Upgrade or buy new pc?

V-Ray V-Ray Common Hardware
1

Hi,
I’m trying to understand if it is better to upgrade my pc or change it.
To upgrade i’ll change the motherboard ( asus x99 , or recommended other? ) and processor ( i7 5060x ) , now my pc is:
CPU: i7 3930k-------change to------i7 5960k
MAINBOARD: asus p9x79 ws-----change to-----asus x99
MEMORY: 32GB DDR3 quad channel
GRAPHICS: nvidia quadro 2000
HD: ocz-vertex4

i dont know is if i changing the motherboard I have to change ram…

Thanks for the help!

2

If you buy into the new x99 platform you are being screwed over by the fact, that it does not support ddr3, but requires ddr4.
Except one sale, by Asus I believe, two weeks ago, ddr4 is painfully expensive, while not really benefitting our work at all.

If you want to upgrade, I would recommend going all the way Xeon future proof, others know about Xeon price vs performance way better though.
Personally I would wait till Zen vs 7xxx, since after the 6k series we will have a dye shrink, prices might drop, not for xeons though…

Lastly, if you consider upgrading graphics card for whatever reason, I strongly suggest not buying Quadros, if you can get around compatibility with your workflow. The price is just too painful and double precision is not needed outside of scientific calculation. They simply disables the double precision microcode on geforce cards and want silly amounts of money for “professional” tier cards.

3

You don’t have much options to upgrade your current system. If your cpu is running at astock speed, then overclocking it might give you 15-25% speed boost if lucky. Might need to upgrade cpu cooler and find someone to OC it for you.

As for platform change, the X99 requires cpu+motherboard+ram change. I’d say wait a month or two, since X99 refresh is expected very soon, and then look for parts. (new cpus will be faster, current ones - cheaper).
And yes, stay away from Quadro cards next time :wink:

4

Hi thanks for the help…the problem if you take one xeon or i7 does not make me sleep at night … but it’s just a price issue, the question is that i have a budget approx 2.5k…so for the xeon are not enough…

i’m already running a 15% in OC, with a watercooling system.
the problem with the x99 is that support only a ddr4, so there isnt another mainboard for the 5960x that is compatible with ddr3…

in another post i saw this option:

MB: asus x99-pro
PS: Evga 750W
Box: Fractal Design Define S
CPU: 5960x
GPU: Asus gtx 970 OC
Ram: 32GB Kingston 2666mhz 4x8
CPU cooler : Noctua d-15
SSD: 500GB Samsung EVO

5

I took a different approach when I decided my 3930K could use upgrading last year - I bought a couple of used dual Xeon boxes. The 3930K (OC’ed to 4.2 from the stock 3.2) gets 3m 28s on the Corona 1.3 benchmark, the twin Xeon E5-2660 gets 1m 53s (was around $1,000 for that machine), the twin Xeon X5650 gets 2m 29s (was around $500 for that machine, making it more cost effective). None of them have monitors, all controlled through remote desktop, and did go for smaller HD and memory configurations for those. Having separate machines came with benefits too that one machine alone wouldn’t. Prices were as of last year, haven’t looked recently.

Just throwing that into the mix in case it is a useful alternative thought!

6

hi, thanks for the answer, if i understud your advice is to do a small render farm…right?
where i looking for used xeon?

7

That’s the route I went - that said, I did do a fair bit of animation so the mini-farm was good for that, but with Distributed Rendering it should be good for stills too (or you can just use Backburner to pass off a still to a machine and leave it working away, too). No additional licenses required with a small farm like that, either.

I’m based in the US, I had a look on NewEgg at first, but ended up contacting a couple of companies direct (price was a bit better) - quite a few out there, The Server Store (https://www.theserverstore.com/) was who I ended up going with but lots to choose from, such as Server Monkey (http://www.servermonkey.com/) etc, a search for “refurbished xeon server” or similar should turn up a wide collection!

8

i’m based in italy, honestly i do not know where i can find some online shop where buy refurbished server…I still have some doubts using a second node only to render, i would not want it all proves “slower” than using only one machine…
thanks for the helps!!

9

If you are looking for a node, refurbished Xeon can be interesting.
But, for a main workstation, strong single CPU is MUCH better.
Especially because 3ds max isn’t fully multi thread.
So, if you have 8 CPU @ 4.5 Ghz, for daily usage is much better than 16 CPU @ 2.66 Ghz
When you work with 3ds , PS, compress file with Winrar, render with after effect, etc… the performance are double with the i75960X, instead a X5650 # 2.66Ghz.

10

thanks for the clear answer, are more and more convinced in taking a workstation, unfortunately, it is difficult to upgrade my I’ll take a new one with the specifications already written.
you have any suggestions on where to buy?

11

Guarda su .e-key.it , prokoo, in generale trovaprezzi.it , cerca shop con buone recensioni.

12

There is not much point to upgrading from good 6 core to 8-core, it’s two families apart, but it’s still 25perc. more performance at best. Will you even notice it ? No. Save your money.

As Jann said, either wait for new family of Broadwell-E which should have 10 core (6960X or 6950X I don’t watch webs much now so not sure how it’s going to be called).
Or simply buy another computer, in which case I would also wait for Broadwell-E :- ) Build it as new workstation and keep you 3930K as node.

Or buy actual powerful workstation based on two xeons, but this will cost you 5-6k euros, which is outside of your budget, but it’s the only true meaningful performance difference (it will be 250perc. more powerful, not 25perc..)

Or you can as is popular, buy few refurbished (they aren’t actually “refurbished”, they’re just discharged from and sold) older Xeons, and have a bunch of nodes you will need to care of.

13

Hi,

thanks for the help…i think wait the new 10 core cpu is the best choice for now…they should come out shortly…

but perhaps I thinking that a dual xeon is the right choice to have a real faster workstation…

14

finaly i decide to buy a new dual xenon…

CPU 2xIntel Xeon E5-2630 v4
PSU CP-9020074-EU CORSAIR 1000 Watt
CASE SGC-5000-KKN1 COOLER MASTER
Ram HyperX HX421C14FB2/8 GB x 4
MB Z10PE-D16-WS ASUS
HD SSD 850 PRO 512 GB
HD2 SEAGATE 1000 GB SATA
COOLER HYPER 412S COOLER MASTER

Price 3719+vat…

any suggestion?

15

Hi,

That motherboard is EEB form factor. The case you choosed is the CM Trooper right? According to their website it supports only micro-ATX, ATX and XL-ATX, I’m not sure if it is compatible, is it? Also have you checked if you have enough space for the coolers and if it is “tall” enough to fit above the ram?

Cheers,

16

right!!!
i change the case with phanteks!

17

SSI CEB is compatible with E-ATX . They pretty much match size wise and only differ in hole position. Up to 3 will not match up, you can drill your own holes, or just ignore it :- )

Since XL-ATX is simply longer ATX, the board would not fit.

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18

Hi Juraj,

thanks for the help, where have you take this information?

19

finally my new pc is arrived…

Corona 1.3 Benchmark Finished
BTR Scene 16 passes
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630 v4 @ 2.20GHz (x2)
Real CPU Frequency : Undetected
Render Time: 0:01:18, Rays/sec: 6.178.260