Time for a new PC quandry...Yes...it's that time again, to get a new PC. From the helpful Forum here, and Pilgway's Tutorials, I have come up with the following conclusions about what a "good" PC would be when using it for 3DCOAT:

[Voxelapocalypse]

Yes...it's that time again, to get a new PC.

From the helpful people here in the Forum, and Pilgway's Tutorials,

I have come up with the following conclusions about what a "good" PC would be when using it for 3DCOAT:

*It should have 16 GB Ram or more,

*It should have 2-4 VRAM,

*It should have CPU Multithreading,

*It should be NVIDIA CUDA compatible.

*It should have at least Intel GTX 600 (Kepler Architecture) Series Cards or more,

*ASUS Motherboards are reputable.

Is this accurate?

Am I missing anything?

Can you have too much of a Power Supply?

(Say your build would be covered with a 850 Watt Power Supply, would using a 1200 Watt Power Supply be a good or bad idea and why?)

Solid State -OR- RPM Drive?

(I hear Solid State is more reliable because of no moving parts to break, but it has some limitations the RPM does not.)???

Here is the PC I have an eye on, but am still undecided:

__________________________________________________________________________________

VELOCITY MICRO ProMagix HD80

Asus P9X79 WS Workstation Motherboard

CPU: Intel Socket 201 for 2nd generation Core i7 Processors

supports Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0

CHIPSET:

Intel X79

MEMORY:

8x DIMM, Max. 64 GB, DDR3 2400(o.c)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz

ECC, Non-ECC Un-Buffered Memory

Quad Channel Memory Architecture

Supports Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)

*Hyper DIMM Support is subject to the physical characteristics of individual CPUS.

MULTI-GPU SUPPORT:

Supports NVIDIA n4-Way SLI Technology

Supports AMD Quad-GPU CrossFireX Technology

2GB NVIDIA Quadro 4000 by PNY

32GB Patriot DDR3-1600MHz Memory (4x8GB)

Single Intel Xeon E5-2620 Processor, hexa 2.0GHz cores 15 MB L3 cache

850 Watt Corsair Power Supply- NVIDIA SLI Certified

______________________________________________________________________________________

...This Model is stated as being:

"Perfect for studio musicians...video editors in need of rendering muscle,

or CAD designers tired of waiting on their latest 3D masterpiece."

It was listed under "Media & CAD Workstations"

_______________________________________________________________________________________

My priorities of what I will use the PC for are more or less:

1) 3D Sculpting in 3DCOAT/GIMP

2) Video editing

3) Video Gaming

4) Music editing

So, does this sound like a good buy for me?

I wanted to get a 3 or 4 GB Video Card, but the total cost as described is just over $3000.00 and that is my ceiling.

I think the 32GB Memory will compensate for only having a 2 GB Video Card...or is that wrong?

Any thoughts and help is really appreciated...Thanks!

[AbnRanger]

Intel CPU rather than an AMD (although I have always liked AMD's for giving plenty of bang for your buck...turns out, just not in 3D Coat). The multi-threading code in 3D Coat is based on Intel's TBB library, and that tends to give Intel CPU's a very noticeable performance advantage. And believe it or not, the NVidia GTX 500 series work better in 3D Coat than the 600 series. I had to sell the GTX 670 I had and buy a used 580 on eBay. Why? Cause Nvidia crippled the CUDA performance a bit in the Kepler series. The 580 CUDA performance is on par with the Nvidia Titan. I also found a really nasty limitation with the 670, that doesn't exist on the Fermi Cards (GTX 400-500 series). When you have wireframe toggled on in the voxel room, anything over 1mill poly's tend to choke the viewport performance. As soon as you toggle out of wireframe, it's fine.

I asked Andrew to contact his NVidia rep about it. They said they would try to address it in an upcoming driver...but I didn't have months to wait on that to happen, if ever. They also dropped the Memory bus size. In Blender's Cycle's GPU renderer (using CUDA) benchmarks, the 580 is still king, for these reasons.

[wave of light]

Intel CPU rather than an AMD (although I have always liked AMD's for giving plenty of bang for your buck...turns out, just not in 3D Coat). The multi-threading code in 3D Coat is based on Intel's TBB library, and that tends to give Intel CPU's a very noticeable performance advantage. And believe it or not, the NVidia GTX 500 series work better in 3D Coat than the 600 series. I had to sell the GTX 670 I had and buy a used 580 on eBay. Why? Cause Nvidia crippled the CUDA performance a bit in the Kepler series. The 580 CUDA performance is on par with the Nvidia Titan. I also found a really nasty limitation with the 670, that doesn't exist on the Fermi Cards (GTX 400-500 series). When you have wireframe toggled on in the voxel room, anything over 1mill poly's tend to choke the viewport performance. As soon as you toggle out of wireframe, it's fine.

