$7-10,000 budget, help me choose some parts!

aabeba

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Aug 14, 2014
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I'm saving up some money over the summer for a PC that I'd like to use both for gaming at 1440p and 4K and for work in programs like Houdini, Maya and ZBrush. I'm still in the learning stages, but I'd like the computer to be powerful enough a few years later, when I'm doing more demanding work (mostly character modeling and animation).

At a budget of around $7-10K, should I run with an enthusiast i7 or Xeon CPU, and a Titan Black SLI config or a Quadro? Is the 880 worth waiting for? Does anyone know how overclockable the 5960 X will be with its 3.0 base clock? Any tips and reasoning appreciated.
 
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Steel_Nugget

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Titans are probably the way to go for a gaming, and productivity build since they do both well, I'm not sure how Quadros do in gaming but I'd guess not good enough for 1440p. Then for CPU I think you should get that Intel 6 core with 12 Threads.
 

dylanblood

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Ultimate computer:
2x EVGA Hydro Copper Liquid Cooled NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan Z Dual GPUs 12GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16
1xIntel® Core™ i7-4820K Quad-Core 3.70 GHz 10MB Intel Smart Cache LGA2011 Superclocked
1xASRock X79 Extreme11 EATX w/ Creative Sound Core3D, THX Tru Studio Pro, Dual GbLAN, 7 Gen3 Pcie x16
All cooled with a Special Custom high pressure fan with Small ammounts of cooling gel being sprayed trough.

1. small Rectangular body
2. Connect the fan to far bigger end of the cone and putt a small spray at the pointy end (can be bought by a local shop)
3. Connect the cone to the side of the body
4. it would be Smart to add a plastic (or something like that) plate to the body

what i did was getting the NZXT phantom full tower and cut the back end off and strech it out a bit, then connect the metal frame to the end.

All this can be in your budget if you are smart...
 

aabeba

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Thanks for the feedback. Setups seem fine, but what I really want to know is - will a 10-core Xeon offer me anything more than faster render times when compared to a 6- or 8-core i7, and how big a project do you need to be doing to fill up 4, 6 or more GBs of RAM in Maya, say? If a 3GB 780 Ti or 4GB R295x2 is sufficient memory-wise, what, in real world performance terms, would a Titan Black provide me while using these programs?
 

aabeba

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By the by, does anyone have any numbers comparing viewport performance of a high-end consumer card (780 Ti, Titan Black/Z, R295x2) and workstation card (high-end Quadro or FirePro)? When does double-sided shading need to be enabled/what difference does it make?
 

Steel_Nugget

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I have no experience in these types of video cards. I just know (Or was told) that Titans are made to do both productivity, and gamings so that would be the closest.

 

Amencerment

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If you're seriously looking to build something do do what you want just do this. I work with media, programming, imaging, Adobe CS Cloud & Master Edition. Plus some gaming for fun. I can run Maya, Soft Image, 3DMax, and AutoDesk.

This system is designed to separate all uses.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ThzHqs

The Samsung SSD's are only for OS, Drivers, and operating software (not running programs)

The Sandisk SSD's are for the programs 1 (regular programs) 2 Media, Editing and Animation) 3 Games.

All the Velociraptors are for data saving. I have a 500x2 and 1tb in my setup and it works great so I mimicked that. The 500gigs are for the normal programs and Adobe Software, and the 1tb is for Media.

This uses 3 27" 1440p monitors that will work perfectly.

The system is $7500 + Tax if you're in California. Now you can get more with the resolution but to make it work flawlessly you will drop the 3 monitors for 3 $2200 4K Asus, and using a 2nd Asus Radeon R9 295X2 8GB so you will have to add another $8,500.00 to make a flawless 4K system. Asus and Microsoft did this and this is what it took to make 4K work flawlessly. So it takes $15,000+ for a 4K system with 3 monitors, or $7,500.00 for a 1440p system that is VERY, VERY freaking outstanding.

I am debating on this exact system to replace my outgoing one.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($338.99 @ NCIX US)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.70 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($238.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($439.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($172.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($172.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Extreme Pro 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($172.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital VelociRaptor 500GB 3.5" 10000RPM Internal Hard Drive ($128.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital VelociRaptor 500GB 3.5" 10000RPM Internal Hard Drive ($128.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB 3.5" 10000RPM Internal Hard Drive ($213.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 295X2 8GB Video Card ($1499.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1350W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($294.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($79.99 @ Best Buy)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional (32/64-bit) ($170.99 @ Adorama)
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor ($478.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor ($478.99 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Asus PB278Q 27.0" Monitor ($478.99 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 FLX 68.0 CFM 140mm Fan ($22.70 @ Mwave)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 FLX 68.0 CFM 140mm Fan ($22.70 @ Mwave)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 FLX 68.0 CFM 140mm Fan ($22.70 @ Mwave)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm Fan ($18.97 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm Fan ($18.97 @ Amazon)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm Fan ($19.99 @ NCIX US)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm Fan ($19.99 @ NCIX US)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm Fan ($19.99 @ NCIX US)
Fan Controller: NZXT Sentry Mix 2 Fan Controller ($27.72 @ Amazon)
Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K95 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Mouse: Logitech G502 Wired Optical Mouse ($79.99 @ Amazon)
Speakers: Logitech Z906 500W 5.1ch Speakers ($306.99 @ Amazon)
Other: CaseLabs MAGNUM TH10A ($719.95)
Other: Swifttech CPU Water Loop Cooler ($269.95)
Other: IO Crest SATA III 4 Port PCI-e 2.0 x1 ($31.99)
Total: $7481.15
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-16 16:31 EDT-0400

There you go, let me know what you think...
 

aabeba

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Aug 14, 2014
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First off: thanks for the response, man, that's a sweet list. Couple questions:

That's one of the monitors I would have gotten, I heard it's sweet as hell, but do I need 3 of them and are you sure a single 295 can run them smoothly at 1440p? Wouldn't 2 be enough?

