3D Generalist Workstation

[Crispiis]

Budget (including currency): $5000 USD

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Cinema 4D, Redshift, Blender, After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, (possibly Houdini in the future)

 

Other details: I want recommendations on a build centered around the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X which is the CPU I plan to buy. I already have 2 Nvidia 3080 12 GBs GPUs. I plan on using this machine for personal 3D animation projects and rendering locally so I would like a motherboard that I can plug the 2 GPUs into without worrying about not getting the most out of the GPUs. In terms of case, I was between the Fractal Design North XL or the Meshify 2 XL, the North might be too tight of a fit for the dual GPU set up. I know that based on the motherboard the compatibility of RAM changes but ideally I would want to maximize that as well which will help in running physical sims. For cooling I've seen ARCTIC Liquid Freezer series are solid. I appreciate any help and guidance. Thank you

 

[brob]

37 minutes ago, Crispiis said:

Budget (including currency): $5000 USD

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Cinema 4D, Redshift, Blender, After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, (possibly Houdini in the future)

 

Other details: I want recommendations on a build centered around the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X which is the CPU I plan to buy. I already have 2 Nvidia 3080 12 GBs GPUs. I plan on using this machine for personal 3D animation projects and rendering locally so I would like a motherboard that I can plug the 2 GPUs into without worrying about not getting the most out of the GPUs. In terms of case, I was between the Fractal Design North XL or the Meshify 2 XL, the North might be too tight of a fit for the dual GPU set up. I know that based on the motherboard the compatibility of RAM changes but ideally I would want to maximize that as well which will help in running physical sims. For cooling I've seen ARCTIC Liquid Freezer series are solid. I appreciate any help and guidance. Thank you

 

 

What model RTX 3080 12 GB?

 

Have you considered the 9950X?

[Crispiis]

17 hours ago, brob said:

 

What model RTX 3080 12 GB?

 

Have you considered the 9950X?

GIGABYTE Gaming OC 12GB RTX 3080

The 7950X seems like the best price/performance cpu, would getting the 9950X be worth it?

[brob]

5 hours ago, Crispiis said:

GIGABYTE Gaming OC 12GB RTX 3080

The 7950X seems like the best price/performance cpu, would getting the 9950X be worth it?

 

There are not many motherboards that offer two slots that support GPU using 8 CPU PCIe lanes. GPU width (3 slots) is a further complication.

 

The 9950X does command a premium price. Certainly the 7950X is a better value choice at the moment. But the 9950X will have a longer support window.

 

The Meshify 2 XL is, as you suggest, the better choice.

 

Just how much memory is required?

[greeatzy]

On 12/3/2024 at 8:55 AM, Crispiis said:

Budget (including currency): $5000 USD

 

Country: USA

 

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Cinema 4D, Redshift, Blender, After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, (possibly Houdini in the future)

 

Other details: I want recommendations on a build centered around the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X which is the CPU I plan to buy. I already have 2 Nvidia 3080 12 GBs GPUs. I plan on using this machine for personal 3D animation projects and rendering locally so I would like a motherboard that I can plug the 2 GPUs into without worrying about not getting the most out of the GPUs. In terms of case, I was between the Fractal Design North XL or the Meshify 2 XL, the North might be too tight of a fit for the dual GPU set up. I know that based on the motherboard the compatibility of RAM changes but ideally I would want to maximize that as well which will help in running physical sims. For cooling I've seen ARCTIC Liquid Freezer series are solid. I appreciate any help and guidance. Thank you

 

Wait for 5000 series. Nevertheless:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 4.3 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($685.66 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB 48.82 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($107.79 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($479.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial T700 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($426.99 @ Adorama) 
Video Card: Asus TUF Gaming OG OC GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card  ($1979.97 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL ATX Full Tower Case  ($204.99 @ B&H) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME PX-1600 ATX 3.0 1600 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($435.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $4731.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-12-04 05:58 EST-0500

 

If the gpus are reference design (dual slot) then I think they will fit. Dual Gpus would run PCIe 5.0 x8 each which is the equivalent of dual PCIe 4.0 x16. Only one m.2 slot can be occupied otherwise we downgrade the PCIe slots.

[KhazadSanci]

11 hours ago, brob said:

There are not many motherboards that offer two slots that support GPU using 8 CPU PCIe lanes. GPU width (3 slots) is a further complication.

 

The Meshify 2 XL is, as you suggest, the better choice.

It is not the ideal situation, but an option is to get a board with an "x16" (but electrically x4) slot at the bottom. The Meshify XL gives enough space for the GPU to occupy this slot, though complicating a bit cable management. x4 4.0 lanes shouldn't impact most of the use cases listed—they are either best with one GPU and are bandwidth sensitive (PPro, AE, etc. which really only want to be configured to use the primary GPU) or else are non-sensitive for actual task completion times (Blender GPU rendering). I can't speak to Houdini, unfortunately. On that note, I believe there is currently a bug with ARRIRAW in Premiere with dual GPU, so be aware of that if it's a codec you work with.

 

8 hours ago, greeatzy said:

Motherboard: Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  

This is a good motherboard, though it is expensive unless you are using its uncommon features, such as 10G/dual networking and/or Type-C/Display passthrough capability. It should, I think, support the Gigabyte GPUs, as those are ~2.5 slot cards, and that has 2 slot-spacing between the primary PCI-e slots.

[Crispiis]

18 hours ago, greeatzy said:

Wait for 5000 series. Nevertheless:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 4.3 GHz 16-Core Processor  ($685.66 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 360 A-RGB 48.82 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($107.79 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: Asus ProArt X870E-CREATOR WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($479.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory  ($204.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Crucial T700 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($426.99 @ Adorama) 
Video Card: Asus TUF Gaming OG OC GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card  ($1979.97 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL ATX Full Tower Case  ($204.99 @ B&H) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME PX-1600 ATX 3.0 1600 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($435.99 @ Amazon) 
Total: $4731.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-12-04 05:58 EST-0500

 

If the gpus are reference design (dual slot) then I think they will fit. Dual Gpus would run PCIe 5.0 x8 each which is the equivalent of dual PCIe 4.0 x16. Only one m.2 slot can be occupied otherwise we downgrade the PCIe slots.

Thank you for this, is the M.2 Crucial because of the PCIe slot speed? as opposed to something like samsung or WD?

[greeatzy]

1 hour ago, Crispiis said:

Thank you for this, is the M.2 Crucial because of the PCIe slot speed? as opposed to something like samsung or WD?

You can go with samsung or wd m.2 nvme ssd not an issue. But only one piece.