new workstation advice

[tdarcy]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for some advice from the hardware gurus out there on the spec for a new office workstation.
The funds available are about 5000.00 sterling
The machine needs to be able to run MAX and vray obviously and render on cpu and maybe gpu (havnt really tried gpu rendering yet) and the work is architecture still images ...not distributed.
The machine also needs to be able to cope with Revit as this is becoming our office day to day cad package.
Also we hope to step into the world of VR/AR with the same machine using possibly enscape and maybe unreal engine.

Chances are we my have to go through HP or dell but might be able to persuade the boss on a self build if its a significant saving.

So would really appreciate any advice you guys can give ...in particular info on graphic cards & cpu requirements would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance

Tdarcy

[maxedesa]

Hi Tdarcy,

I'm not a guru, but recently built a nice workstation for under $4k.
Core i9-7920X (24 threads!), Asus Prime X-299A mobo, 64GB RAM, Quadro P4000.

You could switch the Quadro for a 1080 card (if the miners haven't grabbed them all), but I think the Quadro will work better for huge max scenes and Revit.

Good luck!

[Alex_M]

I would strongly suggest that you look into AMD's Threadripper 1950X 16-core / 32 threads processor instead of the 7920x. It has 4 cores/8 threads more than i9 7920X and is about 20% cheaper and about 20% faster in multi-core workloads (3D rendering, encoding, archiving etc.). With the workstation in my signature I do 3300 CB score in Cinebench R15 and 0:41 min in Vray Benchmark with all cores overclocked to 3.90 Ghz. I've never had any problems with it so far in any software, it's working like a champ. I should also note that if you can wait for a while, a bit later this year AMD will release the updated version of Threadripper which will have even faster clock speeds, better IPC, and improved cache & memory controller.

[tdarcy]

thanks for the replies guys .. i shall look into these suggestions.....much appreciated.

cheers

[dimension3plus]

I would strongly suggest that you look into AMD's Threadripper 1950X 16-core / 32 threads processor instead of the 7920x. It has 4 cores/8 threads more than i9 7920X and is about 20% cheaper and about 20% faster in multi-core workloads (3D rendering, encoding, archiving etc.). With the workstation in my signature I do 3300 CB score in Cinebench R15 and 0:41 min in Vray Benchmark with all cores overclocked to 3.90 Ghz. I've never had any problems with it so far in any software, it's working like a champ. I should also note that if you can wait for a while, a bit later this year AMD will release the updated version of Threadripper which will have even faster clock speeds, better IPC, and improved cache & memory controller.

Hey Alex,
Could you tell me which cooling system you have installed? How did you overclock your cpu? Which parameters have you changed?
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Olaf

[Alex_M]

I'm using the Noctua NH-U14S cooler. A lot of people, myself included, agree that it's a really good, if not the best air-cooler for Threadripper, beating even a lot of AIO coolers that are more expensive.

I've overclocked my Threadripper via P-states in BIOS. This is a bit more complicated type of overclocking which is not easily explained so I encourage you to do proper research before attempting it. I'm not sure if giving my exact OC parameters is a good idea since every single CPU and motherboard, even if they are exactly the same model, have slight hardware differences in terms of what voltages and heat they can tolerate before they start giving stability problems.

[Syclone1]

I'm using the Noctua NH-U14S cooler. A lot of people, myself included, agree that it's a really good, if not the best air-cooler for Threadripper, beating even a lot of AIO coolers that are more expensive.

I've overclocked my Threadripper via P-states in BIOS. This is a bit more complicated type of overclocking which is not easily explained so I encourage you to do proper research before attempting it. I'm not sure if giving my exact OC parameters is a good idea since every single CPU and motherboard, even if they are exactly the same model, have slight hardware differences in terms of what voltages and heat they can tolerate before they start giving stability problems.

I'm curious what your temps are with that cooler?

[Alex_M]

My temps are in the mid to high 70s °C at 3.9 Ghz on all 16 cores under prolonged 100% load (more than an hour) at ambient temp of ~24 °C. Keep in mind that every situation is unique. You might have a different PC case, CPU voltage, number of fans, fan placement and direction and ambient temps.