New $3000 Workstation Build for Rendering. Any thoughts?

[Sourav89]

Budget (including currency): $3000 / Rs. 2,30,000 ( can settle for lower as well, if chances are there)

Country: India

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Primary: 3D Rendering, Video Compositing | Secondary: Gaming

Other details: Build from scratch. 

 

Please suggest a build. I would prefer a workstation GPU than a Desktop GPU. If you suggest Desktop GPU for rendering, please also share why so?

 

[Bombastinator]

This one may depend specifically on what software packages you are running. Just ran into someone who thought that their software didn’t use the gpu for rendering at all.  Struck me as unlikely.  Nvidia CUDA cores may be wanted so that would mean a larger Nvidia gpu.  You may want to determine what software packages you want to run and how big the projects you will want to work on are and then build to that. 
 

The generic answer is a system very similar to a gaming machine but with specifically a big Nvidia card and more memory.  There might be very specific things though.

[jaslion]

What software will you be using? Cannot recommend anything without knowing.

[jaslion]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

This one may depend specifically on what software packages you are running. Just ran into someone who thought that their software didn’t use the gpu for rendering at all.  Struck me as unlikely.  Nvidia CUDA cores may be wanted so that would mean a larger Nvidia gpu.  You may want to determine what software packages you want to run and how big the projects you will want to work on are and then build to that. 
 

The generic answer is a system very similar to a gaming machine but with specifically a big Nvidia card and more memory.  There might be very specific things though.

There are quite a few reasons to still render on cpu even when gpu is available. Also most cad programs do not have gpu rendering options yet.

[Sourav89]

Hi,

 

My primary 3D software - Daz Studio

Followed by Blender

Followed by Maya

 

Video Editing: Foundry Nuke, WS Filmora and at times Adobe Aftereffects

 

Regarding VRAM usage, I have a 1060 6GB now. I cant render scenes with multiple characters using my 1060 these days, even just for the image files which are crappy anyways. If I load 3 or more characters into the scene, the render switches to my poor i5 CPU which takes ages to render a simple scene. A super hero scene that i created with just 1 character, his clothes and the ambience took me 24 hours while rendering it on my poor i5.

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

There are quite a few reasons to still render on cpu even when gpu is available. Also most cad programs do not have gpu rendering options yet.

Really?! That’s very odd.  They were starting to 20years ago.  No movement in 20 years?!

[jaslion]

19 minutes ago, Sourav89 said:

Hi,

 

My primary 3D software - Daz Studio

Followed by Blender

Followed by Maya

 

Video Editing: Foundry Nuke, WS Filmora and at times Adobe Aftereffects

 

Regarding VRAM usage, I have a 1060 6GB now. I cant render scenes with multiple characters using my 1060 these days, even just for the image files which are crappy anyways. If I load 3 or more characters into the scene, the render switches to my poor i5 CPU which takes ages to render a simple scene. A super hero scene that i created with just 1 character, his clothes and the ambience took me 24 hours while rendering it on my poor i5.

Ok so got any prices on a 3090?

[Sourav89]

I have made plans for this configuration. Please share your thoughts.

Customize PC _ PC Studio.pdf

[Sourav89]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Ok so got any prices on a 3090?

Yes, at present its price in India is ₹280,000.00 = $3809...... lol more than my budget for the complete PC

[jones177]

15 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Really?! That’s very odd.  They were starting to 20years ago.  No movement in 20 years?!

For a long time GPU rendering was sub par.

 

I did 3D for a living and used CPU rendering up until I retired in 2018. I was converting some projects to GPU but only if it made sense to. 

The thing is projects that are designed for CPU render faster on CPU.

 

The last CPU renderer I used Nvidia's Mental Ray.  Projects designed for it were not really compatible with Nvidia's iray renderer for GPU that came with 3D Max. It was easier to convert them to V Ray but that added cost to a production.

 

If I would have continued working I would have gone all GPU by now.

 

20 minutes ago, Sourav89 said:

Yes, at present its price in India is ₹280,000.00 = $3809...... lol more than my budget for the complete PC

The last GPU I used was a GTX 1080 ti so about the same as a RTX  2080 or RTX 3060.

 

I will be straight with you.

I can make a living doing 3D with a 4 core and a GTX 970. That is the sort of computer that paid for my 3090 and two 3080 tis.

37 minutes ago, Sourav89 said:

I have made plans for this configuration. Please share your thoughts.

Customize PC _ PC Studio.pdf 239.98 kB · 0 downloads

That looks great.

The only thing I would do is get rid of the HDD.

I stopped using 7200rpm HDD for 3D in 2007. They really slow a system down. I would use a 1tb SATA SSD instead. If you need storage do it remotely with something like a WD Passport or Elements.

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, Sourav89 said:

I have made plans for this configuration. Please share your thoughts.

Customize PC _ PC Studio.pdf 239.98 kB · 1 download

Get a FAR cheaper board no reason at all to spend that much on it. A msi b550 pro would be plenty good here.

 

Ditch the hdd and go all nvme/sata ssd here.

[jaslion]

31 minutes ago, jones177 said:

The last CPU renderer I used Nvidia's Mental Ray.  Projects designed for it were not really compatible with Nvidia's iray renderer for GPU that came with 3D Max. It was easier to convert them to V Ray but that added cost to a production.

