need help building 3d workstation/gaming

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
Hi guys,

I'm building a workstation, mainly character modeling ( zbrush, photoshop and 3ds max ).
With my new pc i'dd really like to get into photorealistic rendering, most likely using Vray/zbrush,
but my major program is Zbrush, so that needs to run as smooth as possible with as many polygons as possible.

But, i also like some gaming, and that's where i really get stuck; making a setup specifique for one is not a problem, but something that works good for both is far beyond my knowledge.

I don't need a pc that can run all top games in the next 5 years on ultra, but just as much as possible while sacrifising as little as possible for my work. if that's even possible.

so if pc genuises could help me out a bit on this one, that would be greatly appreaciated.

some more info:

-3k euros
- no OS, keyboard/mouse or screen

thanks alot!

if you need any more info just ask and i'll reply as fast as I can
 

Scoutdrago3

Distinguished
Sep 27, 2013
648
0
19,160
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£260.99 @ Dabs)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.28 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming GT ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£213.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£114.08 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 295X2 8GB Core Edition Video Card (£1127.15 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 900D ATX Full Tower Case (£263.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£89.40 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive (£10.78 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £2158.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-14 09:52 BST+0100

It is well below your budget, but it is still probably among the most powerful builds you will find. Especially with that really strong 295X2. The Motherboard can be upped but I thought that you wouldn't really need that many features, although if you would like a better Motherboard, I can recommend one for you. YOu cant really go wrong with your budget. Also I didn't understand if you meant that you had a keyboard monitor and OS or if you didn't have one.
Hope I helped :)
 
Solution

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
wow mate, thanks alot!

now, most important, howmuch do i loose in comparison to a full 3k workstation? is it a big difference?

and how is the gaming going to be?

also added some extra info

Approximate Purchase Date: Asap

Budget Range: 3k euros

System Usage from Most to Least Important: sculpting, rendering, modeling then gaming

Parts Not Required:I don't need a keyboard, OS, mouse screen or speakers, will buy those seperate

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: doesn't matter, belgium/holland has loads of online hardware stores so i'll scoop around there

Country: Belgium

Parts Preferences:

Overclocking: don't even really know what it does
SLI or Crossfire: really don't know what this is

Monitor Resolution: 2 screens for working, 1 for gaming, the higher the beter

Additional Comments: i love you guys for doing this for me
 
morthlock,

In my view, it's difficult to have a great workstation that is also very good for gaming, but the healthier the price limit, the greater the possibilities.

Given the demands of rendering, animation, and 3D modeling, the best platform is LGA2011, which has double the memory bandwidth of LGA1150, almost double the PCIe lanes, and can use 4,6,8,10,and 12- core CPU's which also often have more cache than LGA1150. The Xeon E5-1650 v2 has I think an extraordinarily good cost/ performance ratio. It's not strictly necessary, but for long slogs in rendering and effects processing, I'm inclined towards liquid CPU cooling.

ECC RAM - and a great pile of it is essential for artifact-free rendering and textures. The E5-1650 V2 supports 1866 speed and having 32GB is useful to run several big applications at once.

Many applications that are industry standards by Autodesk and Adobe are best run on NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards. The workstation cards, on the whole are not brilliant at gaming, as the drivers are configured for image quality instead of frame rates, but the Quadro K4000 (3GB) has quite high 3D scores in Passmark Performance Test- in the 2800+ range- and that test I believe is slightly weighted to gaming performance. Plus, with a workstation card there is the viewport support, 10 bit color (with the approriate monitor), multiple lighting sources, and x64 and even x128 anti-aliasing that I think is essential in rendering textures properly.A lot of rendering is changing from CPU to GPU- and autodesk and Adobe both use CUDA accleration. In that realm, the Quadro K5000 (4GB) is, in my view, the best all-rounder available with 3D scores similar to GTX 770 and can run a pair of 2560 X 1440 27" monitors effectively. And, 1,534 CUDA cores is an advantage good number. The K4000 has 768. Expensive, but I think a K5000 could be useful for years and years and ought to run games however you like. Only a future with multiple 4K monitors would necessitate changing. If you're a bit adventurous, consider buying a lightly used Quadro K5000. I've had eight used Quadros since 2003 and never a failure even after years of use. I've sold most, but, a 2004 Quadro FX 580 (512MB) is still being used and runs AutoCad 2007, Adobe CS3, and Solidworks 2010 perfectly well. In about a year, when used K5000's are $900 or so in the US, I'm having one!

There is no dedicated soundcard listed. I've had very good results with M-Audio cards with MIDI capabilities.

Anyway, here is a system idea:

BambiBoom PixelCannon Modagraphanimatarific Blazomatic iWorkarama TurboScream 9000 ™££££#©™_6.14.14

[Prices are from Amazon.UK]

1. CPU > INTEL Xeon E5-1650v2 6-core 3.5 / 3.9GHz LGA2011-0 12MB Cache Tray CPU > £594.18

2. CPU Cooler > Hydro Series; High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler; 120mm fan; 2000RPM; 54CFM; 2.36mmH20; 30.85dB (CW-9060007-WW) > £67.96

3. Motherboard> Asus Z9PA-U8 Server Board (Socket 2011, C602-A PCH, 8x DDR3, S-ATA 600, 2x USB 3.0) > £222.59

4. RAM > Kingston ValueRam 32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3 ECC REG Single Rank x4 DIMM Memory Kit (4 x 8 GB) > £266.83 )

