PC for 3D MODELING

[Darksim10]

I want to buy a PC for $1300 (including a 24-27" monitor) and I want to use it for:
- 3D modeling with Maya and Zbrush
- Video editing with Adobe Premiére, After Effects and Sony vegas

Here are my initial thoughts and doubts:
Intel i7 4770 / Xeon 1230v3
MB: MSI B85M E45
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
2x8Gb DDR3 1600
Kingston V300 120Gb SSD
Case Zalman T3
PSU: Corsair 550W
GeForce GTX760 OC 2GB // AMD R9 280 3GB
Monitor i've not decided yet

.....Some say AMD is a little better for Maya, but Nvidia has CUDA for After Effects....

Ideas?

 

[LaytonJnr]

Hello,

Are you not thinking of overclocking at all? That would mean a small price jump to an i7 4770K/4790K, and a Z87 mobo, but if you were to sell it on later, it would definitely be worth more. I would also recommend you waiting for the new Z97 and Haswell refresh which is literally round the corner (for an i7 4790 or 4790K), even if it is to wait for the price reduction on the current Haswell CPUs. If you have the money, look for a Corsair RM550 or Seasonic G-550 PSU - these are both modular and have 80+ Gold efficiency, so very solid power supplies.

Layton

 

[Shambles1980]

i use amd cards for my gaming but i am pretty sure that nvidia is the way to go if your doing 3d modeling.

 

[Darksim10]

Nope, I don't want to OC.

First Problem:

The end-user of the PC has to install so much programs and 120Gb SSD isn't big enough, and the budget can't afford another with more GB.

I'm thinking on install 2 normal HDD (2x500Gb or 2x1TB), one for windows and software and another for videos and resources After Effects is going to use.

Hmmm... Separated or RAID0?
Really worth the performance of have a 2º HDD?

 

[Dent1]

Nope, I don't want to OC.

First Problem:

The end-user of the PC has to install so much programs and 120Gb SSD isn't big enough, and the budget can't afford another with more GB.

I'm thinking on install 2 normal HDD (2x500Gb or 2x1TB), one for windows and software and another for videos and resources After Effects is going to use.

Hmmm... Separated or RAID0?
Really worth the performance of have a 2º HDD?

Ideally you want the OS and a few of his most used apps on the SSD. I would recommend getting a bigger SSD for this purpose. I've seen some 480GB SSDs from $220.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148695

RAID on a traditional HDD is still going to be dog slow compared to an SSD. I don't think its worth it for performance.

 

[repman244]

Nope, I don't want to OC.

First Problem:

The end-user of the PC has to install so much programs and 120Gb SSD isn't big enough, and the budget can't afford another with more GB.

I'm thinking on install 2 normal HDD (2x500Gb or 2x1TB), one for windows and software and another for videos and resources After Effects is going to use.

Hmmm... Separated or RAID0?
Really worth the performance of have a 2º HDD?

RAID 0 is very risky for such a computer.

You could go with a 1TB for windows and 2TB for resources maybe?

Another thing...how much of modelling will be done in Maya? If a lot you could benefit from a FirePro/Quadro GPU.

 

[LaytonJnr]

Nope, I don't want to OC.

First Problem:

The end-user of the PC has to install so much programs and 120Gb SSD isn't big enough, and the budget can't afford another with more GB.

I'm thinking on install 2 normal HDD (2x500Gb or 2x1TB), one for windows and software and another for videos and resources After Effects is going to use.

Hmmm... Separated or RAID0?
Really worth the performance of have a 2º HDD?

I would recommend both an SSD and a HDD for 3D modelling and video editing - the speed of the SSD is very useful for loading and using the programs, and the large HDD is a must for someone handling large or uncompressed video files and uncompressed modelling files.

If you're not overclocking, go for the i7 4790 when it is available, and a Z97 motherboard.

EDIT: Here's a potential build, minus the monitor. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3Pl2T

Layton

 

[Darksim10]

I should probably add a SSD if there's such an improvement.

