Building Workstation for3D Modeling/Rendering use

Hi Mythology,

I do a lot of the same things you do.  I currently work at Weta and have been doing vfx/modeling/texturing/lighting/animating for about 6 years.  I like to pop in and give advice about content creation machines since most of the people here are most knowledgeable on gaming machines and I know how hard it can be to get advice on what we do.

You currently have the old architecture, thus, a slower processor.  It looks like if you use the workstation configurator, you cannot choose anything newer than last gen architecture.

You will definitely want more ram than 6 gigs.  Just get the ds ram as they only use good brands and not discount generic stuff.  They just get whatever top brand they can get a better bulk discount on at the time. 

I would also get a geforce card if it were me.  I did a bit of googling on the cad side of this, and it looks like its the same story as maya.  The quadro will give you maybe a 5-10% actual boost in display performance, with cleaner isoparms, for a several thousand dollar diff vs the geforce cards.  The main reason to use a quadro card is if you are doing a lot of development and you need more support from Autodesk, Adobe, etc...  I just read that vray now does support multi gpu rendering.  I have not been able to figure out if it will work if they are in sli or not.

At work I have used the quadro 6000 and at home I use a geforce 480 and see little difference in performance.  My 480 drives two 30" dell ultrasharps now without a hitch.  I do not do any local gpu rendering though, any that I do is on a gpu render farm for look dev.  Another thing to note is the quadro's only have one dl dvi output and two display port outputs.  The geforce have two dl dvi so make sure your monitors will work.  There are adaptors but while I havent used displayport to dvi adapters, Ive found using monitor adaptors in the past to be finicky....

If I were to buy a machine now it would be this:

Sub-Total:$2,735.00

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 2600K 3.40GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO (Intel Z68 Chipset) (Features Intel Quick Sync Technology)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (160GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 320 Series)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache) (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(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 3GB (Includes PhysX) (EVGA 03G-P3-1584-AR)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
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
CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro or Deluxe Series 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)

However, if you are willing to wait a few months, the high end sandybridge procs will be out and rumor is the new keplar nvidia architecture as well.  You may end up spending about 1k more  (guesstimated)  for the new stuff though so its up to you.

The above config will render and perform much faster than your build with the i7 960.  If you do want a quadro, just ask DS to install a quadro 4k in the build I made.  They will do custom work not available in the configurator.

Also just stick with the standard factory fans.  I made the uneducated mistake when I made mine of getting the fan upgrade and yes they are loud.  I personally dont care so much as I like white noise but if you want quiet use the standard, as it cools very well as is in the haf (high air flow) cases.

Also get your apc from a brick and mortar store.  Those things are heavy and you will end up paying a lot for shipping costs. 

External digital card readers work better in my experience as well.

Add your blu ray and an extra hard drive if you want as well, but that is the base I would choose.



Edited by JStones - 25 Jul 2011 at 2:11am