5. GPU > NVIDIA PNY Nvidia Quadro K4000 3GB Kepler Graphics Card > £575.00

5 ALT. > PNY Nvidia Quadro K5000 Kepler Graphics Card > £1,509.42

6. HD 1 > SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) > £89

7. HD 2> Western Digital Black WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200RPM SATA3/SATA 6.0 GB/s 64MB Hard Drive (3.5 inch) ) > £100 56

8. PSU> Corsair CP-9020054-UK RM Series RM650 80 Plus Gold 650W ATX/EPS Fully Modular Power Supply Unit > £83.98

9. Case > Lian Li PC-6B Midi Tower Chassis > £79.99

10. Optical Dr > LG BH16NS40.AUAR10B 16x SATA Internal BD-RW Retail Kit > £64

11. OS > Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (Full Version) - OEM > £100


TOTAL = £2,245 with Quadro K4000 , £3,160 with Quadro K5000


Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]

Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]

2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text > Architecture, industrial design, graphic design, written projects


 

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
wow, thanks again,

anyway, with the K4000 it still leaves me with 200 euro spare, anywhere I can put it to good use?

think i'll be going with your spec, but there is one last thing, upgrades,

I will try to keep updating this system for as long as possible instead of buying a new pc every few years, can that setup give me that?

and again, thanks alot

 

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
well, the gaming part isen't that imlportant, especialy graphic wise, would just be nice if i could play all games on medium for a few years, if quadro can deliver that, i'm happy
 



morthlock,

If I were spending a bit more on the new system, and to direct the specification towards keeping the system longer, by fay, the best use of the + Eu 200 would be to consider :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-PNY-Nvidia-Quadro-K5000-4GB-GDDR5-PCIe-x16-Video-Card-Free-Shipping-/271429424247?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3f32745477&nma=true&si=w7zsyvE9daczXyZX60lOmroTEyM%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

> which is a completed listing for a new Quadro K5000 for £701 or the cost of a new K4000 plus £126. This card would be fantastic for 8-10 years- possibly the next two systems and also really good for games.

Otherwise, consider a higher quality, more interesting case. Such as:

CC-9011035-WW - Corsair Obsidian 750D Black Full Tower case Aluminium Steel with Side Window 3x140mm Fans USB 3.0 E-ATX/ATX w/o PSU >£124.88

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair-obsidian-750d-black-full-tower-case-aluminium-steel-with-side-window-3x140mm-fans-usb-30-e-a

Yes, quite big, but that makes assembling the system easier, the great air flow improves cooling, and room for many drives, plus a bit quieter.

If I were building a new system, [which would have 2X Xeon E5-2643 v2, 64GB RAM, Quadro K5000, 5X 2TB HD's in RAID 1+0] I would use

Lian-Li PC-D8000 £271.00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lian-Li-PCD8000-PC-D8000/dp/B0096FNIJ0/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1402776840&sr=1-5&keywords=computer+case+lian+li

> and add a front panel temperature monitor and fan controller. Even bigger, but useful for a dual Xeon system with more HD's, which might become the next step for your uses, especially if you change to 4K.

On the subject of Quadros for gaming, our friend Scoutdrago3 may have been correct four years ago that they are not good for gaming, but modern Quadors are quite strong in DirectX as well as OpenGL. See>

How Well Do Workstation Graphics Cards Play Games?
By Igor WallossekMarch 3, 2013 9:10 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/workstation-graphics-card-gaming,3425.html

But this test does not include either the K4000 or K5000. I would say that the K5000 might perform similarly to the Quadro 6000. The difference in performance is that the Quadro drivers try to fully render every frame in high antialiasing. When I run Passmark Performance Test using the recent Quadro 4000, the game simulation section of the test runs at up to 145fps whereas the 4 year old Quadro FX 4800 runs this test at 108fps. As Quadros can run GeForce Drivers, but not the reverse, I think it might be possible- although I've not seen it- to have a dual boot system in which one OS boots to the Quadro drivers for work- and all the applications would be in that partition, while a second partition contains the OS running GeForce drivers and with the games. I think that for this to work, there would have to be dual boot rather than only selecting the driver. Just an idea, but in any event, I think the higher end Quadros can run games reasonably and especially the Quadro K5000 would be really quite good.

Cheers,

BambiBoom
 

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
ok, thanks man, going to go with your advice, thinking of just going with the K4000 and getting a ps4, with the bigger case, for further upgrades.

you guys have been an awesome help, keep up the good work! :)
 

morthlock

Reputable
Jun 13, 2014
8
0
4,510
ok so i've been looking over this some more and posted on some more forums, and came up with some changes to the original system.

Cpu -- the Xeon is a bit to expensive compared to the i7-3930k or i7-4930k, which are ranked nearly the same or even beter

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

cpu cooler -- i actually rather not go with watercooling, just don't like the idea of having a leak destroy my system.

motherboard - many people adviced me against going with a server board, especially since Zbrush, my main program is still stuck on 32bit, so that is way to much ram ( according to them)

gpu -- after talking/ reading alot i decided not to go with the quadro, mainly because most of my work is game related, so i'll need loads of real time shaders power, and i'm using cryengine quite alot, which won't really benefit from a quadro. so, olmost everyone told me to go with GeForce GTX 780 Ti, 770 or 780 and i don't really see wy not?

everything else seems to be fine, but do i still need such a big case?

again, i'm still a big noob at this, so i could be completly wrong, but it's alot of money and i rather be safe then sorry ;P