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.

[ajz3d]

This whole talk about video cards makes me think that we should, as a 3D Coat community, have some benchmarking scene for testing performance of various configurations. I think that videos from those tests would be a lot of help for people that are after an upgrade of a certain component for their rig or even whole computers.

[wave of light]

Wow.... 3GB MSI GTX 580 Twin Frozr II - £179

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3GB-MSI-GTX-580-Twin-Frozr-II-4008MHz-GDDR5-GPU-771MHz-Shader-1710MHz-512-Co-/130937167564?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item1e7c769ecc

Edited July 15, 2013 by wave of light

[AbnRanger]

This whole talk about video cards makes me think that we should, as a 3D Coat community, have some benchmarking scene for testing performance of various configurations. I think that videos from those tests would be a lot of help for people that are after an upgrade of a certain component for their rig or even whole computers.

I think that might not be so easy to quantify, as everyone will have different CPU's, Memory speeds/quantities. The only real way to tell is when you switch one for another on your own system. Just knowing that the GTX 580 is the best CUDA card shy of buying a Titan, and the issue I was having on a 670, tells me all I need to know, pretty much.

[AbnRanger]

Wow.... 3GB MSI GTX 580 Twin Frozr II - £179

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3GB-MSI-GTX-580-Twin-Frozr-II-4008MHz-GDDR5-GPU-771MHz-Shader-1710MHz-512-Co-/130937167564?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item1e7c769ecc

Pretty sweet. You can't buy a better model than MSI's Twin Frozer or the Gigabyte card with the WIndforce cooling on it. They are always at the top of the class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta8pHp_guqQ

[ajz3d]

I think that might not be so easy to quantify, as everyone will have different CPU's, Memory speeds/quantities. The only real way to tell is when you switch one for another on your own system. Just knowing that the GTX 580 is the best CUDA card shy of buying a Titan, and the issue I was having on a 670, tells me all I need to know, pretty much.

 

I can't see why. Some configurations will be fairly similar to each other, some will differ a lot. It doesn't really matter. If database of those tests is large enough, meaning it would contain almost every possible variation of PC configuration and users would post complete lists of their systems, a person who is looking for a new rig could easily decide what's best for him within his current budget just by looking at the videos. If... they are recorded with the same piece of software or with the same encoder - that's the disadvantage of the idea, but there are certain codecs that utilise Quick Sync, so they barely use any of modern CPUs' processing power.

[Voxelapocalypse]

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

no...no...this is all uber informative.  

[Voxelapocalypse]

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.

It comes with Windows 7 and a 1 TB 7200rpm SATA 300 w/NCQ...

You can choose optional HDDs or SSDs (see attachment)

 

I was afraid of paying too much for stuff I really may not need or is overpriced...    

 

I mean, can I get a good build for doing 3DCOAT for around $2000.00?

Honestly 3000.00 is too high for me...

[ajz3d]

For example, after several months of doing research on different forums and sites, on December, for ca. $2200 (not sure how the price would look now) I got a:

    - Corsair CMPSU-750AXEU (modular - no hassle with unnecessary cables - meaning tidy case and good air circulation)

    - i7 SB-E 3930K 3.2MHz, 12MB L3 cache (it's 3.2MHz vs 2.0MHz of Xeon's). Multi-core capability is used in baking, but not in sculpting. So it's really worth to have as fast processor as possbile. 3.2MHz against 2.0MHz probably means a lot.

    - Noctua NH-D14 - LGA2011 (I'm not sure if there's a better cooler for socket 2011. Probably not. It's huge though, so it won't fit just any case)
    - Asus P9X79 Pro motherboard (the most significant difference between this mobo and the WS one is that Workstation (WS) supports Xeon processors. About more differences you can read in appropriate www.anandtech.com articles)
    - G.Skill RipjawZ DDR3 4*8GB 1600MHz CL10 (F3-12800CL10Q-32GBZL).
    - Gigabyte GTX660Ti 3GB, though of course you'd probably want to buy a Fermi card. But it's not that Keplers are that bad. They get the job done for me without problems. Do keep in mind that Fermis use much more power than Keplers, so a better PSU might be needed. I found that the video card is the MOST IMPORTANT component when sculpting in 3D Coat.I ordered the new card after putting my rig together and for some time I've been working with an old 9800GTX and the performance was almost no different than on my old rig (Quad Core Q9300, 8GB DDR2).

