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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:


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Thanks again AbnRanger.  Right then... whilst I put funds away for the rest of the rig, I think I'm going to look at a 800-850W Gold PSU and a second hand gtx 580 (hopefully 3GB - but I'm going to see some speed improvements with a 1.5GB over my 9500GT anyway) and stick it in my current rig... then when I can purchase a new MB, new CPU, 32GB of memory, a couple of SSDs and a 2-3TB HD.

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Sounds like a plan. You'll notice a pretty good bump in viewport performance and Voxel sculpting. BTW, here is the video I showed Andrew, comparing the 670 I had purchased...compared to the GTX 470 I owned previously.

 

http://www.screencast.com/users/dnashj33/folders/Camtasia%20Studio/media/90f7a85e-86e1-451a-8df7-bee905413f10

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Jeezzz... down to 9-10 frames per second when in wireframe, with a card that is 2 generations higher!  So looks like I will stick to the plan then. Later on, if I want to go down the Octane route, I could save up for a high end 600 and stick that in too, as I believe Octane makes use of all your GPUs.

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Lots to think about and further research...Thanks guys, this is all very helpful!   :)

 

*Is it best to have a 4 Pin CPU Fan Connector on your MB, so the Fan speed can be controlled by the MB?

 

*What about Water Cooling? Do you use it? Pros/Cons? Or is that for more uber-sized Gaming rigs? 

 

After watching your video AbnRanger...I saw a comment in another forum where someone asked about the 670 Card,

and the one and only reply basically said "They Suk badly compared to the older ones"(.)  

 

You mentioned:

"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)."

*Is it that simple...Framebuffer size = amount of VideoRAM?

 

...and finally:

*Is it better to have 1 Memory Stick of 32GB, or 4 each being 8GB to get your 32GB of Memory?

I'm kinda stumped on this one.

 

Thanks!   :)

Edited by Voxelapocalypse
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    - 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.

These look good. They have really high reviews and positive comments.   :D

 

Thanks ajz3d for all the information and help!

 

I'm taking this one step at a time...

I'm still researching the other components in your build and learning as I go.

Edited by Voxelapocalypse
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    - 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.

Sorry about this...I found only one low review for these, and they said it was because if they are used as an Intake Fan

on a metal grid, the magnet the Fan uses pulls the Fan toward the metal creating problems.

 

You mentioned you bought two for the front case, (and I assume they are both Intake Fans?)...is your front case metal? Do you have any problems?

I'm planning on getting these, but was curious about this.

 

Thanks   :)

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So...please ignore my questions about:

 

* Having Fan Speed controlled by the MoBo

* CPU Water Coolers

*VRAM

*32GB and (4x) 8GB Memory

 

...I understand these now   :)

 

I should not post questions before doing a little research myself...especially after midnight...lol   :blush:

 

Thanks again everyone

 

3DCOAT ON

Edited by Voxelapocalypse
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I personally am convinced, now, that going with Full-Sized Towers is the only way to ride. The main reasons are that you just have more room to fit these longer video cards, much more airflow...large fans blowing cool air from the front and side, and hot air exhausted out the back and top. Get's too cramped in Mid-Towers or smaller.

 

I personally like the NZXT Phantom 630.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygbh2vAoWGk

 

 

The CoolerMaster HAF 932 is also a nice one 

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

 

I don't think water cooling is necessary, even if you want to overclock a good bit. With cases like these and most newer CPU coolers  (I have a Zalman CNPS 12X and love it...but it doesn't like tall memory heat spreaders), you can overclock a good deal, still. Some of the coolers may be classified as closed loop water coolers, and I personally put them in the same category as the air coolers, as they aren't a true water cooling system and they don't really perform any better than air CPU coolers. What's more is the air coolers have liquid that gets circulated through the copper pipes and thus perform a similar radiator type of functionality.

 

I would also, instead of going with a Xeon CPU, just stick with a desktop CPU model....maybe the i7 3930 (6cores/12 threads). There aren't any other chips out there that are considerably faster...and you can probably find one on eBay for the $450 range. AMD has low profile Radeon Memory modules in 8GB/stick @ 1866mhz, and they are fairly inexpensive, too. I think they are Patriot memory, tested to be compatible with a broad range of motherboards, and AMD just slaps their brand on them.

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I personally am convinced, now, that going with Full-Sized Towers is the only way to ride. The main reasons are that you just have more room to fit these longer video cards, much more airflow...large fans blowing cool air from the front and side, and hot air exhausted out the back and top. Get's too cramped in Mid-Towers or smaller.

 

Same here. I'm definitely going with a full size Tower.

The Mastercooler HAF 932 really looks like a good one with plenty of room to grow into down the road.

*Super speed USB 3.0 Ports backward compatible with USB 2.0.

*Tool free installation.

*PSU top or bottom mount option.

*Steel construction.

...ect

 

I won't be going with water cooling anytime soon, it doesn't sound necessary at this point for me. Maybe down the road.

(Another reason I'll probably go with the Mastercooler HAF 93930, it has plenty to accommodate that. I'll Spend the extra now for when I need it later.)

 

*For the life of me, I can't find any info if the Intel i7 9393 PSU is ATX form factor compatible, which is what the Mastercooler 932 is.

I'm set on getting that though. It sounds like a good one.

 

*Also, how do you run CUDA on an Intel PSU? Would I have to Download software to do that?

*Do the Nvidea Processors come with CUDA built in or something I can't figure this out either.

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Same here. I'm definitely going with a full size Tower.

The Mastercooler HAF 932 really looks like a good one with plenty of room to grow into down the road.

*Super speed USB 3.0 Ports backward compatible with USB 2.0.

*Tool free installation.

*PSU top or bottom mount option.

*Steel construction.

...ect

 

I won't be going with water cooling anytime soon, it doesn't sound necessary at this point for me. Maybe down the road.

(Another reason I'll probably go with the Mastercooler HAF 93930, it has plenty to accommodate that. I'll Spend the extra now for when I need it later.)

 

*For the life of me, I can't find any info if the Intel i7 9393 PSU is ATX form factor compatible, which is what the Mastercooler 932 is.

I'm set on getting that though. It sounds like a good one.

 

*Also, how do you run CUDA on an Intel PSU? Would I have to Download software to do that?

*Do the Nvidea Processors come with CUDA built in or something I can't figure this out either.

Here is one on Ebay, well below what most others are asking:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3930K-3-2-GHz-Six-Core-CM8061901100802-Processor-/321165335023?pt=CPUs&hash=item4ac6f219ef

 

Here are some CG benchmarks for the i7 3930...compared to the new i7 4960's. Basically Intel performance has not dramatically improved since the 3930 came out about 2yrs ago.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4960x-ivy-bridge-e-benchmark,3557-5.html

 

It's gotten stagnant because AMD publicly declared they weren't going to compete in the high end/enthusiast segment. All Intel has done is improve power efficiency and improved graphics on the die. Intel primarily makes CPU's (Central Processing Unit). They don't make PSU's (Power Supply Unit). GPU = Graphics Processing Unit

 

CUDA is the proprietary language NVidia uses/develops to utilize the hundreds or thousands of GPU Streaming cores on their cards, to perform parallel threaded tasks on the computer. Rendering is a common use. In 3D Coat it is used to accelerate most brushes in Voxel Mode.

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Here is one on Ebay, well below what most others are asking:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3930K-3-2-GHz-Six-Core-CM8061901100802-Processor-/321165335023?pt=CPUs&hash=item4ac6f219ef

 

Here are some CG benchmarks for the i7 3930...compared to the new i7 4960's. Basically Intel performance has not dramatically improved since the 3930 came out about 2yrs ago.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4960x-ivy-bridge-e-benchmark,3557-5.html

 

It's gotten stagnant because AMD publicly declared they weren't going to compete in the high end/enthusiast segment. All Intel has done is improve power efficiency and improved graphics on the die. Intel primarily makes CPU's (Central Processing Unit). They don't make PSU's (Power Supply Unit). GPU = Graphics Processing Unit

 

CUDA is the proprietary language NVidia uses/develops to utilize the hundreds or thousands of GPU Streaming cores on their cards, to perform parallel threaded tasks on the computer. Rendering is a common use. In 3D Coat it is used to accelerate most brushes in Voxel Mode.

The i7-3930k looks like the one I'll be getting. I'll take advantage of the pricing of these older models...

especially as in this case performance is right up there with newer ones. Sweet.

 

ah...yes...I meant CPU for the i7-3930 and PSU for the optional top or bottom mounting in the Mastercooler HAF 932.   heh

 

*So does it become then a bit of apples and oranges when comparing A Nvidia card which uses CUDA

with an Intel that does not as to which one performs better?

Does a Nvidia card using CUDA give better results than a non Nvidia card in 3DCOAT,

since 3DCOAT was designed for CUDA?

I was confused, I thought I saw you could use CUDA on non Nvidia cards if you down loaded software or something.

...something about it being "open GL".

My primary use will be for 3DCOAT and I would want the card best suited for that use.

*Would that be a Nvidia card?

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Practically all the current GPU-based render engines (Octane, Blender Cycles, Thea, iRay, finalRender R4 GPU) specifically use CUDA (Nvidia cards only). In 3D Coat, it is only applied to Voxel Brushes (not in Surface mode). The rest of the app is CPU multi-threaded.

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For the time being I wouldn't say "get an nvidia for cuda". Because to be honest 3dcoat barely use the leverage of cuda. BUT I would NEVER advise someone to get an Amd card, because their drivers are terrible with content production software. 

If you don't want unexpected shaders issues in autodesk products, or texture corruption if you use large amount of VRAM, or even vpu recovering kicking in from time to time, I would STRONGLY suggest you to get an nvidia card. 

Because even if the cost is slightly higher with nvidia, they don't go amd road "more performances for your buck" and forget the software side of the business :)

Besides if someday Andrew actually want to fully use cuda (and update the current version) I'm sure the difference will be VERY noticeable.

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AbnRanger, I know you said that SLI setups are pointless for 3D programs, but do you have any knowledge of this card... EVGA GeForce GTX 460 X2

 

It has dual GPU on a single card... so runs in close to a 580. But do you think all of it's Mem and Cuda cores be seen by 3DC and LW?

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AbnRanger, I know you said that SLI setups are pointless for 3D programs, but do you have any knowledge of this card... EVGA GeForce GTX 460 X2

 

It has dual GPU on a single card... so runs in close to a 580. But do you think all of it's Mem and Cuda cores be seen by 3DC and LW?

It's pretty much an SLI configuration...only on the same board. 3D apps don't utilize both GPU's. Blender Cycles does have a way to turn the SLI off, I believe on dual GPU cards, so that the PC sees two separate GPU's, but they will still split the VRAM. So if the total VRAM on the card is 3GB, each GPU will only use 1.5 each. So, there is not much of a benefit there, either.

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It's pretty much an SLI configuration...only on the same board. 3D apps don't utilize both GPU's. Blender Cycles does have a way to turn the SLI off, I believe on dual GPU cards, so that the PC sees two separate GPU's, but they will still split the VRAM. So if the total VRAM on the card is 3GB, each GPU will only use 1.5 each. So, there is not much of a benefit there, either.

Thanks man, thought that was going to be the case.... back on ebay.co.uk to hunt down a 570 or 580.

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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.

Changing a video card to a newer model would mean a lot. I think (but I wouldn't bet my head on it) that Q6600 is even able to handle Kepler cards without becoming a bottleneck. What I forgot to mention though, is that the second most important component that affects 3D Coat IMHO is RAM. The difference between 8GB and 32GB was that with 8GB I experienced a constant HDD thrashing when working on complex sculptures while with 32GB I get almost no disk usage at all. The problem with my LGA775 motherboard was that 8GB was the maximum memory amount it supported. Check yours if you too experience the thrashing, because if your motherboard does support at least 16GB, you're set. It's how AbnRanger said: "You'll notice that you can get more complex with a scene if you upgrade from your 8GB to 16GB or more".