Yeah often in mental ray my simple i7 6700hq would just flat out beat my 970m but in early 2021 before I replaced that laptop I can confidently say that gpu rendering was all you needed anymore and it really improved over time as in the same projects with some fixing and the new renderer version applied the 970m beat that i7.

 

34 minutes ago, jones177 said:

I will be straight with you.

I can make a living doing 3D with a 4 core and a GTX 970. That is the sort of computer that paid for my 3090 and two 3080 tis

This so much the tools don't make the artist but are what can make them shine and in this case for me my i7 6700hq + 970m laptop that I got in late 2015 carried me forward in a semi professional setting for 6 years. I did have the luck of having a xeon render station for 3.5 of those years really helping cut down on renders that would lake longer than one sleep but if I had to use my laptop again I'd still totally be able to make what I need to make the only thing that would suck would be rendering it.

[jones177]

8 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Yeah often in mental ray my simple i7 6700hq would just flat out beat my 970m but in early 2021 before I replaced that laptop I can confidently say that gpu rendering was all you needed anymore and it really improved over time as in the same projects with some fixing and the new renderer version applied the 970m beat that i7.

My thing was a lot of the projects I did were updates to designs I did a year or 2 before so I made the changes and rerendered with CPU. If I was starting from scratch then I would go GPU.   

 

8 minutes ago, jaslion said:

This so much the tools don't make the artist but are what can make them shine and in this case for me my i7 6700hq + 970m laptop that I got in late 2015 carried me forward in a semi professional setting for 6 years. I did have the luck of having a xeon render station for 3.5 of those years really helping cut down on renders that would lake longer than one sleep but if I had to use my laptop again I'd still totally be able to make what I need to make the only thing that would suck would be rendering it.

I used high end stuff in the late 80s and early 90s but in 1993 I started using gaming PCs for 3D and if I needed more rendering power I built more PCs.

Having lots of PCs is a habit I thought would end when I retired but I still have lots of PCs.  

 

Since I started early my meshes and textures were very efficient so they took no time to render.

That is what kept me working more than talent. 

 

 

   

[Sourav89]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your inputs @jaslion and @jones177

Regarding the motherboard, I am thinking of the future multiple GPU setups and also i have plans to use my old 1060 along with the new 3060. Hence that x570 one.

 

I have also done many picture stories for independent  artists. But my work was all freelancing. Ever since COVID pandemic, it has become little tough. I need to make good output in less time with the same old price. Otherwise, I will be thrown out of the  competition easily. I am also planning to diversify and create more content through  VFX.

 

So I have thought about the above build.

 

Thanks

[jones177]

13 hours ago, Sourav89 said:

Hi,

 

Thanks for your inputs @jaslion and @jones177

Regarding the motherboard, I am thinking of the future multiple GPU setups and also i have plans to use my old 1060 along with the new 3060. Hence that x570 one.

I have a x570 as well since I do not know what I will need in the future. 

I only stopped using multiple GPUs with the GTX 1080 tis but I bought a 1300 watt PSU just in case I decide to use 2 RTX 2080 ti in a system.

 

Quote

I have also done many picture stories for independent  artists. But my work was all freelancing. Ever since COVID pandemic, it has become little tough. I need to make good output in less time with the same old price. Otherwise, I will be thrown out of the  competition easily. I am also planning to diversify and create more content through  VFX.

 

So I have thought about the above build.

 

Thanks

That is the reason I got out of 3D to video and went with design work. It was always more for less.

 

Also I did 3D game content design for a number of years so I learned to texture everything. This cuts rendering time way down.

So my competition used procedural textures the took minutes to render and I used texture mapping techniques that took seconds to render.

That was my edge.

 

 

[jaslion]

13 hours ago, Sourav89 said:

Hi,

 

Thanks for your inputs @jaslion and @jones177

Regarding the motherboard, I am thinking of the future multiple GPU setups and also i have plans to use my old 1060 along with the new 3060. Hence that x570 one.

 

I have also done many picture stories for independent  artists. But my work was all freelancing. Ever since COVID pandemic, it has become little tough. I need to make good output in less time with the same old price. Otherwise, I will be thrown out of the  competition easily. I am also planning to diversify and create more content through  VFX.

 

So I have thought about the above build.

 

Thanks

But the b550 I mentioned also can do that no problem what so ever? You really are not going to be using the extra features the x570 offers here. I mean you are spending a ludicrous amount of money on it whilst you can invest that money into something that will ACTUALLY MATTER like bigger/better ssds.

 

 

[Sourav89]

Finally building this

 

Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Motherboard	MSI MPG B550
CPU Cooler	DeepCool GAMMAX L240
RAM	Hyper X 16 x 2  3200 MHz
SSD	Verbatim 1 TB NVMe M.2
HDD	Used WD 1 TB
PSU	Deepcool DQ850 Gold
GPU	Galax 3060 OC
Case	Deepcool Matrexx 70
OS	Windows 10 Pro Lifetime
Monitor	MSI Optix G271
Keyboard	ANT Esports Mk3200
Mouse	RAZER Deathadder