    - IBM SSD 520 180GB. Good write/read results, but what's most important - nice capacity which means less wear. After 7 months the disk is still at 100% health (118GB free of 167GB).
    - Antec P280 case. Very decent.
    - two Enermax 120mm front case fans for better cooling. Best silent fans I could find. If they get dirty, you can pull them out from the base and clean/lubricate them with ease.
    - Windows 7 x64 Pro (OEM)

No HDDs here too. I moved them from my old rig. But HDDs are cheap like hell nowadays. I'd look into Hitachi's products (even though they're WD now), as I've heard they're very reliable.

 

I can't complain when working with 3D Coat. Of course I'm not able to brush with large radius LC over 7M polymesh, but I guess you'd have to buy Tesla or Titan for that.

It's also very fast with tasks like video and sound encoding that you mentioned, as long as software you use supports multi-threading of course.

Edited July 15, 2013 by ajz3d

[Voxelapocalypse]

This whole talk about video cards makes me think that we should, as a 3D Coat community, have some benchmarking scene for testing performance of various configurations. I think that videos from those tests would be a lot of help for people that are after an upgrade of a certain component for their rig or even whole computers.

I'll take all the helpful input I can get...  

 

...I will be seriously looking at the NVIDIA GTX 580! Thanks AbnRanger!  

"I think that might not be so easy to quantify, as everyone will have different CPU's, Memory speeds/quantities.

The only real way to tell is when you switch one for another on your own system.

Just knowing that the GTX 580 is the best CUDA card shy of buying a Titan,

and the issue I was having on a 670, tells me all I need to know, pretty much."

 

I would like to see some sort of a WIP DataBase of recommended builds in various price categories:

 

*PennyPinched

*I Can AffordThat

*$s NO Object

 

(...for example) which are best suited for 3DCOAT.

 

...complete with uber informative info like everyone is giving here.

That's where stuff could all be stickied and organized into a searchable area in the Forums.

[Note: This would be formatted with the intent to showcase what builds are best for 3DCOAT primarily.]

It would be a nice complimentary resource to the USERS GUIDE Imho.

 

If you have not seen the new and improved USERS GUIDE, take a look... they really did nice work on it.

 

It just is overwhelming for the "startups" and newbs such as myself when trying to make an informed decision

on what the "best" build would be to use for 3DCOAT.

I have never done my own build, which is why I thought of going with VELOCITY MICRO since they build them for you.

I'm concerned If I built my own I would spend alot of $ on the wrong stuff, and then get components that are not compatible,

and or hook something up wrong and fry something...that's when the tears would start...lol

 

Thanks for all the help everyone...keep it going please!  

Edited July 16, 2013 by Voxelapocalypse

[Voxelapocalypse]

Thanks ajz3D  

 

I'm going to try building my own...   0_o

 

Any recommendations on where to get a good PC frame to start one's build?

...and what to look for?

[AbnRanger]

Thanks ajz3D  

 

I'm going to try building my own...   0_o

 

Any recommendations on where to get a good PC frame to start one's build?

...and what to look for?

I have never spent $2k or more for a PC build. I can usually put together a pretty beefy system for $1500 or so. A lot of it comes down to whether you are trying to go for bleeding edge (overpriced) components. You can get a i7 3930 on ebay for $400-450. Shop on Newegg for a moderately to medium priced 2011 motherboard...not the more expensive models. Even keep an eye out for their "OpenBox" specials. Could save enough to upgrade other components. Get a GTX 580 instead of a high priced 600-700 series.

 

Look for some deals on SSD drives. One about 120GB or so, for installing the OS and programs. A 2-3TB regular HD for storage, and a smaller (64GB or so) SSD for your pagefile. You can Split it, making two partitions. One for a pagefile and one for Adobe Media Cache (if you use AE and Premiere Pro)

 

And 850W power supply is fine, but if you plan to use more than one graphic card, you definitely want to consider a 1000-1200W model (bronze to gold certified). Try to make sure it is a modular or at least a partially modular model. That way you don't have a bunch of extra cables in the way and having to hide or blocking airflow in the case.

[wave of light]

no...no...this is all uber informative.  

 

Cool.. on with the debate.

 

    - Gigabyte GTX660Ti 3GB, though of course you'd probably want to buy a Fermi card. But it's not that Keplers are that bad. They get the job done for me without problems. Do keep in mind that Fermis use much more power than Keplers, so a better PSU might be needed. I found that the video card is the MOST IMPORTANT component when sculpting in 3D Coat.I ordered the new card after putting my rig together and for some time I've been working with an old 9800GTX and the performance was almost no different than on my old rig (Quad Core Q9300, 8GB DDR2).

 

Now see, this is what interests me. My rig at the moment (Q6600 OC@3.0GHz, 8GB RAM and a GeForce 9500GT) is fine for 2D PS, Ai work and it's fine for rendering out 3D stuff I need to include in 2D material. 