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.

I didn't see any performance improvement, because for two weeks I was working on a 9800GTX that I temporarily took out from my Q9300 system. Then the 660Ti 3GB that I ordered has arrived and the difference was night and day.

 

a second hand gtx 580 (hopefully 3GB - but I'm going to see some speed improvements with a 1.5GB over my 9500GT anyway

Absolutely!

 

BTW, here is the video I showed Andrew, comparing the 670 I had purchased...compared to the GTX 470 I owned previously.

This video is so true. In fact, seeing how fast wire-frame navigation is on 470 made my jaw drop. If I open a sculpture which has 8.5 million polygons and turn the wireframe on, it's impossible to navigate the scene at all on GTX660Ti 3GB. If I turn the wires off, everything goes back to normal (meaning navigation is very smooth).

 

Sorry about this...I found only one low review for these, and they said it was because if they are used as an Intake Fan

on a metal grid, the magnet the Fan uses pulls the Fan toward the metal creating problems.

You mentioned you bought two for the front case, (and I assume they are both Intake Fans?)...is your front case metal? Do you have any problems?

I'm planning on getting these, but was curious about this.

That's probably BS. While the front panel of my case is made of plastics, I just tried some tests with putting an iron dumbbell right in front of them fans. Nothing happens, so I'm not sure about what kind of problems this person might have written about.

Also, right behind those fans are aluminium HDD racks with a couple of HDDs, so... :db:

Edited by ajz3d
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Practically all the current GPU-based render engines (Octane, Blender Cycles, Thea, iRay, finalRender R4 GPU) specifically use CUDA (Nvidia cards only). In 3D Coat, it is only applied to Voxel Brushes (not in Surface mode). The rest of the app is CPU multi-threaded.

Thanks for the info...for now, I'm probably better off without it, until my next upgrade build.

I'll have more experience by then to know how to handle CUDA. 

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Changing a video card to a newer model would mean a lot. I think (but I wouldn't bet my head on it) that Q6600 is even able to handle Kepler cards without becoming a bottleneck. What I forgot to mention though, is that the second most important component that affects 3D Coat IMHO is RAM. The difference between 8GB and 32GB was that with 8GB I experienced a constant HDD thrashing when working on complex sculptures while with 32GB I get almost no disk usage at all. The problem with my LGA775 motherboard was that 8GB was the maximum memory amount it supported. Check yours if you too experience the thrashing, because if your motherboard does support at least 16GB, you're set. It's how AbnRanger said: "You'll notice that you can get more complex with a scene if you upgrade from your 8GB to 16GB or more".

 

I'm going with 32GB...no holds barred...lol

 

This video is so true. In fact, seeing how fast wire-frame navigation is on 470 made my jaw drop. If I open a sculpture which has 8.5 million polygons and turn the wireframe on, it's impossible to navigate the scene at all on GTX660Ti 3GB. If I turn the wires off, everything goes back to normal (meaning navigation is very smooth).

 

My PC usually freezes anytime I try using WireFrame...   :(

Such is the sad state of affairs my 3DCOATing life is in. Can't wait to upgrade into the ability to actually use this incredible softaware with a capable PC build.

 

That's probably BS. While the front panel of my case is made of plastics, I just tried some tests with putting an iron dumbbell right in front of them fans. Nothing happens, so I'm not sure about what kind of problems this person might have written about.

 

Yeah, it smelled like poop to me. I'm planning on getting those Fans. All the other reviews were very good.

 

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Yeah, it smelled like poop to me. I'm planning on getting those Fans. All the other reviews were very good.

 

Plenty of great reviews was the main reason I decided to buy those fans. I was looking for something quiet and after 6 months of using them, I can honestly say that these fans are really good and pretty much silent. The loudest fan in my rig is probably the Gigabyte's triple fan on the video card. It's especially noticeable when I launch 3D Coat and load up a high-res sculpture. But the noise is still beyond comparison to my old system.

