Need a new PC

Hello WATMM-

 

I need a PC that can handle a lot of 3D modeling and rendering and CAD and Revit. I have a great little macbook pro which is nice, but it doesn't run rhino (well, it runs a shitty mac version) and it certainly does't run grasshopper which I need to know and use for work. Revit doesn't exist for mac and AutoCAD is in some bullshit mac version layout which isn't the PC version argh.

 

Now dual-booting is a thing that exists, but I have about 400 gb of music on my 500 gb hd so it wouldn't be a very functional dual boot and also fuck dual booting.

 

Anyway, I've used macs at home my entire life, (my parents bought the first mac in 1984 - that's what i was trained on) so i don't even know where to look.

 

So advise me watmm basement dwellers and pc dorks - A cheap pc workhorse desktop that can handle complex 3D rendering and a big harddrive so I can put my music on it. I'm imagining the specs i need it won't be that cheap. I also need a nice fairly large monitor.

 

What processor? How much ram? good graphics card?

Dell? Lenovo? Asus?

 

 

help me

 

thanks - d-lo

 

edit: while I am a lifelong apple user - I'm by no means a sycophantic apple piece of shit and find lots of things highly unacceptable about their products, just like PCs, so this thread is not about making those sort of comments, thank you

Edited November 2, 2014 by dr lopez

those are some very intense apps from what i understand, so you kinda need the best your money can buy. how much do you have to spend on it?

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

 

 

i used this to build a £1100 computer and was really happy with it.

  On 11/2/2014 at 4:29 PM, eugene said:

those are some very intense apps from what i understand, so you kinda need the best your money can buy. how much do you have to spend on it?

i'm not sure - hopefully not more than $1800?

well that's enough money to get a great all around pc for games and such, but i really have no clue how do those programs you mention work. i mean how cpu and gpu intensive they are? how much ram do they typically use? it's important to know because that way you'll know where to invest more and where to cut, if those programs use no gpu acceleration then you can invest more in cpu than in gpu for better performance and save some cash on power supply as well. seems like you need advice from people in your field rather than general pc techs.

 

reading the pc requirmenets on this page (http://www.rhino3d.com/new/admin#system?PageSpeed=noscript), they recommend nvidia quadro cards and amd fire ones, this is a a very different world from what the sites like messiaen linked are dealing with.

ok cool that's good to know - i'm kinda in the dark about these hardware questions but this is getting closer to understanding what i need. thanks!

this page is on it too: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/hardware-requirements-and-suggestions

 

basically the decision whether to invest in a better video card or cpu is depndand on how you typically use those programs as well.

  On 11/2/2014 at 7:24 PM, dr lopez said:

 

  On 11/2/2014 at 4:29 PM, eugene said:

those are some very intense apps from what i understand, so you kinda need the best your money can buy. how much do you have to spend on it?

i'm not sure - hopefully not more than $1800?

 

You can build a PC capable of handling your needs with flying colors for around 1200-1500$ if you aren't afraid to put it together yourself.

  On 11/2/2014 at 8:37 PM, Audioblysk said:

 

  On 11/2/2014 at 7:24 PM, dr lopez said:

 

  On 11/2/2014 at 4:29 PM, eugene said:

those are some very intense apps from what i understand, so you kinda need the best your money can buy. how much do you have to spend on it?

i'm not sure - hopefully not more than $1800?

 

You can build a PC capable of handling your needs with flying colors for around 1200-1500$ if you aren't afraid to put it together yourself.

 

i've never done this and to be honest i'm a little afraid of doing it - how hard can it be? that's an honest question

 

or maybe there is a nice easy primer to building a computer that one of you PC heads know of that explains all the relevant information?

Edited November 2, 2014 by dr lopez

i'd buy it in parts and pay the place you're buying it from to put it together for you if you've never done it before. usually doesn't cost that much extra.

that said i am incredibly handy and well trained on assembling things - just not computers ;)

its really not hard to build, took me three hours and a couple of youtube videos and ive never done it before. everything still works perfectly 6 months on.

Hi,

 

I built a desktop with these sort of architectural/3D modeling programs in mind in 2010 and I'm still using it today without really any problems. However, I'm not an expert and some of my information may be outdated as I don't use these programs frequently anymore. You might consider posting on an architecture forum too or checking the forums on a site like tom's hardware for workstation build suggestions. Loads of pc building stuff is geared towards gaming, sometimes there is design oriented discussion. Regarding buying components it can be helpful to read reviews, especially for workstation/enterprise class components like the gpu to get a sense of how well they're working for ppl. Sometimes ppl will also post their full build in the review so you can use those as a reference for the whole system. Not trying to spam a retail site, but in my experience newegg.com has these sort of reviews. Youtube also has lots of stuff relating to putting a desktop together so it's helpful to watch those if you've never assembled a system before. CPU/Mobo socket compatibility is a main concern as well as avoiding a bottleneck with unbalanced components and adequate power supply.

 

Afaik the gpu is best for dealing w/ complex geometry whereas the ram and multicore processors are more useful when it comes to rendering, i.e. the more cores you have the faster the rendering process will be. AMD is better for more physical cores at lower prices, whereas intel has hyperthreading.

 

Personally I went with a six core intel cpu, 12gb of RAM, which is nothing today, nVidia quadro 4000 gpu, 1200w psu which is overkill and at least a 128gb ssd hard drive which you'll want as your boot drive and for installing programs on. You can buy large capacity sata drives to store music etc. on because they're much cheaper.

 

Originally I was going to go for a Xeon which is configured more for workstation/stability applications, but it was too expensive so I just went with a core i7 which also has more potential for overclocking, but generally for these sort of things stability is more important.

