Building a PC for V-ray render, realy need your opinions

cungquan

Prominent
Apr 17, 2017
8
0
510
So recently i ask for opinions to build a PC for GPU rendering with Xeon CPU, and master SYNPHUL helped me with this build:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($388.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($57.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X99P-SLI ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($204.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital RE4 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PNY Quadro K1200 4GB Video Card ($298.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Cooler Master MasterBox 5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($56.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.39 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1365.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-17 09:13 EDT-0400

I want to ask you guys about this build, is this the best for GPU rendering ( budget around 1000 ofc, master SYNPHUL aren't an expert about this)? Can i down prices at some part ?
 
Solution


cungquan,

If the budget can include the i7-6800K and X99 motherboard, that would be a superb combination. X99 consistently produces very good CPU performance. I much prefer LGA2011-3 to LGA1151 or AM4 as LGA2011-3 will support 40 PCIe lanes instead of the 16 of LGA1151 or 20 of AM4 and has quad channel memory and a much wider memory bandwidth. SYNPHUL wisely used 4X 4GB in the recommended system which completes one memory channel and that leaves slots to add another 16GB. Today, I consider 32GB necessary for a workstation. I use an HP z420 with 32GB of RAM and it would not run a VRAY 3180 X 2160 rendering of a large project. I transferred...


cungquan,

Overall a very good list, but I agree with Tech_TTT that for GPU rendering, the GPU should be stronger. My suggestion is the new Pascal Quadro P2000 5GB. There are not too many benchmarks- the three Passmark 3D scores are from 8800 to 9990 but on that basis, the P2000 appears to be a bit faster than an average GTX 980 Ti and just behind a GTX 1060. To compare, the average score for the K1200 is 3050.

The good news is that- if you can find one for sale, the P2000 is not expensive. I bought one last week for $430 (had a short back-order wait) and will have it on Thursday. This replaces a Quadro K4200 4GB (Passmark 5098).

A P2000 means adding about $130-140 to your costs, but in my view is well worth it. If the budget is a problem, there is a Quadro P1000 4GB. And at about $330, that also has very good performance for the cost. The P1000 Passmark scores range from 4200 to 4800.

However, if the goal is to reduce the cost, consider:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($188.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X370-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($158.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($104.99 @ Amazon)
GPU: PNY Quadro P1000 VCQP1000-PB 4GB Video Card ($330.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.89 @ OutletPC)
Case: Thermaltake Core V31 ATX Mid Tower Case ($65.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($56.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.88 @ OutletPC)

Total: $1109.59

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-18 04:19 EDT-0400

That is a 4-core, but if the rendering is GPU and not CPU-based, means that the stronger single-thread performance will benefit 2D graphics processing and 3D modeling.

But, for another $100 or so, the Quadro P2000 would be well worth stretching the budget.

I am very pro-Quadro- all the office sysyems have them- and there are good reasons to use them if you are 3d modeling with 3ds, Maya and etc, but if you can use a GTX, consider:

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING 6G 6GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card $255

< And that provide a very fast GPU with 6GB memory- more memory is better for GPU rendering- and will also reduce the overall cost to $1,034- quite close to the $1,000 goal.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 


cungquan,

If the budget can include the i7-6800K and X99 motherboard, that would be a superb combination. X99 consistently produces very good CPU performance. I much prefer LGA2011-3 to LGA1151 or AM4 as LGA2011-3 will support 40 PCIe lanes instead of the 16 of LGA1151 or 20 of AM4 and has quad channel memory and a much wider memory bandwidth. SYNPHUL wisely used 4X 4GB in the recommended system which completes one memory channel and that leaves slots to add another 16GB. Today, I consider 32GB necessary for a workstation. I use an HP z420 with 32GB of RAM and it would not run a VRAY 3180 X 2160 rendering of a large project. I transferred it to the office z620 that has 64GB and found that the rendering during setup needed 37.1GB of RAM, then settled back to using 18.7GB. That also ran all 16 cores of the z620 at 100% so I am also looking at GPU rendering for the first time! We are currently replacing the z420 with another HP z620 > E5-1680 v2 8-core@ 3.0 /3.8GHz, (which will run at 4.3GHz on all cores) /Quadro P2000/ and 64GB of RAM.