Why is that case so expensive, what makes it so special? It looks really customizable but is it worth the price?

Are there so many separate disks because [I've heard] you can't partition SSDs? Is there any RAID going on/possible in this setup or would I need a RAID controller?

Is that a custom cooling solution? Nothing I found on PC Part Picker was above like $180.

Do I really need 1866 RAM? I'll be waiting for DDR4 anyway, so we'll see how that turns out. From what I've seen, though, 90% of gamers go for 1600, and almost all workstations I've seen have a crapload of 1333 MHz memory.

You sure a 6-core wouldn't be better if I overclock it? The Devil's Canyon runs like a Ferrari, but I doubt my single core CPU perf would bottleneck any game running at 1440 or 2160p, not to mention what an 8-core 5960x could do for rendering.

Shouldn't I be picking a MB with 64-gig RAM support? If I intend on using this thing for 3-4 years minimum I might need more in future (but I don't know what for; I'm just spitballing).

Finally, are you sure a pair of Titans wouldn't be better overall? 500 bucks I can spare added to the price, but they'd match the 295 in games and [allegedly] be much better for everything else.

Please bear in mind I'm new to all this and have never assembled a computer myself. I know this sounds like a lot of money to spend on something I'll technically be experimenting on putting together, but I'm confident I'll manage with a little help from all the tutorials on available on YouTube and elsewhere. If it's custom cooling, though... I'd really
 

Amencerment

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That's one of the monitors I would have gotten, I heard it's sweet as hell, but do I need 3 of them and are you sure a single 295 can run them smoothly at 1440p? Wouldn't 2 be enough?
A) I use this setup Acer S271HL, Dell U2713HMT and Samsung Syncmaster 2494hm.
B) 2 monitors are enough for sure, but if you have the power to run 3 it does start to make a big difference and I don’t mean for gaming. (although for gaming it is neat) Once you get used to working with multiple program platforms, using 2 monitors never feels like enough, but you could get a 40” media monitor (and I don’t mean a TV) that will run around $6,000
C) That card is the 8gig monster, the absolute graphic calculating beast. I run 1 1440p, and 2 1080p monitors on an Asus 6970 2 gig and I have no problem. This card is built to complete eyefinity with a minimum of 3 monitors. It should not have a problem.

Why is that case so expensive, what makes it so special? It looks really customizable but is it worth the price?
A) Yes that case is expensive but it is the most customization case you can find. You pick the parts that work for you. In the price I have in that system is it set up for what I would be doing with it. The case starts at $519.00 and I customized it for media use.
B) Caselabs as a company makes some of the best cases in the world. With the equipment I picked out, you could fit it in the CaseLabs Merlin SM8 starting at $399.95 and expand when needed. Check out their site http://www.caselabs-store.com/

Are there so many separate disks because [I've heard] you can't partition SSDs? Is there any RAID going on/possible in this setup or would I need a RAID controller?
A) I separate all my programs per disk by what I will be doing. It makes the system run VERY fast when running multiple programs.
B) I always have my OS running on 2 disk in RAID 0 on SSD’s that will never contain a working program, just the OS and drivers and system monitoring software.
C) You can for sure run a raid setup, but for me I keep all data away from programs and all programs away from OS. This is why there are 8 disks but not in a RAID setup. I currently run 9 disks, I will be downsizing on the next build. It is all a matter of taste, but I would still keep OS, Programs and Data always on different disks. And I added a RAID controller.
D) You could Raid the DATA, but in reality would only give jumps in read/write unless you did it as a security backup. But for that I have 3 NAS systems separate of my computer.

Is that a custom cooling solution? Nothing I found on PC Part Picker was above like $180.
A) Everyone always talks about the H100i and how good it is, and it is a really good cooler. But I prefer the big boys. http://www.swiftech.com/h2o-x20-edge-hd.aspx this link will bring you to the closed loop system. This is not a custom build it is a fantastic if not one of the best closed loops made. The one I placed in the system is the 120 triple. The extra 3 120 Noctua fans are to be added to the bottom of the rad to complete a push pull configuration. That is allot of cooling power and not going complete custom. Overclock away…

Do I really need 1866 RAM? I'll be waiting for DDR4 anyway, so we'll see how that turns out. From what I've seen, though, 90% of gamers go for 1600, and almost all workstations I've seen have a crapload of 1333 MHz memory.
A) 1866 will become the base soon as 1600 has been for a very long time, plus the MOBO is designed with 1866 in mind. AND it can be clocked very high. With dominator ram you have many options of going nuts. And having 32gigs at your fingertips means multitasking without worry of lag in some very compute hungry programs. Raytracing and 3d mapping can bog a system down.

You sure a 6-core wouldn't be better if I overclock it? The Devil's Canyon runs like a Ferrari, but I doubt my single core CPU perf would bottleneck any game running at 1440 or 2160p, not to mention what an 8-core 5960x could do for rendering.
A) When it comes to the newer stuff, yes it is always going to be better. I would happily have replaced the CPU, MOBO and ram in this system for x99 setup. The reason why I did not is because the parts are not available and as I set this up for stuff you can by today at this very moment.
B) I am not a big fan of the extreme stuff as charging $800.00 more for a 2 multiplier boost never made sense to me. If you know how to OC without destroying stuff you can get allot out of a chip. Although if you really want to unlock some power, dual xeon setup is a way to go, but you are starting to get down to double the equipment and double the price. But the tradeoff of computing power is not designed for “Gaming”.
 
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