3D modelling + rendering (80%) & 3D animation (20%)

[Raul]

Good morning Alex and all CGDirector Team!

First of all I would like to thank you for an amazing site with tones of useful handon information for those who cannot keep up regularly with hardware updates and evolution!

So, down to business, I am building a PC to work mainly with Cinema 4D. Currently, around 80% of my work is modelling and rendering based, and 20% animation, that is why I have made three builts with balance between CPU and GPU power (I think ) as I need to do both of active and passive work. My line of work is 3D product visualization (so photorealistic renders and short animations).

My budget is between 1,700 to 2,250 $, but obviously, the less the better . Using your tool, I came up with the following:
Build 1: Top budget

AMD Ryzen 9 3950x Retail

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080

Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

GIGABYTE X399 AORUS Pro

Samsung 860 1TB

Corsair RMX Series RM650x 80 Plus Gold

LIAN LI LANCOOL II-W

Build 2: Mid budget

AMD 3900X Ryzen 9

MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Super

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 Gb

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

ASUS TUF Gaming X570-PLUS

Samsung 860 1TB

Corsair RMX Series RM650x 80 Plus Gold

LIAN LI LANCOOL II-W

Build 3: Low budget

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 Gb

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

ASUS TUF Gaming X570-PLUS

Samsung 860 1TB

Corsair RMX Series RM650x 80 Plus Gold

LIAN LI LANCOOL II-W

The first build is mainly used as a reference and if possible, I would like to go with either Build 2 or 3.

So what are your thoughts? Are those good enough to work seamlessly with active work as well as generating high quality renders? Would you suggest a different combination to get a more effective cost vs performance PC?

Thanks for your feedback and I look forward to hearing from you!

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey Raul,
Beware of that x399 Motherboard in the first build, which is not compatible with the Ryzen CPU. You'll need a x570 Board like in the 2nd and third build.

That said, I'd say it comes down entirely to how you render out your projects. What Render Engine are you using and is it utilizing the gpu, cpu or hybrid?

That should already tell you into what direction you should push your pc. Using Redshift or Octane? Get a 3700X, but a strong gpu like the 2080 Ti or 2080. Using Cinema 4d Physical renderer or standard renderer? Get the 3950X with a weaker gpu and so on.

Let me know and we can continue from there

 

[Raul]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the super fast reply! Noted the point re motherboar

I mostly use VRAY as my primary render and sometimes Redshift and Octane, but the last two are varely use them.

Thanks!

 

[Alex Glawion]

That narrows it down a bit, though unfortunately there are a few different versions of vray floating around and it also depends a bit on what Host app you are using vray with, .. so 3dsmax, c4d, maya, sketchup and so on? Is it cpu, gpu or hybrid rendering you have access to in your specific vray plugin and version? (https://www.cgdirector.com/render-engine-hardware-compatibility-cpu-gpu-hybrid/)

 

[Raul]

I am using VRAY 3.7 with C4D R21. In VRay-RT > Engine, I've got:
0: CPU Engine
1: OpenCL Single Kernel
4: CUDA Single Kernel

 

[Alex Glawion]

Thanks that clears it up for me! Vray for C4D was developed by a third party before chaosgroup took over recently and the 3.7 Version is still one that is a bit behin the official vray or vray next version for other Softwares.

That said though, it does support full gpu rendering with AMD or Nvidia GPUs but no hybrid rendering. So if the featureset of Vray-RT is sufficient for your needs, I'd invest in a stronger GPU to get the most performance out of CUDA Rendering with Vray-RT. In other words, go with a fast active work cpu that doesnt have loads of cores (like the 3700X) and a GPU with lots of CUDA Cores (such as the 2080, 2080 super or 2080Ti)