I asked Andrew to contact his NVidia rep about it. They said they would try to address it in an upcoming driver...but I didn't have months to wait on that to happen, if ever. They also dropped the Memory bus size. In Blender's Cycle's GPU renderer (using CUDA) benchmarks, the 580 is still king, for these reasons.

That sort of information should be stickied somewhere. Good to know and a money saver too.

Do you know if this bug has been passed to the 700 range?

Edited July 15, 2013 by wave of light

[Voxelapocalypse]

I asked Andrew to contact his NVidia rep about it. They said they would try to address it in an upcoming driver...but I didn't have months to wait on that to happen, if ever. They also dropped the Memory bus size. In Blender's Cycle's GPU renderer (using CUDA) benchmarks, the 580 is still king, for these reasons.

Thanks AbnRanger.

 

I found this post in another forum...veeeeery interesting.

 

"Basically the 6XX cards suck at double precision floating point operations (math stuff) that you need for 3D work and scientific calculations (it can be as bad as 1/8th the performance). They're generally slightly better than the 5XX at single precision math, but not enough to be worth going with one over a 5XX card if you need the double precision math performance.

I suspect that the 5XX nVidia cards were so good at GPU acceleration, that they were cutting into sales of the Quadro ($$$$) cards.

As they were providing 80% of the performance for 20% of the cost.

So somehow, the 6XX cards wound up essentially crippled in ways that meant they were useless for a lot of the Pro applications that the Quadros were aimed at."

 

(@Tonymacx86.com  Forum posted by ggeorge on Sept 11 2012)

Edited July 15, 2013 by Voxelapocalypse

[wave of light]

Thanks AbnRanger.

 

I found this post in another forum...veeeeery interesting.

 

"Basically the 6XX cards suck at double precision floating point operations (math stuff) that you need for 3D work and scientific calculations (it can be as bad as 1/8th the performance). They're generally slightly better than the 5XX at single precision math, but not enough to be worth going with one over a 5XX card if you need the double precision math performance.

I suspect that the 5XX nVidia cards were so good at GPU acceleration, that they were cutting into sales of the Quadro ($$$$) cards.

As they were providing 80% of the performance for 20% of the cost.

So somehow, the 6XX cards wound up essentially crippled in ways that meant they were useless for a lot of the Pro applications that the Quadros were aimed at."

 

(@Tonymacx86.com  Forum posted by ggeorge on Sept 11 2012)

 

Figures. It always comes down to money.

 

Just looking on ebay now and there's a gtx 580 going for cheap... may give it a punt.

[AbnRanger]

 

That sort of information should be stickied somewhere. Good to know and a money saver too.

 

Do you know if this bug has been passed to the 700 range?

No, I don't. I just happened to stumble upon that issue by personal experience. Nividia has taken a strange approach over the last few generations. Instead of increasing the memory bus size, as one would expect. They've drastically reduced it. It was 512bit in the 200 cycle, 384 in the 400-500 cycle, and now 256bit in the 600 series. The GTX 770 and lower, are just enhanced 600 series versions (GK 104) with a 700 series moniker. The 780 and the Titan are GK 110's. They brought the Memory bus back up to 384bits, where the 580 was, but the 780 still loses a lot of CUDA performance tests to the 580. So, I would have to advise sticking with a GTX 400-500 series if that is what you have....unless you happen to be a serious gamer, playing on the same machine where 3D Coat is installed. Maybe wait until the next generation and see if they don't improve in the CUDA area (# of CUDA cores don't really mean much, as they have gone to more in number but far less productive).

 

The Nvidia rep Andrew link me too, sounded embarrassed about what they did with CUDA in the Kepler cards, and seemed to imply they would try to correct that in the future. Who knows?

[AbnRanger]

Figures. It always comes down to money.

 

Just looking on ebay now and there's a gtx 580 going for cheap... may give it a punt.

ALWAYS try to go for the ones with the Dual or Triple Fan cooling. The reference design models (one centrifugal fan toward the rear of the card, and plastic encasing) are always hotter and louder. What's more is, most of the models with aftermarket cooling installed from the factory are also overclocked from the factory. They have higher yield components and better quality capacitors. They keep your card much cooler and much, much quieter. In fact, unless you are overclocking the card manually, and raise the fan speed to 80-100%, you won't hear the fans at all.

 

Also, if you can, go for the 3GB model. If you texture paint with large maps, you will probably want the extra VRAM, and if you use a CUDA accelerated renderer, like Blender Cycles, the extra VRAM will be of great benefit. MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE, GALAXY, EVGA and PALIT usually have these types of models with Aftermarket cooling

[wave of light]

No, I don't. I just happened to stumble upon that issue by personal experience. Nividia has taken a strange approach over the last few generations. Instead of increasing the memory bus size, as one would expect. They've drastically reduced it. It was 512bit in the 200 cycle, 384 in the 400-500 cycle, and now 256bit in the 600 series. The GTX 770 and lower, are just enhanced 600 series versions (GK 104) with a 700 series moniker. The 780 and the Titan are GK 110's. They brought the Memory bus back up to 384bits, where the 580 was, but the 780 still loses a lot of CUDA performance tests to the 580. So, I would have to advise sticking with a GTX 400-500 series if that is what you have....unless you happen to be a serious gamer, playing on the same machine where 3D Coat is installed. Maybe wait until the next generation and see if they don't improve in the CUDA area (# of CUDA cores don't really mean much, as they have gone to more in number but far less productive).

 

The Nvidia rep Andrew link me too, sounded embarrassed about what they did with CUDA in the Kepler cards, and seemed to imply they would try to correct that in the future. Who knows?

 

 

No, no serious gamer here.  I mainly do 2D design, with 3D taking up about 10% of my workload. I use 3DC mainly for texturing, when required, but want to get more into the sculpting, character design side of it.  My machine is about 5 years old now, so I'm saving for a new rig, and unless I go down the Octane renderer route, then a second-hand gtx 580 sounds a lot better than spending loads on a 700 or Titan (from a 3DC point of view that is).

[wave of light]

ALWAYS try to go for the ones with the Dual or Triple Fan cooling. The reference design models (one centrifugal fan toward the rear of the card, and plastic encasing) are always hotter and louder. What's more is, most of the models with aftermarket cooling install from the factory are also overclocked from the factory. They have higher yield components and better quality capacitors. They keep your card much cooler and much, much quieter. In fact, unless you are overclocking the card manually, and raise the fan speed to 80-100%, you won't hear the fans at all.

 

Brilliant advice, thanks AdnRanger. I see a couple of GigaByte gtx 580s with three fans... errrm.

 

Sorry for the hijack Voxelapocalypse... back to your rig.

Edited July 15, 2013 by wave of light

[ajz3d]

Does this HD80 computer comes with HDDs and operating system?

$3000 seems to be way, way too steep price for such a unit. Especially, when it comes without SSD and with Xeon E5-2620 which isn't the fastest one out of hexacore processors. Even Quadro's 4000 price cannot justify 3000 bucks. That's crazy.

[AbnRanger]

This one is about to close....current bid 197....steal. Dual fans. Super Overclocked from the factory....really good model

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-580-DS-Superclocked-Edition-1-5-GB-GDDR5-/281134109260?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item4174e6124c

[ajz3d]

AbnRanger, I was considering purchasing Fermi 580 with 3GB in December, but a new one costed around $600 and that was way more expensive than the price of 670 4GB at the time. There were several second-hand 580's available for $400 on the market, but you never knew who used it, and how intense the usage was (overclocked?), so you also never knew how much would it last after purchase. Does some manufacturers still produce those cards now?

[AbnRanger]

Here is another one...a 3GB model for only 220? I thought I got a good deal a few weeks ago when I paid $300.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-GTX-580-/161053531020?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item257f89db8c

[ajz3d]

The above I'd surely consider if I was in search of a card. 220 bucks is like 60% less than what I'd have to pay in December for a similar one.

Especially when it's a triple fan Gigabyte. They're almost silent.

Edited July 15, 2013 by ajz3d

[AbnRanger]

AbnRanger, I was considering purchasing Fermi 580 with 3GB in December, but a new one costed around $600 and that was way more expensive than the price of 670 4GB at the time. There were several second-hand 580's available for $400 on the market, but you never knew who used it, and how intense the usage was (overclocked?), so you also never knew how much would it last after purchase. Does some manufacturers still produce those cards now?

No, you can't buy them new anymore. There are a lot of eBay retailers that charge ridiculous prices on there, and they simple don't sell. I personally would not worry about them lasting. The Overclocked cards are made with the highest quality components, to be able to easily withstand higher clockrates. Most will leave their cards running at the factory set level and if they overclock at all, it's just during gaming sessions. They generally have a minimum of 3yr warranties, too. Some have 5yr and others lifetime.