I went with the nvidia quadro 4000 at the time, but it runs very hot so I had to later make some case adjustments. nVidia workstation cards were preferable at the time because they take advantage of CUDA. It was ideal to get ECC Ram but again it was too expensive for the amount I wanted so I got DDR3.

  On 11/2/2014 at 9:11 PM, dr lopez said:

 

i've never done this and to be honest i'm a little afraid of doing it - how hard can it be? that's an honest question

 

 

If you know how to use Google, it shouldn't be hard at all.

 

A reminder: check for compatibility issues. You don't wanna find out your GPU doesn't work on your motherboard once it's been delivered

Edited November 2, 2014 by ThatSpanishGuy

i point you again to the site that i posted on the second post, useful for all the compatability jibba jabba and telling you what the best pieces for your cash are.

  On 11/2/2014 at 11:52 PM, messiaen said:

i point you again to the site that i posted on the second post, useful for all the compatability jibba jabba and telling you what the best pieces for your cash are.

yeah thanks mang, but that looks like a thing for gamers more than professional users w/e - but it was helpful

pcpartpicker.com allows you to input all the equipment you plan to purchase and will notify you of any compatibility issues. Socket 2011 is supposed to be better for your purposes than 1150.

Edited November 3, 2014 by AdieuErsatzEnnui

I do the same sort of work and build my own PCs.

I would recommend:

an Intel 6-core CPU (great for rendering, AMD chips have more cores, but overall performance is still lower)

32GB of RAM (really helps with huge 3D scenes and having many files open at once)

a 512GB SSD

a 2-3TB HDD (for music/media/backups/etc)

an nvidia GTX 770 video card (the Quadro and "workstation graphics" cards are rather a ripoff IMHO and my "gamer" card can handle 3D scenes with 10's of millions of polygons well enough)

 

If you don't want to dive into building it yourself, you should look for a system with specs like those.

  On 11/2/2014 at 10:06 PM, dr lopez said:

that said i am incredibly handy and well trained on assembling things - just not computers ;)

 

One fun thing you can do is look at the new Mac Pro with the highest specs, and match those specs to your own build.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2014 by skibby

get one of the new 5K iMacs and bootcamp it if required.

  On 11/3/2014 at 12:19 AM, Hodorsbn said:

I do the same sort of work and build my own PCs.

I would recommend:

an Intel 6-core CPU (great for rendering, AMD chips have more cores, but overall performance is still lower)

32GB of RAM (really helps with huge 3D scenes and having many files open at once)

a 512GB SSD

a 2-3TB HDD (for music/media/backups/etc)

an nvidia GTX 770 video card (the Quadro and "workstation graphics" cards are rather a ripoff IMHO and my "gamer" card can handle 3D scenes with 10's of millions of polygons well enough)

 

If you don't want to dive into building it yourself, you should look for a system with specs like those.

 

Have you ever monitored your GPU using gpu-z during heavy workload to see if you max it out? It might be helpful for dr. lopez if you do. If it doesn't get maxxed out then getting a 770 would really lower the cost of the build and make getting a nice socket 2011 6 core a lot easier. Otherwise he may need to grab a 780/ti, and if you're going to spend the money on a 780 ti you might as well go another 100 bucks and get a 980 imo just to be top of line.

  On 11/3/2014 at 8:28 PM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

 

  On 11/3/2014 at 12:19 AM, Hodorsbn said:

I do the same sort of work and build my own PCs.

I would recommend:

an Intel 6-core CPU (great for rendering, AMD chips have more cores, but overall performance is still lower)

32GB of RAM (really helps with huge 3D scenes and having many files open at once)

a 512GB SSD

a 2-3TB HDD (for music/media/backups/etc)

an nvidia GTX 770 video card (the Quadro and "workstation graphics" cards are rather a ripoff IMHO and my "gamer" card can handle 3D scenes with 10's of millions of polygons well enough)

 

If you don't want to dive into building it yourself, you should look for a system with specs like those.

 

Have you ever monitored your GPU using gpu-z during heavy workload to see if you max it out? It might be helpful for dr. lopez if you do. If it doesn't get maxxed out then getting a 770 would really lower the cost of the build and make getting a nice socket 2011 6 core a lot easier. Otherwise he may need to grab a 780/ti, and if you're going to spend the money on a 780 ti you might as well go another 100 bucks and get a 980 imo just to be top of line.

 

 

probably a GPU meant for 3d rendering would be better. like a quadro or the amd equivalent, the ones in the garbage bin mac pro?

What is the difference? More multi-tasking less horse power?

like, I'm looking at some quadro cards. They have less cuda cores, the same memory type, and boast benefits like running 4 displays but these are all things gaming cards can do now. It's gotta do with something about the caches and processing speeds.

Oh I see. The maximum resolution is much higher.

 

Maximum DP 1.2 Resolution 3840 x 2160 at 60Hz (direct connect)
Maximum DVI-I DL Resolution 2560 x 1600 at 60Hz
Maximum DVI-I SL Resolution 1920 x 1200 at 60Hz

It depends if this is more a student or junior designer/artist's home pc to learn on and maybe do preliminary renders on vs. a truly "professional grade" system that's going to be under stress 5 days a week for a couple of years. Adieu, check this video, notice he mentions error correction (ECC) and more software-specific drivers. BTW this enterprise grade stuff applies to other components not to just the GPU. It can probably be more of a longer term investment, but in the end it's certainly not mandatory.

 

 

Lopez, this isn't a must right away but at some point it will really be a good idea to buy a serious UPS for the desktop because no matter what you end up doing, even if you have a top of the line psu, you have to brave unexpected outages, brownouts, voltage fluctuations and if you're working on something critical it will be beyond shit to lose something or corrupt files.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Croeso i Croton