As our models keep getting bigger and bigger I’m now considering to purchase a new workstation with a powerfull setup. I’m not an expert and as I see it GPU is nowadays more important than CPU (correct me if I’m wrong). We used to have powerful processors and more or less good graphic cards. Is it still necessary to have a powerfull processor or can I go with a lighter version, what would you recommend?
HI @ruby_vandeursen We are excited you are planning on getting a new machine. Please be aware that Chaos employees are unable to give any recommendations on hardware to be used, but I am sure that our lovely community will give you irreplaceable advices.
What I can do is share with you the System Requirements we have for V-Ray for Cinema 4D. Feel free to check the link attached: HERE
Thank you for your reply Viktor, I’ve examined your system requirements. I’m still confused about the processor, it would be nice to hear what kind of processor will do nowadays. Anyone tips?
Hi @ruby_vandeursen , I switched from a 3990x to a 7980x. Same number of cores but almost double speed, very happy,
But only 128 Gb Ram and a RTX4090, and I am just rendering with CPU.
This depends on your rendering engine, do you use V-Ray or V-Ray GPU for your projects? Do you use both?
If you use V-Ray the standard CPU renderer, there is no need to invest too much in GPUs.
Let’s start with the GPU choice, if you don’t use V-Ray GPU or Vantage stick to something like the 4070Ti Super 16 GB or the 5070Ti 16 GB. Whichever you finder cheaper
16 GB of VRAM will be helpful for C4D and say if you have Photoshop or AE open at the same time.
Picking a more powerful GPU will not help if you render everything with V-Ray standard (CPU)
About the CPU choice, this depends on your wallet. Any of the new Threadrippers will be considerably faster than your current CPU. For example the 7980X at a premium price of 6000 USD (plus at least 2000 USD for the motherbaord and memory) is more than 4x faster than your current CPU. If that it too expensive go for the Threadipper 7970X for 2500 USD, it should be around 2.5x faster than your current CPU
Make sure your memory is AMD certified and on the motherboard QVL list, this will help a lot.
Avoid older Threadrippers, like the 3xxx and 5xxx. Stick with the newer generation 7xxx
Let me know if you have more questions, and thanks for the mention @haniel1107
Thank you both for your extensive reply, very helpfull! We mostly use CPU rendering but a descent graphic card also helps with AI and will fit our future needs. I will check out your recomendations. How can I check if the memory is AMD certified an on the motherboard QVL list? That’s not the same as RAM memory I’m guesing?
Memory kits will be labeled on the box and spec sheet(best is to go to the manufacturer website to make sure this specific model code is tuned for AMD). I personally like the TridentZ Neo from Gskill, they work really well for AMD platforms.
QVL list is on the support page of the motherboard manufacturer, it easy to find on the web
Beside the advice about CPU or GPU, be aware that even 128GB of RAM is already a large amount for most users, if you fill your memory frequently is very likely that there is large room for optimization in your scene setup;)
Agree, but sometimes when some programs like after effects or other adobe apps are open in the background, I wish I would have more ram, but for a C4D scene alone is most of the time enough..
Yes, we try to optimize our scenes as much as possible. Attached is a scene we worked on recently. All the greenery is 3D and we get a list with trees that will be applied in the project. We can’t just plant a random tree. Therefore we end up with a lot of models. Although we use some models from Polygon and Cosmos browser (which are lighter in the scene) they use up the same Ram. Our models from Maxtree are quite heavy as there are a lot of them. On top we scatter the grass with Vray scatter. Scene file is about 3 GB which is more than common for our scenes. In this case when rendering the birdseye view memory shot up to almost 100%. We would like to make an animation of this scene as well, that’s why the choice for 256 Ram and proper videocard.
