Animation Build Review

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leathamg

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Jun 27, 2014
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I have been doing research to build a budget animation computer. I already have a HDD, OS, and optical drive. I will be running Autodesk Maya as well as many Adobe products such as After Effects, Flash, and Premiere.

Here is the build I have come up with. I will eventually add an SSD for better performance. I'm thinking that my CPU is overpowered for the rest of the build and I honestly dont know if my RAM is good or not. As far as I can tell its the best at the price point on newegg. I read up on how to read RAM speed on here.

Anyways to avoid being to wordy on here any advice on these parts would be great.

Thanks in advance!

PS. My absolute max budget is $1000.00 but an under $900.00 build is ideal.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6WGvsY
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6WGvsY/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($205.66 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $845.61
 
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Skylyne
I do know that there are consumer GPUs that outperform the workstation cards, so your statement on that GTX 780 v. Quadro k4000 would not surprise me. Just trying to make sure you know what you're getting into ;)

Here's a link that holds the information I'll paraphrase/quote down below- Video card for a workhorse computer. In that thread, I have some links to benchmarks/etc., and there's some decent info about the 3-D rendering with AutoDesk programs using consumer cards. But, to summarise:

One of the users who responded to my questions about running a consumer card with AutoCAD (drinkingcola86) is running a 7950 with an AMD FX-8320. You may have lesser results by using an AMD GPU with an Intel CPU, instead of running an AMD GPU...
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Skylyne

Skylyne

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If this is all you're buying is the CPU, GPU, MoBo, RAM, PSU, and case, then passing that $900 mark will help you out. In reality, getting close to that $1,000 mark is going to start giving you optimum performance without scrounging around for costs. This is the build I would recommend:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($118.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($144.49 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB ACX Video Card ($329.98 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1003.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-02 04:22 EDT-0400

The Xeon 1231 V3 is a nice chip, but the performance is not worth undercutting yourself for ~$50. The 4790K will give you OC room, and is plenty fast at stock speeds. It's worth the extra money. If you want the best GPU for your money, the 970 is probably going to be it; however, it is not certified to work with Maya. The 690 and the Titan are the only consumer cards that are certified to work with Maya, which means you'll likely have a smoother performance if you were to use the 690, or the Titan (driver support/etc. makes a big difference). Just letting you know that GPU performance may not be smooth; the Titan is too expensive, and finding a new, quality 690 may prove to be a challenge. Any of the popular consumer cards will handle the rendering pretty well, but they won't be certified to work; so don't be surprised if it isn't a smooth experience.

I swapped out your RAM for the Fury 1866Mhz, which is just to save a few bucks; the performance increase from 1600 to 1866Mhz will not really be noticeable, unless you wanted to OC your memory. The MSI board gives you a better PCI 3.0 x16 configuration, and more USB 3.0 connections, for just a little less money; but the ASRock isn't a bad choice, if you prefer it. Unless you plan on running 3-way SLI in your tower at some point, the 750w PSU is pointless. It will not give you any efficiency, unless you start loading it up with multiple GPUs. The CX 500w will be more than enough to run a single GPU, and should be enough to run two 970's with SLI (with nothing overclocked). If you want to OC your hardware, a 650w should be plenty to OC your CPU and two 970's.

The Rosewill case you had just wouldn't give you much room to work with, so I'd go with the 300R. I typically recommend the 200R/300R depending on the build. From what I have seen, they're the most cost efficient for budget builds that house larger GPUs. I'm sure there is some other configuration that could fit your budget better, but this is the best I could come up with. $3.43 over max budget should be okay, if you go with this build ;)
 
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leathamg

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As far as I can tell Intel and Nvidia is better for doing animation/modeling as well as running the Adobe apps. What do you guys think? Is there something that I'm overlooking?
 
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Skylyne

Skylyne

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Well, the best computer for animation would be a workstation; but that will cost you more money. Building a gaming rig will save you money, but you'll lack GPU stability with Maya. It's a give and take. The 970 will give you superior performance to the 760, especially for the extra spent, but again... until you know how Maya runs with a consumer GPU, you won't really know if it's going to be worth the extra.

