3D WorkstationPost Date: 2012-10-18 |
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JohnAndersonArt 
Newbie 
Joined: 18 Oct 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1 |
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 Topic: 3D WorkstationPosted: 18 Oct 2012 at 7:28am |
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Budget:
5,000 USD Expectations: I'm looking for a balanced machine for use with 3D packages (3DS Max, Maya,Zbrush, Unreal Development Kit, etc. The machine needs to be efficient for 3D Modelling and Rendering as well as for real-time gameplay. I'm currently looking at the Protus V40 but I can't find any reviews for this particular machine and I'm wondering what differences the workstations have from the gaming desktops. I can't find any gaming desktops with RAM higher than 12GB. I would prefer to be over 24GB. My current processor is maxing out with 8 cores and using half of the 12GB RAM during rendering. My rendering time is taking roughly five mins per frame. I'd like to cut this in half if possible. Usage: The system will be used for freelance 3D production and animation with GI Lighting, Particle Systems, High Quality Materials and total polygon counts exceeding 50,000 million. Special Needs: 3D Modelling and Rendering, High-Quality 3D Gameplay Saved Ticket #: None Specifications: [Please Type Here] |
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bprat22
DS ELITE 
DigitalStorm East -- (Unofficially!)
Joined: 08 Jun 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 20391 |
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Posted: 18 Oct 2012 at 8:31am |
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Hi JohnAndersonArt...... Welcome to the forums.
What I know about workstations you could put on the head of a pin  , so others might be by to help. The forums does have a few knowledgable in this area, but I haven't seen them in awhile. Not sure this will help, but you did mention gaming and wanting over 12GB ram. Here's a top of the line gaming rig with 32GB ram, sli gtx 680 and the i7-3960x cpu, a 6 core, 15mb cache chip. It's not 8 core plus which is what you might want. Config # 738760 Cost $ 4510 Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 3960X 3.3GHz (Six-Core) (Extreme Performance) Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 DELUXE (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s) System Memory: 32GB DDR3 1600Mhz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested) Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) Expansion Bay: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (240GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 520 Series) Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (Model: Black Edition) Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x) Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (Includes PhysX) Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex 240mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (Extreme-Performance Edition) H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans Internal Lighting: - No Thanks Enhancements: - No Thanks Chassis Mods: - No Thanks Noise Reduction: - No Thanks LaserMark: - No Thanks Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro/Deluxe/Sabertooth Motherboard) Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition) Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD) Virus Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Game: - No Thanks Display: - No Thanks Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: - No Thanks Keyboard: - No Thanks Mouse: - No Thanks External Storage: - No Thanks Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Large) Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty Unless your going for a full water cooled solution, which is $$$, the HafX is tops in cooling. The Gtx 680 vs Quadro 4000 for example ..... The 680 is a very good crossover card, meaning it will do rendering and gaming very good. The Quadro is optimized for rendering, etc and might not be a good gaming card. This is just an example for you to start with . Maybe Google gtx680 vs Quadro 4000 and Dual Xeon E5-2650 vs i7-3960x and see what fits your needs. Hope this at least steers you to where you want to go and calling DS might be the best solution if others don't chime in. Good Luck. Edited by bprat22 - 18 Oct 2012 at 8:34am |
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FrankW
DS Veteran 
Joined: 22 Feb 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2254 |
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Posted: 19 Oct 2012 at 12:11pm |
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Hi John,
You made a smart move by considering DS. You can't beat their support before and after your purchase. bprate has give you a good start and I will just add some comments. 1. This is one time that the 3860X is a good choice for the CPU. I would stick with it. 2. I don't have experience with those programs except that a lot of memory is needed. Some who do this kind of work have went with 64Gb. I think the 32Gb will do the job but we have some members who have more experience with this. Maybe they will stop by. 3. If you are truly building a work station then the Quadro is built for this work. It would be the best choice but you might need more than the 4000. The problem is the Quadro is not a good choice for gaming. The 680 GPU that bprat22 suggested may be a better compromise if you are serious about gaming. I think if you go with the 680, then the 680 4Gb may be the best choice. 4. I am not sure a 240Gb SSD is big enough for work. It is according to how you will use the programs. If you load the programs on the SSD and do everything from there you need to think about how much space you will need. You will want to store the games you play regularly on the SSD for sure and the operating system. You might even consider two SSDS. If your saved programs are big you might also consider more HDD space. You will be the best judge of this because you know how you do it now. The important thing for your work is to make sure that you have enough memory so the programs don't have to make calls on a HDD. That really slows things down. You didn't say anything about budget and that will definitely impact your choices. Frank |