HERE was my initial thought, with two normal HDD, I will make another with SSD instead:

 

[LaytonJnr]

I should probably add a SSD if there's such an improvement.

HERE was my initial thought, with two normal HDD, I will make another with SSD instead:

I would massively recommend changing that PSU. There are only a few Thermaltake PSUs I trust (the one you chose is not one of them), and the rest aren't very good - less efficient, and may catch fire! My suggestion would be a 80+ Gold/Bronze 550W power supply by Corsair, XFX or Seasonic. Honestly, the worst thing to cheap out on is the power supply, as if that thing breaks, it often takes the whole system with it.

EDIT: Here's the build I suggested earlier, but with the monitor included. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3PmNr Still less than $1300, but may need to check whether its the same price in the EU.

Layton

 

[Shyrzos]

Hey Darksim! Well first of all,a link about performance in nvidia and amd cards,it´s for the profesional line of gpu´s,but maybe you´re curious about what card has better performance in determined programs:

http://www.cgchannel.com/2013/11/group-test-amd-and-nvidia-professional-gpus-2013/

You can see,Maya is very improved in Amd cards, since 2008 until a few months ago, i was using an Ati radeon hd 4670 with arctic l7 as a cooler. This card surprised me, could hold more than 1 million polys with reasonably good 1024x1024 textures in Maya 2013 with 30-50fps. In Autodesk Max with the nitrous engine,almost same results,very happy with it. But well,i needed cuda and directx 11,so few months ago i bought an gtx 580(pretty old powerfulish cuda gpu).

I think that the newer amd radeon have enough power to surpase the nvidia equivalents due to fp64(nvidia kepler is sooooo limited in compute...)

For the disks,i suggest than some 3d models or some programs that not consume a lot of writes of the disks go to the hdd,for save space in the ssd.

Then,the other program, Zbrush,this only uses 1% of the gpu,the lightbox only uses the graphics card,the program itself is rendered by software,the cpu is who makes the fps in your 3d models,the ram who breaks the limit of the Total polygons of the model and the disk(ssd or hdd) who makes the model not "freeze" or slowdowns(because load of polygons and textures) in the viewport of Zbrush.

Well,this thread it´s a little old,but i think this info could be useful.

For my experience&benchmarks in Zbrush with my rig( I7 3770k&3.5 stock, 16 gb ram g.skill 1333 cl9, Samsung evo 120gb, nvidia gtx 580 undervolted&0.988v stock clocks):

Máximum polygons(limited by my 16gb of ram): 22.5milions
Máximum res o textures: 8kx8k
Bottleneck of the ssd,when i´m working with arround -20milions with 4kx4k textures(use of the ssd in this moment 95-100%) and stuttering like watch dogs game i have. Note that the ssd is in SATA 2 because of the motherboard, an old gigabyte h61m which i need to change.
Use of the gtx 580:1% with lightbox opened,if not opened 0 %.

Well sorry for my bad english,i´m from Spain and this is my first post in tpu.

PD: (Spaniard language): Darksim10 al parecer eres tambien español por lo que veo,luismiguel en amazon .es no?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

@crazyeyesreaper

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

If you are gonna do 3D modeling and do alot of it get a proper professional series GPU

The AMD W5000 comes to mind as I reviewed it myself it managed to utterly dominate the HD 7970 I was using as a consumer card in the same price bracket.

In a more visually appealing comparison, we can see that the Radeon HD 7970 (in red) in almost all benchmarks except one gets slaughtered. In the Maya test, we see the FirePro W5000 really show a massive advantage to the tune of 315%. Overall, the FirePro W500 loses only one test by 18% the rest of the tests have it winning by 100-315%. It goes to show just how much drivers and optimizations matter when it comes to professional applications.
Read more at http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-fir...aphics-card-review_2070/3#QfZKCjtY0YbU8MCQ.99

Also for the record the W5000 = 7770 performance when gaming. so you essentially have a 7770 with proper drivers kicking the snot out of a 7970. If doing professional work get a professional GPU.