advice for threadripper workstation build

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noktek

noktek

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I'm about to build a sort of entry level workstation PC and am in need of advice

main purpose is 3d rendering and illustration

Im a young professional who has been doing freelance as a part time thing and now im shifting towards making it my main source of income. I aim for a sweet spot on the medium/upper side of the price/performance curve.

I have little hardware knowledge and do not follow the trends for years until the time comes to upgrade and so i start doing a bit of research

My idea was to get a cpu with many cores, one strong GPU and my actual GPU will also be thrown in.

here my temporary part list:



CPU: AMD Threadripper 1950X (TR4, 3.4GHz, Unlocked)

big question: will Intel show up with a good comparable product really soon?

toughts: from my understanding this is a very convenient CPU if you work a lot with applications that make use of threads, which happens to be rendering and simulations like particles/fog/fluids..
What i aim for is two sort of real life scenarios:

1- i let the machine render using 16cores and 2 gpus,
2- Im working with 1 core and 1GPU and the other 15cores/1GPU are rendering at the same time in another instance of the app

this is because often the client is low on time and i cant afford to just not work while rendering... on the other side i dont feel im at the level yet where i need a renderfarm or alikes.

Cooler: Corsair Hydro H115i (5.10cm)
I dont feel really confident using water cooling but my friend told me those things are super easy to install and fool proof. Another friend of mine fucked his complete system by having oil spill over everything, so idk. toughts and opinions are welcome

MOBO: ASUS ROG STRIX X399-E GAMING (TR4, AMD X399, E-ATX)
No real tought here and i believe it is a very important component from what i understand.. so if anyone has suggestions you're welcome!

RAM: Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black 32GB 2-Kit (2x, 16GB, DDR4-3200, DIMM 288)
(the idea here is that i keep 2 slots empty in case i feel like i need to upgrade to 64)
((also i dont know if 3200mhz makes sense with my processor/mobo?)

HDD: Samsung 960 PRO (512GB, M.2 2280)
for apps and things im working on right now
HDD2: Seagate BarraCuda (3000GB, 3.5", Desktop)

GPU1: ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti STRIX O11G-GAMING (11GB)
this seems like the common choice.. another one would be a Radeon pro but they dont seem very competitive

GPU2: EVGA 780Ti SC
my actual gpu

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 (1000W)
not sure if 1000w would be enough to power it all? probably yes

DVD:ASUS DRW-24D5MT
because why not

here a link to the list/shop from which im buying all parts...
https://www.digitec.ch/de/ShopList/Show?shopListId=A4418F25B98D551F92EB62561F1B42DE

 
Solution
Lucky_SLS
U have opencl support in Radeon cards. But I don't know application specific. And yes, the x299 platform only gives you 44 lanes. So 3 cards at full speed(x16) mode is kinda tough with storage options too.
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noktek

noktek

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Whoops yes i also need a case :) thanks for pointing it out! I have no clue about which one yet... possibly all black without windows or anything.. also not too big
 
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Shektron

Shektron

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I would suggest you go with the Threadripper system, I don't think Intel will be competing at that level of the market any time soon. they will at some point, but there's not even rumors right now, let alone an actual product. As for working while rendering, that should be possible with all those cores. Even a Ryzen 7 1700 8 core processor is able to render videos and play games simultaneously, so using 15 cores for rendering and 1 core for working should be doable.

As for water cooling, you really have no other choice - Threadripper is a beast when it comes to performance, but it also consumes power like a beast does. And this higher power also means greater heat, so air cooling is almost completely out of question for cooling a 1950X. Get the best water cooler you can afford, you'll need it if overclocking.

Motherboard choice is great, wouldn't change that.

Keep the RAM as well, DDR4-3200 is fine.

As for GPU, one thing I'd like to point out is that only buy the 1080 Ti if the work you are doing is actually GPU-dependent. You don't need a 1080 Ti if your work wouldn't use its power, since I doubt you'll be playing games at 4K. So check the GPU-dependency of your work before buying that graphics card.

