After getting through highschool & uni with a Surface Pro 4 that's going to die, at some time, a man has to settle down to a PC workstation

[jungleion]

After a great 5 years with my Surface Pro 4, after an inflated battery and a replacement screen that glitches from overuse and overheat, I feel it's time to settle down to a new computer as my work is increasingly at home. I've tried researching through different models of PCs, but honestly, I know what makes a computer, but I have no idea which ram stick brand is reliable or which PSU I should look at, etc. Hoping to find great help here, thanks in advance!

Budget (including currency): Between $3000 - $4000 AUD ($1970.51 - $2627.35 USD)

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

• No games (maybe Minecraft over quarantine).
• Mostly to make 2D and 3D animation + other 2d art.
  • Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Animate, AE, Premiere)
  • ClipStudio EX
  • ToonBoom Harmony Premium + Storyboard Pro
  • Maya, Blender (but with 3D they're not going to be too complicated, think using 3D to make 2D look better + character animation).
• Really just looking to make animation as fast as possible to scrub through while I'm making it and to export. Also web-browsing if that matters.

Other details:

• Min x2 monitors
  • I use a 24inch 4k cintiq pro wacom tablet (supports USB-C port) and will get a second monitor (would also love recommendations for that, doing animation and film, I'm thinking I'm going to want a 4k monitor that can also turn portrait)
• I have a keyboard, mouse and speakers that work well for me but might upgrade in the future

Bonus but also important

Probably a tricky one but I would love to have some form of portability with the computer. It's not a laptop, but just in case I need to work somewhere else (sometimes I like to work with friends), it'd be great to have it at a size that I could just carry it.

Also, don't want it to look boring, but not too unicorn vomit/gamer either

 

Examples I like aesthetically

 

 

 

(These last two, especially the last one, is incredibly cool to me, but am willing to get argued out of the small form factor if it will make things run better.)

Cheers in advance to anyone who reads through this and is able to respond!

 

[Entropy.]

.

[GDRRiley]

Let me see what I can do. I'll leave a 500$ budget for monitors

any storage requirements?
 

[jungleion]

14 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

Let me see what I can do. I'll leave a 500$ budget for monitors

any storage requirements?
 

Right now my Sp4 has 256gb SSD.

So honestly if I had 500GB SSD for boot and files I'm currently working with + 2TB for project cold storage I'd be happy

[GDRRiley]

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor	$716.24 @ Amazon Australia
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-U9S 46.44 CFM CPU Cooler	$102.24 @ Amazon Australia
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard	$410.60 @ Device Deal
Memory	OLOy 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$424.60 @ Newegg Australia
Storage	Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$218.00 @ Mwave Australia
Storage	Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$344.00 @ Shopping Express
Video Card	MSI GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB VENTUS GP Video Card	$799.00 @ I-Tech
Case	Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Desktop Case	$69.00 @ Austin Computers
Power Supply	SeaSonic PRIME Platinum 650 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$192.91 @ Amazon Australia
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 32/64-bit	$218.25 @ Amazon Australia
Case Fan	Noctua NF-R8 redux-1800 PWM 31.37 CFM 80 mm Fan	$23.10 @ Newegg Australia
Case Fan	Noctua NF-R8 redux-1800 PWM 31.37 CFM 80 mm Fan	$23.10 @ Newegg Australia
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$3541.04
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-26 16:27 AEST+1000

you could drop down to 32gb of ram if you want.

2 minutes ago, jungleion said:

Right now my Sp4 has 256gb SSD.

So honestly if I had 500GB SSD for boot and files I'm currently working with + 2TB for project cold storage I'd be happy

okay well I built in 3tb of SSD space with 0 cold storage.

[jungleion]

24 minutes ago, Brok3n But who cares? said:

You're in a tought spot, tbh. You need a fairly high-end workstation in a small formfactor. Being honest It's a tough combo to satisfy, and a case of that size is SUPER tricky to build in. If you want a quick fix (what I'd reccomened. being honest for this form factor, I don't usually reccomened prebuilts but I can vouche for this one, and has good all-around build quality) I'd try the razer tomahawk https://www.razer.com/concepts/razer-tomahawk , a super compact, modular pc case with a system inside of it that can be assembled and disassembled in less than two minutes, if it's your first time. With a up to a 9980HK and a 2080TI, You'll be able to have a pretty sick workstation in a 10 liter form-factor. 

 

Downsides: 
-Price. You damn well be you won't be able to get a top-spec 2080TI+9980hk build, as that will probably be around $2800-3k USD, possibly more. So you'd need to strech your budget a bit

 

-Processor. As well as being a mobile chip (not that big of a deal but still) and being an Intel offering, productivity will be pretty $h!T if you compare it to AMD.

 

-Proprietary design. In most cases if something breaks you'll have to go to razer or intel only to get a fix, and you won't be able to mod, basically at all.

 

Alternitive solution: Build it yourself, however you like it, but It'll be fairly challenging, espeically if you haven't built before, and You'll need to research a lot, and improvise before/during the build. Here though, this is all I can help you with, as I don't really stray into pc builds this small. I can help you with general stuff, like gpus and ram, and even the clearance with the cases, But I can't help you with your cooling solution, your motherboard selection, cable managment, or case selection.

 

Hope this helped, have a good day

Yeah I looked at that, super cool design! Yeah that mobile chip is a bit of a worry and so is having something I can't play around with too much. But damn it looks awesome.

I'll probably end up getting someone build the computer for me as, while I have built them in the past, I'd rather someone else mess it up on their dime.

Thanks for the response!

[Pixel5]

i really dont think making a work station small and portable is a good idea here, you will realistically never move it again after you have done it once because lets face it the case does not matter at all.

What is holding you back from moving it is the cabling and all the other parts you need, unless you keep a bag packed with spare cables, mouse, keyboard, monitor and everything you need so you only need to unplug the case and put it in the bag you will never ever move it and redo all your wire management.

 

A much more realistic idea would be to build a normal workstation for home use and either get a cheap laptop to do some work on the go or get a cheap laptop to connect to the workstation when you want to do some work.

 

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

i really dont think making a work station small and portable is a good idea here, you will realistically never move it again after you have done it once because lets face it the case does not matter at all.

What is holding you back from moving it is the cabling and all the other parts you need, unless you keep a bag packed with spare cables, mouse, keyboard, monitor and everything you need so you only need to unplug the case and put it in the bag you will never ever move it and redo all your wire management.

I've done it quite a few times with a mATX tower.

[Pixel5]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

I've done it quite a few times with a mATX tower.

just as i said the tower is not the issue at all, its putting in the work to disconnect everything and pack your monitor/keyboard plus all cables you need.

once this is clear and sorted the difference of lifting an mATX and an ITX case is irrelevant they will both still be heavy.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Pixel5 said:

just as i said the tower is not the issue at all, its putting in the work to disconnect everything and pack your monitor/keyboard plus all cables you need.

once this is clear and sorted the difference of lifting an mATX and an ITX case is irrelevant they will both still be heavy.

I'm saying I've moved my setup before 5-6 times in a month. and not like across the room but miles away. it isn't that hard to do.