In this use, unless you are using programs that are well-distributed across multiple cores, a 6-core is a very good compromise. 3D modeling is extremely single-threaded- running one one core and the more cores, the lower the single-thread speed. This is so important, that users of Solidworks- which has the most well-distributed best CPU rendering are now running i7-7700K 4-core systems overclocked to 4.7-4.8GHz and as I've done, rendered on dual Xeon systems with many cores. In reaction to this trend, Solidworks has introduced Visualize which is GPU rendering. When our new system is ready, Visualize will have a trial.

So, if the i7-6800K X99 system is possible and with the Quadro P2000 that would be a very good system and overall have a better potential for expansion. If you added a second P2000, providing two GPU's and 10GB of memory, the results are said to surpass! the performance of the average Quadro P5000 16GB - up to a point in file size. The P5000 average Passmark 3D= 10575 but can run up to 14373.

> Keep in mind that LGA2011-3 is ending in the Autumn- 4-5 months, to be replaced by LGA2066.

_______________________________________________________________

OPTION:

Not to throw a wrench in the works, but on a budget, it's possible to have very good performance with very high reliability- and quiet running- by buying a used workstation.

HP Z420 WORKSTATION E5-1650V2 3.50GHZ 24GB No HDD Two Nvidia NVS 315 No OS > $499

In reasonable condition and has 24GB of RAM. This uses one of the best LGA2011 Xeons ever, the E5-1650 v2 6-core Xeon @ 3.5 / 3.9GHzA friend has a z420 with an E5-1650 v2 and he is running it on all cores at 4.3GHz, so that would not give up speed to the i7-6800K. Add a 250GB Samsung 850 Evo- $100, WD Blue 1TB- $50, and P2000 -$450 = $1100 (+ $45 shipping). The two Nvidia NVS 315 GPU's in that system are worth about $60 each, so the net cost could be near the $1,000 target.

These workstations have OEM windows 7 Professional 64-bit so you don't have to buy the OS as you would when building- saving $140. HP can send you a restore disk and when loading the HP Windows, it will automatically activate. The very good part of this option is that you don't have to order, assemble, wire, and configure it. I also like to use ECC RAM in a system used for rendering or simulation. These are extremely quiet-running.

Yes, obsolete technology, but 4GHz is 4Ghz
_______________________________________________________________

Cheers,

BambiBoom


CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card + Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >> 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14226 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 5077 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16] Single-Thread Mark = 2098 [3.24.17]
[Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1031cb / Single Core = 142 cb / OpenGL= 127.39 fps / MP Ratio = 7.24x] 3.2.17
[FryBench: 3:24 /Efficiency 2177.13] 3.11.17

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card + Logitech z313 2.1 speakers / 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16 Single Thread Mark = 1903
[ Cinebench R15: CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / OpenGL= 119.23 fps / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16
 
Solution

cungquan

Prominent
Apr 17, 2017
8
0
510
Sensei bambi, e5 1650 was the first come in my mind when build this PC but Synphul said if I pick 6800k I will save a bit of budget but still have the same things needed.
Mostly I work with 2000x 1500 rendering so that mean I don't need that lot of ram right ? Quite don't understand you said about 60$ nvidia, it mean i'll have 3 gpus run at the same time? The budget at my country gonna x1.5 so I think I'm gonna go with the cheapest as possible. Thanks a lot for your help.
One more thing, I just happen to touch the down vote your answer because of my phone, please dont mad at me sensei
 


cungquan,

Yes, the i7-6800K is a very good choice: LGA2011 processor and made to overclock. New, it costs $388 and a Xeon E5-1650 v2 cost I think $650 new, But today the 1650 cost about $250 used. The idea of the used workstation is that the parts have good performance and are designed and made to run a long time on heavy work.

I think 16GB is the minimum for a rendering system- although the GPU memory is more important . The rendering that took 37GB- for a moment was a 162MB Sketchup model with more than 6 Million faces. I made 2 or 3 faces more myself when I saw it crashed! But that rendering still used 18,7GB the whole time it was rendering. > But again, that is CPU rendering.

The $60 is the value of each of the Quadro NVS GPU's ithat you would have if you bought that particular used HP z420. I have bought quite a few used workstations and when I sell the parts that I will not use, it lowers the price of the workstation. For that HP, it means that 2X $60= $120 may be subtracted from the cost, so that HP actually cost $500-120= $380. It's difficult to buy a 6-core, 3.9GHz E5 v2 Xeon system with 24GB of RAM for $380. It might have cost $2,000 in 2013.

I'm sorry I didn't know that you were not in the US. It may be difficult to find such a good price elsewhere.

Thank you for the "best solution" vote. I am not deserving of "sensei," but that is very courteous-thank you.

Cheers,

BambiBoom