 

So I'm thinking (interim choice) would be to buy a new PSU (currently only 480W) and upgrade my graphics card. But what ajz3d is saying, is that there doesn't seem to be any performance advantage... or is this because it's a 600 range card, hence the issue AbnRanger was talking about earlier.

 

Get a GTX 580 instead of a high priced 600-700 series.

 

Look for some deals on SSD drives. One about 120GB or so, for installing the OS and programs. A 2-3TB regular HD for storage, and a smaller (64GB or so) SSD for your pagefile. You can Split it, making two partitions. One for a pagefile and one for Adobe Media Cache (if you use AE and Premiere Pro)

 

Is the Adobe Media Cache the same as Scratch disk for PS?

 

And also (sorry, more questions) what about a two lower end 560 card in SLI, which I've seen quite cheap on ebay. Are they any disadvantages to SLI with 3DC... apart from power consumption?

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-MSi-N560GTX-Ti-Twin-Frozr-II-OC-edition-SLI-/221252671024?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item3383afd630

Edited July 16, 2013 by wave of light

[AbnRanger]

Cool.. on with the debate.

 

 

Now see, this is what interests me. My rig at the moment (Q6600 OC@3.0GHz, 8GB RAM and a GeForce 9500GT) is fine for 2D PS, Ai work and it's fine for rendering out 3D stuff I need to include in 2D material. 

 

So I'm thinking (interim choice) would be to buy a new PSU (currently only 480W) and upgrade my graphics card. But what ajz3d is saying, is that there doesn't seem to be any performance advantage... or is this because it's a 600 range card, hence the issue AbnRanger was talking about earlier.

 

 

Is the Adobe Media Cache the same as Scratch disk for PS?

I do think they have merged them together in recent CS versions. In 3D Coat, the CPU and RAM (amount and speed) play the most prominent role in overall performance. If you upgrade, you don't have to get the latest and greatest. You can find components on eBay that may be a generation behind, but still a BIG step up from where you are. I try to save up and build a new machine, and use the older one as a render node.

 

You'll notice that you can get more complex with a scene if you upgrade from your 8GB to 16GB or more. You also want the RAM to run at 1600mhz or better (at least 1333mhz). The Graphic card plays a role in how well it navigates, especially in a complex scene, or one that that has a very high poly count. It also matters if you are sculpting in Voxel Mode, using CUDA (Nvidia only). If you are rendering in the render room, since it is using the GPU to render, it has a major impact there, too...obviously.

 

Also, when you are painting on large texture maps, 3D Coat can store more pixel data in your video cards memory, if you have a large framebuffer (VRAM).

[wave of light]

I do think they have merged them together in recent CS versions. In 3D Coat, the CPU and RAM (amount and speed) play the most prominent role in overall performance. If you upgrade, you don't have to get the latest and greatest. You can find components on eBay that may be a generation behind, but still a BIG step up from where you are. I try to save up and build a new machine, and use the older one as a render node.

 

You'll notice that you can get more complex with a scene if you upgrade from your 8GB to 16GB or more. You also want the RAM to run at 1600mhz or better (at least 1333mhz). The Graphic card plays a role in how well it navigates, especially in a complex scene, or one that that has a very high poly count. It also matters if you are sculpting in Voxel Mode, using CUDA (Nvidia only). If you are rendering in the render room, since it is using the GPU to render, it has a major impact there, too...obviously.

 

Also, when you are painting on large texture maps, 3D Coat can store more pixel data in your video cards memory, if you have a large framebuffer (VRAM).

 

Yer... I haven't had the need to go past CS4 as I would only want 'content aware' stuff in PS and maybe 64bit Ai... so I think, using your model, that I would attach a second SSD and have that as half page file and half Scratch disk.

 

Sorry to ask again, I think I edited the last post before you'd finished the one above... but would you recommend two older 560 1GB cards in SLI over one 3GB gtx 580?

[AbnRanger]

Yer... I haven't had the need to go past CS4 as I would only want 'content aware' stuff in PS and maybe 64bit Ai... so I think, using your model, that I would attach a second SSD and have that as half page file and half Scratch disk.

 

Sorry to ask again, I think I edited the last post before you'd finished the one above... but would you recommend two older 560 1GB cards in SLI over one 3GB gtx 580?

No to the SLI card config. It doesn't buy you ANY gains in CG apps. Not a single one I can think of. Not even in Blender's Cycles engine. SLI is good for games, but that's it. If you wanted to double up your rendering power in Blender Cycles or with Octane Renderer, then 2 cards is definitely better than one. Just don't set it up in SLI configuration. They can recognize the two cards and use them, without any SLI adapters. VRay RT also works this way