S
schizo
Guest
Hello!
I'm shopping around for a new workstation, as I want to start contracting remotely. I've been working in 3D at commercial studios for a while, but have never been super interested in hardware, which has changed quite a bit and is way more expensive since I last built my last personal PC many years ago; so I'm catching up learning about the latest components. I'm leaning towards ordering from a pro workstation builder, because as a novice builder am afraid of screwing something up with expensive parts, or a liquid cooling system or something not optimized in the build due to my inexperience. Thoughts? After shopping a bunch of builders' configuration sites, I'm finding Falcon Northwest seems maybe slightly cheaper for comparable builds from companies, but I'm open to suggestions.
I used CG-Director's nice PC Building app, and tried others as well... while a good start, most seem to base usage on either modeling/animation OR rendering, but I will likely be doing both. I'll mainly be using Maya (from modeling to rendering), Photoshop, After Effects, Zbrush & Nuke. Rendering will likely be in V-Ray, but I am also looking to start dabbling in GPU renderers like Redshift or Octane. I also want to learn some Houdini, Substance and Unreal. So I need both CPU and GPU power, but don't have a huge budget. Ideally I will get something that won't lag too much in any area, but also won't break the bank.. perhaps that is too much to ask for!
Basic specs I am considering using Falcon's configuration tool:
CPU: AMD Threadripper 3960X 24-core
Cooling: Falcon 280mm liquid cooling (not sure what brand it would end up being)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-XE
RAM: G.Skill RipJaws 64GB (4x16GB) 2666MHz DDR4
GPU: Nvidia EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB
OS drive: Samsung 980 PRO M.2 SSD 1TB
Data drive: Samsung 2.5" 870 QVO SATA SSD 4TB
Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G3 1000w
This build is about $7099, which is a lot for me. It seems that for $7K, I should be getting 32-core, so based on my intended usage, do you see somewhere I can cut back on? Maybe I could scale back the GPU. But it sounds like 32-core CPU, 64GB RAM and 24GB GPU are many artists' recommended minimums.
A few questions:
1. CPU - is the AMD 3960X 24-core sufficient, or would I really miss having an AMD Threadripper 3970X 32-core? Or on the flip side, can I even get away with a regular AMD Ryzen instead of a Threadripper?
2. RAM - I can upgrade from G.Skill RipJaws 64GB 2666MHz to G.Skill TridentZ 64GB 3600MHz for an additional $163... but is it worth it?
3. Some configs I see use a 3rd smaller disk for scratch data. Is this recommended or really necessary?
4. OS drive - I saw one YouTube video recommending 2TB, but that sounds to me like overkill? I'm thinking 1TB is more than enough.
5. Data drive - I read recommendations of 4TB. What is recommended if doing Houdini sims? Again, I would just be learning Houdini at first. But want to have enough in case I really get into it. Also, I read SATA is better if you need to recover data, but SSD is better for video editing? And any benefit of 2.5" vs 3.5"?
Am I being overly cautious with self-building, and is the money I can save really worth trying to build it myself?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice!
I'm shopping around for a new workstation, as I want to start contracting remotely. I've been working in 3D at commercial studios for a while, but have never been super interested in hardware, which has changed quite a bit and is way more expensive since I last built my last personal PC many years ago; so I'm catching up learning about the latest components. I'm leaning towards ordering from a pro workstation builder, because as a novice builder am afraid of screwing something up with expensive parts, or a liquid cooling system or something not optimized in the build due to my inexperience. Thoughts? After shopping a bunch of builders' configuration sites, I'm finding Falcon Northwest seems maybe slightly cheaper for comparable builds from companies, but I'm open to suggestions.
I used CG-Director's nice PC Building app, and tried others as well... while a good start, most seem to base usage on either modeling/animation OR rendering, but I will likely be doing both. I'll mainly be using Maya (from modeling to rendering), Photoshop, After Effects, Zbrush & Nuke. Rendering will likely be in V-Ray, but I am also looking to start dabbling in GPU renderers like Redshift or Octane. I also want to learn some Houdini, Substance and Unreal. So I need both CPU and GPU power, but don't have a huge budget. Ideally I will get something that won't lag too much in any area, but also won't break the bank.. perhaps that is too much to ask for!
Basic specs I am considering using Falcon's configuration tool:
CPU: AMD Threadripper 3960X 24-core
Cooling: Falcon 280mm liquid cooling (not sure what brand it would end up being)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix TRX40-XE
RAM: G.Skill RipJaws 64GB (4x16GB) 2666MHz DDR4
GPU: Nvidia EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB
OS drive: Samsung 980 PRO M.2 SSD 1TB
Data drive: Samsung 2.5" 870 QVO SATA SSD 4TB
Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G3 1000w
This build is about $7099, which is a lot for me. It seems that for $7K, I should be getting 32-core, so based on my intended usage, do you see somewhere I can cut back on? Maybe I could scale back the GPU. But it sounds like 32-core CPU, 64GB RAM and 24GB GPU are many artists' recommended minimums.
A few questions:
1. CPU - is the AMD 3960X 24-core sufficient, or would I really miss having an AMD Threadripper 3970X 32-core? Or on the flip side, can I even get away with a regular AMD Ryzen instead of a Threadripper?
2. RAM - I can upgrade from G.Skill RipJaws 64GB 2666MHz to G.Skill TridentZ 64GB 3600MHz for an additional $163... but is it worth it?
3. Some configs I see use a 3rd smaller disk for scratch data. Is this recommended or really necessary?
4. OS drive - I saw one YouTube video recommending 2TB, but that sounds to me like overkill? I'm thinking 1TB is more than enough.
5. Data drive - I read recommendations of 4TB. What is recommended if doing Houdini sims? Again, I would just be learning Houdini at first. But want to have enough in case I really get into it. Also, I read SATA is better if you need to recover data, but SSD is better for video editing? And any benefit of 2.5" vs 3.5"?
Am I being overly cautious with self-building, and is the money I can save really worth trying to build it myself?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice!