Looking for advice on a significant upgrade to pro workstation for Archviz

V-Ray V-Ray Common Hardware
1

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for some advice on hardware configuration on my workstation. Maybe you guys could share some insights?

Since 2005 I’m creating Artist Impressions for clients in the Netherlands and my journey of upgrading my workstations has been a fun and educating ride mostly. It got the job done for what I needed. Now I am looking for sensible upgrade.

Below the specifications of my current main workstation at my studio office:

CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i9-12900KS (3.40 GHz)
CPU cooling: Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE LCD XT Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 AORUS PRO
Ram: 2 x Kingston DDR5 FURY Beast 2x32GB 4800 =128GB
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G VANGUARD SOC
PSU: Corsair HX1500i 2023 PSU
HD: 2 TB m.2 SSD 7000mb w/r
Storage: 2x 16TB raid
2 x 27 inch 4K screen + 1 x 49 inch 4K screen

My questions are: Looking at this configuration, what can be upgraded so performance in 3dsmax/v-ray/photoshop will significantly increase. I am looking for extreme polycount in 3dsmax (large scenes). Smooth IPR with large scenes. Faster GPU rendering. High speed file reading/writing in 3dsmax.

If I just upgrade the CPU to the latest fastest CPU, it doesn’t really significantly increase the performance I believe. Or If I upgrade the motherboard and RAM. Will it significantly increase performance compared to the costs?

I have experimented with adding my older Asus GeForce RTX 4090 ROG-STRIX-RTX 4090-24G-GAMING to work next to the 5090. At first placing both cards next to each other on the motherboard. It worked in rendering in 3ds max. The cards eventually started to heat up uncomfortably in my opinion. So I used the NZXT PCIe 4.0x16 Riser Cable to have the 4090 outside the case. The Thermaltake View 51 Tempered Glass ARGB Zwart Big Tower.

It worked like a charm and no high temperatures. Till I walked away for 20 minutes and back to find a frozen screen with the 4090 temp displayed of 254 degrees Celsius. I thought the GPU was fried but it still works back in my older workstation.

Is there a better way to do this? I know this configuration looks like a gaming PC and I wonder if you guys have advice on maybe a completely new setup or just sensible upgrades for a professional workstation for Archviz in 2026. Is it better to have a different kind of CPU or other GPU. What would be a pro workstation configuration for the next two years to keep up with the big studios?

I am open to any thoughts or advice. It would be greatly appreciated!

Sincerely,

Daniel van Engers
https://www.bouwimpression.nl

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2

Hi Daniel and welcome to the forums,

You already have 2 high-end GPUs, which will make this upgrade cheaper and easier.

Below the specifications of my current main workstation at my studio office:

I recommend a new motherboard and processor. You could keep the rest of the hardware, no need to upgrade them
Get either the Ryzen 9 9950X CPU and the Asus ProArt X870-e Creator Wifi
Or, the Intel Ultra 9 285k with the Asus z890 ProArt Wifi
Both combinations will work great for your use case, with the Ryzen 9950X being faster in multi-threaded tasks. I have both machines at my office. They will render faster on CPU compared to your old CPU, and the extra single-threaded performance will be helpful for 3Ds Max viewport as well as Time-To-First-Pixel for GPU rendering. They should be future-proof as well because they support PCIe Gen 5.0

The performance gains should be significant compared to your current workstation and will definitely make a difference.

You could stick with the RAM you already have, or upgrdate to 192 GB of DDR5 if you need more system memory for your projects.

The cards eventually started to heat up uncomfortably in my opinion. So I used the NZXT PCIe 4.0x16 Riser Cable to have the 4090 outside the case. The Thermaltake View 51 Tempered Glass ARGB Zwart Big Tower.

In theory, only one card should heat up, the one at the top because it doesn’t have access to cool air. The card below should work just fine.
This issue is solvable by using Rizer cables, like the one you have. If this is intalled right, there shouldn’t be any thermal throttling. Or you could have both cards in the case, and do under-volting on the 5090 to manage the amount of heat it produces. I can give you some settings to test with.
Keep in mind, 2 GPUs don’t do anything for 3Ds Max viewport. Only one GPU is usually used! but for GPU rendering both cards should work without issues.
I suggest installing the 4090 at the bottom, and the 5090 at the topmost slots on your motherboard. 5090 should be undervolted, and the 4090 doesn’t get hot nearly at all in GPU rendering, so this shouldn’t be an issue.
For me personally I have 3x 5090s in one machine with rizer cables in a mining rack. I will post some pictures here later. And the other machine has a 5080 and 4090 together stacked on top of each other without overheating.

One final note, is that this hardware is perfect for 3D rendering with V-Ray. You don’t need Quadro or Tesla GPUs, unless you need the extra VRAM they have.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Muhammed

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If you want cpu performance you need high core and thread counts. You built a high end gaming rig cpu and memory wise