1000W should be enough, more than enough actually.

Edit: As for cases, an all-black window-less case? Corsair 300R to the rescue!

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/pFV48d/corsair-case-300r
 
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noktek

noktek

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thanks for the insights! also the case looks great, exactly what i was looking for! i saw its even available as "dampened" at my retailer, does that really reduce noise levels or its just marketing?

also about the ram, 3200mhz can be used or its a waste?

and about the GPU, yes, most of the rendering will be done on the GPU actually! "main" types of calculations are done faster on CUDA from what i understand
 
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Shektron

Shektron

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Don't really know about the dampening part, never heard of it before. But cases that come with built-in dampening are usually much more silent as far as I have heard.

I did a quick search, and Blender and Photoshop apparently don't benefit much from fast RAM. So I suppose you can go with slower DIMM's, but do keep in mind that Ryzen does like fast RAM.
 
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Lucky_SLS

Lucky_SLS

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This is what I would suggest :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16-Core Processor (€964.90 @ Caseking)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S TR4-SP3 140.2 CFM CPU Cooler (€79.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: ASRock - X399 Taichi ATX TR4 Motherboard (€366.88 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€279.36 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung - PM961 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€239.90 @ Caseking)
Storage: *Hitachi - Ultrastar 7K4000 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€76.29 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: AMD - Vega Frontier Edition 16GB Frontier Edition Video Card (€1079.90 @ Caseking)
Case: be quiet! - Pure Base 600 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (€67.75 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€114.90 @ Caseking)
Total: €3269.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-10-10 06:22 CEST+0200

Although for heavy cpu work tasks, I would recommend a monoblock and liquid cooling loop for the best performance/cooling/efficiency
 
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noktek

noktek

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thanks shrekton! that might be an area on which i can save some bucks

Hi Lucky_SLS, thanks for the suggestion!
I like how you managed to lower the total price!

I have a couple of questions:
-Why did you chose that GPU? what were your toughts? What do you think of a radeon duo?
-850W for PSU will be able to fuel both 780 and Vega? Any idea if its possible to use two cards of different manufacturers at the same time
 
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Lucky_SLS

Lucky_SLS

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That gpu is like the pinnacle of prosumer graphics from Vega architecture. I chose that cuz large files and high resolution textures and effects can be done with it effortlessly. If you are a content creator, the Frontier edition is a much better choice. The pro duo is more of a cad/model viewing gpu. Not a content creation gpu.

Although the tdp of the Frontier edition is around 300w and the threadripper at 180w, u can overclock both cpu and gpu and doing so will exceed both the limits. So I think a 850w psu is about right for your build.
And yes, it is possible to use 2 gpu at the same time, but for doing so requires special functionality like crypto mining or to put it in lay man terms, it should be provided by the software you use. In which case a 1000w psu should do the job.

And 1 more thing, the X399 setup is a quad channel memory mobo. So go with the 4 ram kit models to utilize it. You can't just pair 2 ram sticks now and the same 2 ram sticks later cuz quad channel kits are a bit different.

Rendering benefits with a bit of an overclock. So later when you can, get a monoblock and liquid loop to cool your cpu. In this regard, change the mobo to msi gaming pro carbon ac as it will definitely get a monoblock from ekwb. And like I said, overclocking far exceeds the tdp. So the 850w is the right choice.

Also, gpu support for 3d max https://pro.radeon.com/en/radeon-prorender-for-blender-and-solidworks-now-available/
 
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noktek

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I just googled a bit and apparently you cant render with both gpus if one is Nvidia and the other one AMD.. probably because cuda/opencl.. that seems to be a bit of a bottleneck on what i can chose? I guess i could probably wait for nvidias new GPUS and use only my 780 until then!
 