 

Take a look at the photo: this is what you get in the box. The fan with a 3-pin female connector, a 3-pin male to (double-sided) Molex adapter and some screws. There's no voltage adjuster in the set, so if you don't have one, you won't be able to reduce the velocity of the fans. This was a little bit disappointing to me at first, but it turned out that they're so quiet that there was no point in decreasing RPMs.

I connected them sequentially using included Molex adapters, but it would probably be better to plug them into CHA_FAN slots on the motherboard. Unfortunately three of the total four of them were already used by Antec fans that came with the case, plus, those chassis fan sockets in P9-X79 are all four-pin, so I'd need an adapter that was not included with neither: Enermax fans nor the mobo.

 

Actually I just realised I bought four of Enermax fans, not two. I forgot about the two that were behind the HDD rack. And those two inside, were a real PITA to mount. Darkness, darkness...

post-12523-0-62946700-1374543917_thumb.j

Edited by ajz3d
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Take a look at the photo: this is what you get in the box. The fan with a 3-pin female connector, a 3-pin male to (double-sided) Molex adapter and some screws. There's no voltage adjuster in the set, so if you don't have one, you won't be able to reduce the velocity of the fans. This was a little bit disappointing to me at first, but it turned out that they're so quiet that there was no point in decreasing RPMs.

I connected them sequentially using included Molex adapters, but it would probably be better to plug them into CHA_FAN slots on the motherboard. Unfortunately three of the total four of them were already used by Antec fans that came with the case, plus, those chassis fan sockets in P9-X79 are all four-pin, so I'd need an adapter that was not included with neither: Enermax fans nor the mobo.

 

 

They look good, Thanks for posting the pic.

So, if you plug them into the MoBo, you won't need any adaptors, is that right?

Do you know how many slots are on the MoBo for doing this?

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but it would probably be better to plug them into CHA_FAN slots on the motherboard. Unfortunately three of the total four of them were already used by Antec fans that came with the case, plus, those chassis fan sockets in P9-X79 are all four-pin, so I'd need an adapter that was not included with neither: Enermax fans nor the mobo.

 

Oops! Please don't listen to me here. I guess this is what happens when one writes just before going to sleep.

Those Enermax fans are not PWM so plugging them into 4-pin chassis connectors, even using adapters, wouldn't do any good. The reason for that is because they don't have that fourth pin which is responsible for fan control. Sorry for confusion.

 

But I've noticed that there's a PWM version of the Enermax T.B fan.

 

I don't know what motherboard you're planning to get, but on P9X79 Pro there are only four chassis fan connectors. So only four PWM case fans can be controlled by the system. The rest of them would need to be either plugged directly into 12V (using Molex plugs, like in my rig for example) or maybe connected to some type of fan control system mounted in a 5,25" slot, which probably is a better solution.

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Oops! Please don't listen to me here. I guess this is what happens when one writes just before going to sleep.

Those Enermax fans are not PWM so plugging them into 4-pin chassis connectors, even using adapters, wouldn't do any good. The reason for that is because they don't have that fourth pin which is responsible for fan control. Sorry for confusion.

heh...same happens to me sometimes when I stay up late here on the Forums.  

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Those Enermax fans are not PWM so plugging them into 4-pin chassis connectors, even using adapters, wouldn't do any good. The reason for that is because they don't have that fourth pin which is responsible for fan control. Sorry for confusion.

 

But I've noticed that there's a PWM version of the Enermax T.B fan.

 

I don't know what motherboard you're planning to get, but on P9X79 Pro there are only four chassis fan connectors. So only four PWM case fans can be controlled by the system. The rest of them would need to be either plugged directly into 12V (using Molex plugs, like in my rig for example) or maybe connected to some type of fan control system mounted in a 5,25" slot, which probably is a better solution.

I'm getting a i7 P9x79.

 

I'll be getting the PWM Enermax TB Fans too, Thanks for the info.   :)

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Ok.. small update. Just had a new PSU 750W 80+ delivered and won an ASUS 580 DirectII 1.5GB DDR5 card on ebay (for £117 ($180)). So I will let you know how I get on.  Next is pricing up the new build.

 

Thanks again for all the info guys, I will post anything of interest should I feel it worthy.

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