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JStones
Newbie
Joined: 20 Apr 2010 Online Status: Offline Posts: 76 |
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Posted: 19 Oct 2012 at 4:08pm |
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Hello,
I currently work in the feature film industry and have for about 6 years. For your budget and needs (namely the need to game) I would not recommend a quadro. I currently use a quaddro 4000, 5000, and 6000 on different work/home machines. They are not very good for gaming. I tried just to see how it would do and it wasnt what a gaming card will get you as the drivers are geared more towards opengl and not directx. A dual processor workstation is pretty much out of your budget and not really that necessary. It could help with render times, but Im curious how a dual proc with lower clocking would perform against a single proc with half the cores running at nearly twice the processor speed which you would get with the 3960 overclocked. Id imagine it would be close. A jump to dual proc with higher speed is way over your budget. This build is very similar to what I have at home, with the exception of the graphics card, which as I stated is to comply with the gaming aspect. You can go sli if you want but I know in the past some autodesk products did not run right with sli and I know for a fact that none of them will utilize it at all. Linux would get you great opengl with this card, as nvidia has to make great opengl drivers for linux as it does not use directx at all. The problem there is not all applications have linux versions, but you could do a dual boot ubuntu/windows. That's what I do. This build will kick ass at zbrush and maya. I don't use max or the unreal dev kit as I am in film not gaming, but I dont see how they wouldnt run well on it. The 680 on a windows box will give you adequate opengl performance, but nothing like a high end quadro will unless you do some driver hackery which Im not sure is out for this card. Anyways good luck with your build. Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 3960X 3.3GHz (Six-Core) (Extreme Performance) Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s) System Memory: 64GB DDR3 1600MHz Corsair Dominator DHX (High-Performance) Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) Expansion Bay: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (240GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 520 Series) Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (3TB Western Digital/Seagate/Hitachi/Samsung (7200 RPM) (SATA 6Gbps) Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: 1x (3TB Western Digital/Seagate/Hitachi/Samsung (7200 RPM) (SATA 6Gbps) Optical Drive 1: ASUS Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs) (Model: BC-12B1ST) Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 4GB (Includes PhysX) Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 Extreme Performance H20 Tube Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans Internal Lighting: - No Thanks Enhancements: - No Thanks Chassis Mods: - No Thanks Noise Reduction: - No Thanks LaserMark: - No Thanks CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro/Deluxe/Sabertooth Motherboard) Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Memory Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory OS Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition) Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD) Virus Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Game: - No Thanks Display: - No Thanks Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: - No Thanks Keyboard: - No Thanks Mouse: - No Thanks External Storage: - No Thanks Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty Edited by JStones - 19 Oct 2012 at 4:12pm |
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Orange7
Senior Member 
Joined: 24 Apr 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 776 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 19 Oct 2012 at 6:05pm |
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I know that many of the guys here have been recommending the gaming rigs. However, for what you are looking for, it would probably be quite beneficial to check out DS's Protus line (Products->Workstations). I believe that you can optimize them out to 16 processing cores and 64GB of Ram, along with Nvidia Quadro 6000 level graphics.
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DS xm15 Stage 4
i7-3820 (2.7GHz/3.7GHz) 16GB 1600MHz DDR3 GT 630, 1GB 240GB Intel 520 |
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Alex
Admin Group 
Digital Storm Supervisor 
Joined: 04 Jun 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16314 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 19 Oct 2012 at 6:15pm |
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Yes. We do sell a good number of Xeon based builds with higher memory and Quadro solutions.
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bprat22
DS ELITE
DigitalStorm East -- (Unofficially!)
Joined: 08 Jun 2011 Online Status: Offline Posts: 20391 |
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Posted: 20 Oct 2012 at 3:43am |
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Its possble to go either way but I agree with JStones that for the $5000 budget the much higher oc'd 6 core 3960x and the gtx 680 for the dual role of rendering and gaming is the way to go. The budget restricts a high end workstation in my opinion based on a limited knowledge.
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