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noktek

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do you think this one would be ok?
https://www.steg-electronics.ch/de/article/Trident-Z-DDR4-64GB-Kit-4x16GB-3600MHz-CL17-23134979.aspx
or even this one that seems cheaper but out of stock
https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/corsair-vengeance-lpx-4x-16gb-ddr4-3600-dimm-288-memory-6079892

the point is it is really not that much more expensive than 3200, and i have a tendency towards "lets get done with it" in the sense that i dislike upgrading things later on.. also i keep reading threadripper really likes fast ram
 
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trevor_dennis

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I am an Adobe Community Professional and moderator on the Adobe forums. Your comment regarding Photoshop and memory speed is at odds with what then Photoshop Development Team Senior Scientist Chris Told us in a conversation a couple of years ago. At that time — and hardware has changed since then — Chris told us that memory speed was probably the biggest bottleneck for Photoshop. Photoshop is lightly threaded, and will even run slower with too many cores with some functions, so clock speed tends to score over lots of threads. We generally use the Puget Systems articles as a guide for best hardware for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, CAD, and the likes of 3DMAX Blender etc.

Good luck in your new career. Illustration can be so much fun and fulfilling, it can sometimes be hard to remember to ask folk to pay you for it.
 
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Shektron

Shektron

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I actually don't know if it does anymore or not - I checked two threads just now, and both seem to conclude that only RAM latency has an effect on render times in Photoshop. But considering that you probably know much more about Photoshop than I do, I'm guessing you are right then.
 
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noktek

noktek

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thank you for the pudgetsystem call, good webpage with clean and understandable explainations!
I've been reading that ryzens like clock speed and particularly so does the threadripper

anyway, im hesitating on which CPU to get for a couple of reasons mostly, biggest dilemma being socket survivability.
- If i go threadripper now, clockspeed is the drawback for daily work. i will want to upgrade to a higher clockspeed in a couple of generations, and apparently TR4 will stay around for a while. The extra cpu count is nice but i reckon i will be doing most of the rendering on GPUs, but not ALL the whole time.

- i could also get a coffee lake, which has added extra value of not having to worry about compatibility of corecount and also is probably much less of a hassle to set up. BUT apparently that socket will be abandoned in a generation or two, so no chance of a simple upgrade later in a couple years... considering the world of rendering is moving towards gpu rendering it could be worth speculating that i will never truly need a huge amount of CPU cores.

- another option would be a simple ryzen7. Higher base speed than the threadripper for one third the price, but less ghz than a coffeelake. 8 cores. Also involves the fact that the AM4 socket will see another 4-5years of life so it could be updated. to higher speeds.

So all in all im really having a hard time on deciding what to do.
 
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Lucky_SLS

Lucky_SLS

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Photoshop does indeed depend on clockspeed, but blender and premiere pro benefits with core count. And having quad channel memory is an added advantage too.
It's one of the reasons why I said you might want to consider overclocking ur system. Blender benefits from both clockspeed and core count. That's why a msi gaming pro carbon mobo which will get a ekwb monoblock, which if you ask me is the best way to cool the cpu and reduce thermal throttling in ur rig.
U can also go for the 8 core 1900X which would be around 300-350 bucks more than a 1700x setup for the added benefit of quad channel memory.
And on a side note, I don't have much experience with blender and ur work tasks in general, but having different render engine affects ur work significantly? Cuz the Frontier edition is much cheaper than the similarly spec'ed Quadro and if you can get by with the Radeon pro render plug in, u can save some cash there.
 
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noktek

noktek

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well different render engine means you kinda have to learn different ways to set up the materials and i wouldnt be comfortable with it. Also im trying to focus on becoming more efficient with vray as it is what most of studios around here work with that, so it would be added value on my portfolio. I dont know much about the Radeon pro render but i dont think it plays a huge role around here (geographically speaking)... SOmeone in another post mentioned 64PCIe Lanes and i dont fully understand what he meant with that, but i WILL have quite some GPUs attached.. (plan them to be 3 in a year)... Also i have discarded the frontier option because simultaneous rendering on multiple cards works only within either CUDA or OpenCL, and since i already own a 780SC....
 
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