.

    I agree. But that rig is ready for out of core rendering if you like to play with octane or cycles other than iray. Because OOCR requires full 16x slots and fast memory access. And as you say the TR is good for 3Delight and cpu rendering in general. That is, it's more a general purpose overall rendering rig. Since the budget was 2K for cpu and gpu only I felt to "overkill" a little cheeky

    When Iray is a consideration you want the best GPU possible. That's the 2080ti in that price range. A single 2070 is just pointless, at that price point.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437
    edited May 2019

    A single 2070 is just pointless, at that price point.

    In that rig there are two 2070 for rendering and one 1650 for the viewport. Since I was looking for a good price/performance ratio anyway. I mentioned that in the previous post. It's pcpartpicker that doesn't allow more than one video card.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:

    A single 2070 is just pointless, at that price point.

    In that rig there are two 2070 for rendering and one 1650 for the viewport. Since I was looking for a good price/performance ratio anyway. I mentioned that in the previous post. It's pcpartpicker that doesn't allow more than one video card.

    2 2070's and a 1650? What part of 2k budget did you miss? That adds $650 to the rig you posted. IOW $2275.

    Once you're spending $1150 for GPU's you may as well get the 2080ti for the extra VRAM and rely on an APU or IGP for viewport if that really matters to you that much. Plenty of people do without a seperate viewport GPU, I do.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437

    2 2070's and a 1650? What part of 2k budget did you miss?

    The OT said "pretend that I have 2000.00 to spend on motherboard, cpu, and video card", so it's not for the entire rig. If you sum up the cpu + cooler + mobo + ram + 2x 2070 + 1x 1650 it's about $2000.

     

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:

    2 2070's and a 1650? What part of 2k budget did you miss?

    The OT said "pretend that I have 2000.00 to spend on motherboard, cpu, and video card", so it's not for the entire rig. If you sum up the cpu + cooler + mobo + ram + 2x 2070 + 1x 1650 it's about $2000.

    I'm pretty sure that means the guy intends to reuse RAM, drives and case not that he has an unlimited budget for other parts. Your build would require him to buy at least a new PSU. BTW an 850W PSU for 3 GPU's? The GPU's you added are 425W TDP plus the 180W for the CPU plus the 100W or so the drives, RAM, fans and chipset will consume, minimum, puts your power budget at 705W. That's an 80% load on brand new components. Realistically you want something more like a 1200W supply for such a build which the guy would dfeinitely not already have.

    A single 2080ti remains a better choice. I still don't understand why you think such an expensive rig should be so limited in what its supposed to do.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437
    edited May 2019
    puts your power budget at 705W .. Realistically you want something more like a 1200W supply

    That's not what I see around .. Any power calculator will keep around 120% the max TDP, So 850 over 700 seems good there .. Indeed that's what is recommended by the power caculator for those parts. Of course that's without overclocking.

    https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

    https://www.evga.com/power-meter

    https://www.msi.com/calculator

     

    EDIT. updated the psu calculator list for anyone interested.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:
    puts your power budget at 705W .. Realistically you want something more like a 1200W supply

    That's not what I see around .. Any power calculator will keep around 120% the max TDP, So 850 over 700 seems good there .. Indeed that's what is recommended by the power caculator for those parts. Of course that's without overclocking.

    https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

    NO! 80+ efficiency PSU's, which are all the decent ones, are most efficient at 50% load. I do not care one little bit that you found a PoS calculator that says otherwise. Running at 80% will waste more power and generate more heat. That shortens the lifespan of the PSU and potentially other components in the system. Further at 80% load new that basically guarantees problems down the line when your PSU and other components ages and completely ignores component variance.

    This sort of crap is why people burn out systems. Always pick the best 80+ rating you can afford, bronze, gold etc., and aim for double your systems draw in wattage.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437
    edited May 2019

    This sort of crap is why people burn out systems. Always pick the best 80+ rating you can afford, bronze, gold etc., and aim for double your systems draw in wattage.

    I don't know .. The psu calculators should be reliable. That is, they already take into account the max workload and uptime. The max TDP is not the wattage the cards will draw under normal conditions. It is a max TDP, not a nominal TDP. For example, my 1060 works at 100% load with about 60% max TDP. So getting a 120% max TDP psu should be safe afaik.

    That's without overclocking, otherwise things change of course.

     

    1060.png
    420 x 568 - 19K
    Post edited by Padone on
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:

    This sort of crap is why people burn out systems. Always pick the best 80+ rating you can afford, bronze, gold etc., and aim for double your systems draw in wattage.

    I don't know .. The psu calculators should be reliable. That is, they already take into account the max workload and uptime. The max TDP is not the wattage the cards will draw under normal conditions. It is a max TDP, not a nominal TDP. For example, my 1060 works at 100% load with about 60% max TDP. So getting a 120% max TDP psu should be safe afaik.

    That's without overclocking, otherwise things change of course.

    You don't know but I do. Any PSU calculator that tells you to go over about 60% rated load of the PSU is a fail.

    Once again all 80+ rated PSU's, except bare 80+ ones which are 80% efficient across the board, are most efficient at 50% load.  on a 850W 80+ Gold PSU the difference between 50% and 80% is a 3% change in efficiency, 90% versus 87%.

    For simplicity I'll assume a draw of 850W at both efficiencies just to keep things simple. At 90% the PSU would draw 944W from the wall with 94W of heat produced. At 87% that would 977W from the wall and 127W of heat produced. For a neglible price difference compared to that much power saved and that much additional heat produced which would you really rather have?

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,437
    edited May 2019
    Any PSU calculator that tells you to go over about 60% rated load of the PSU is a fail.

    And I understand that. But what I'm telling here is different. That is, the max TDP is not the nominal power. In my example above the nominal power of my 1060 at 100% load is 60% the max TDP. And the psu calculator tells you to get 120% the max TDP, that's 200% the nominal power. This leaves the psu working with an average 50% load that's fine.

    If you assume the max TDP to be the nominal power then you over-estimate the needed psu wattage.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Padone said:
    Any PSU calculator that tells you to go over about 60% rated load of the PSU is a fail.

    And I understand that. But what I'm telling here is different. That is, the max TDP is not the nominal power. In my example above the nominal power of my 1060 at 100% load is 60% the max TDP. And the psu calculator tells you to get 120% the max TDP, that's 200% the nominal power. This leaves the psu working with an average 50% load that's fine.

    If you assume the max TDP to be the nominal power then you over-estimate the needed psu wattage.

    TDP is the device under full load, according to the manufacturer. I have no idea how you're loadingthe card or measuring draw but I'll believe Nvidia over you.

    Always build rigs with a correct power supply not what you think.

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