When I asked a guy how AutoCAD runs with his GTX card, he said the performance was not really smooth, but it did render quite well. I don't know how Maya handles its rendering, but I have heard that AutoDesk does support the use of CUDA cores. You might want to consult some Maya users who have consumer/gaming GPUs rendering their animation projects.
 
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leathamg

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I've been running maya on an almost 6 year old system but it finally died on me I know as far as modeling goes it does just fine on consumer cards. From my research the only advantage to using a workstation card at least at the lower end is more accurate colors in rendering. This card ASUS GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5 G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 780 3GB 384-Bit GDDR5 out performed the quadro k4000 card by a lot.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Have you talked to anyone that uses AMD CPU's and/or Radeon graphics cards. I've been googling stuff but most of the articles I can find are from 2010 and 2011 the newest being from 2012 so any input you could give me would be great!
 
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Skylyne

Skylyne

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Sep 7, 2014
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I do know that there are consumer GPUs that outperform the workstation cards, so your statement on that GTX 780 v. Quadro k4000 would not surprise me. Just trying to make sure you know what you're getting into ;)

Here's a link that holds the information I'll paraphrase/quote down below- Video card for a workhorse computer. In that thread, I have some links to benchmarks/etc., and there's some decent info about the 3-D rendering with AutoDesk programs using consumer cards. But, to summarise:

One of the users who responded to my questions about running a consumer card with AutoCAD (drinkingcola86) is running a 7950 with an AMD FX-8320. You may have lesser results by using an AMD GPU with an Intel CPU, instead of running an AMD GPU with an AMD CPU (this is how it works in gaming, but I'm not sure about 3-D rendering), so keep that in mind.
I run a 7950 for my AutoCAD and it is a very great performing card. I would look towards something like the 760 or r9 280. From what i've seen in reviews, which is limited, the r9 280 is better in the 2d side and the 760 is better in the 3d side of autoCAD.
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Well All i can say is that I run a AMD 8320 and a 7950(r9 280). I've done quite a bit of 2d and 3d with it and have yet to notice any slow downs or issues with rendering. Compare that to the work stations at the school i teach at, They run Xeon 2620v3 and a firepro card. 3d rendering is done quicker when my gpu can take over but within autocad, very rarely does it let that happen. I've had to off load to 3ds max or inventor to pull the video card into the mix.
Click to expand...
Then he said this about performance...
So I made a simple 3d image with AutoCAD and created a center light. What I saw from my computer running was intermediate usage of the video card during the render process. popping up to the 950 core speed and 1250 ram speed. my processor was at 100%. What this is telling me is that my video card is getting partially utilized during the process.
Click to expand...
From what I can gather, and from reading the new and old lists of supported GPUs, from various AutoDesk programs, it seems like the NVIDIA cards have the edge, for consumer cards. I remember reading somewhere that AutoDesk was implementing CUDA core support (a forum person said this, not an official release), but I've seen the list of supported consumer cards shrink over time, for both NVIDIA and AMD; so I don't know what overall conclusion I should draw just yet.

I would say, if you want to get a consumer GPU for animation, the NVIDIA cards seem to have the 3-D rendering performance edge over the AMD cards. The GPU does not appear to be utilised 100% with the AMD cards, but it might be with the NVIDIA cards; that is something I've yet to hear about, or read about. Personally, I wouldn't spend extra on an AMD card for an uncertain outcome, especially since AutoDesk programs are not my main focus point. However, if animation is going to be this computer's primary use, I would definitely consider going the 970 route for its cost/performance ratio. Everything that I've dug up is mostly in relation to AutoCAD, but it is made by the same company who makes Maya; so take it with a grain of salt. Most of the people using these programs in a professional setting aren't working with consumer grade hardware, due to hardware support; so you might have a lot of difficulty finding real answers.

The benchmarks I've seen, when comparing consumer cards to workstation cards, don't seem to take anything other than synthetic performance into account. Rendering performance doesn't mean too much, in the grand scheme of things, when some of the cards being tested may have compatibility issues. If a consumer GPU outperforms a workstation GPU, but the hardware compatibility prevents it from being utilised completely, then you won't see that 'better' performance when using the software. You have to keep in mind that synthetic benchmarks don't give you a real-world comparison. In that case, you may be better off with a workstation card, depending on the cost.

Hopefully that helps a little bit.
 
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