Which component should I upgrade?

[The Belgian Waffle]

Hello, 

My girlfriend's pre-built PC is almost 4 years old and it's starting to struggle a bit as she does intense 3D rendering. I was considering helping her by buying more RAM, as she only has 8GB, but seeing the CPU usage to 100%, I'm not so sure whether she needs a RAM upgrade, or use the budget for a CPU update. 

 

She mainly uses :

-Maya

-Softimage

-Adobe After Effect

 

Those are 2 screenshots taken while a 3D rendering workload (while using Maya). 

 

Thank you for your time and help.

 

The Belgian Waffle.

[aries757]

i think cpu, ram u can upgrade l8ter and is cheaper, us it for cpu,

[FPS-Russia]

i7 6950k.

64GB DDR4.

 

I use Maya.

[The Belgian Waffle]

1 minute ago, aries757 said:

i think cpu, ram u can upgrade l8ter and is cheaper, us it for cpu,

That was lightning fast, thank you. Have you got any idea what should I get? Dualcore, quadcore, etc.

[The Belgian Waffle]

1 minute ago, FPS-Russia said:

i7 6950k.

64GB DDR4.

 

I use Maya.

So, the more cores I have, the faster the rendering will be? 

[aries757]

11 hours ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

That was lightning fast, thank you. Have you got any idea what should I get? Dualcore, quadcore, etc.

atleast quad, i would finda a 6 core i7 processor, ur best bet, and dang fps russia u got a nice pc

[FPS-Russia]

Just now, The Belgian Waffle said:

So, the more cores I have, the faster the rendering will be? 

Yes.

[aries757]

Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor maybe

[The Belgian Waffle]

Just now, aries757 said:

atleast quad, i would finda a 6 core i7 processor, ur best bet, and dang fps russia u got a nice pc

i'll do that then  Is the K important here? I don't think she will overclock it 

[FPS-Russia]

Just now, The Belgian Waffle said:

i'll do that then  Is the K important here? I don't think she will overclock it 

They all K or X, 6950 is X i got it wrong and is 10 cores 20 thread and silly price.

[aries757]

11 hours ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

i'll do that then  Is the K important here? I don't think she will overclock it 

idk, i know more of gpus, but ask fps russia, quote him, the basic i know of cpus is that is what u r looking for.

[Enivitation]

4 minutes ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

That was lightning fast, thank you. Have you got any idea what should I get? Dualcore, quadcore, etc.

Ok, when you start asking these kind of questions...

 

What is your budget? With her workload I would go for a i7-6700(or I7-6800). When you know how to overclock, might even go for the k version. But note, a cpu upgrade might go with a mobo upgrade, since socket is different than yours. I believe you run on a 1155, now we run a 1151. So keep that in mind.

Also, Adding 8gb of ddr3 ram is around 30eu atm, so I would do that anyway. That little money for a big boon. 

[The Belgian Waffle]

Just now, aries757 said:

idk, i know more of gpus, but ask fps russia, quote him, the basic i know of cpus is that is what u r looking for.

Talking about GPU, she has a gtx 660, I think. Should I upgrade it or it doesn't affect much 3D rendering? 

[paddy-stone]

Hmmm,  have no experience of Maya, but if it can use GPU rendering such as CUDA cores would be more beneficial to get a GPU such as a GTX1070 with the money.

[aries757]

12 hours ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

Talking about GPU, she has a gtx 660, I think. Should I upgrade it or it doesn't affect much 3D rendering? 

ohh, def for 3d rendering, get atleast an 950, not the best, if u can, get an rx 480 or an 1060, if u even have more than that, an 1080/1070 would be perfect. and also upgrade ram to ATLEAST 16, 

[The Belgian Waffle]

Just now, paddy-stone said:

Hmmm,  have no experience of Maya, but if it can use GPU rendering such as CUDA cores would be more beneficial to get a GPU such as a GTX1070 with the money.

Wouldn't she get bottlenecked with the CPU? 

[aries757]

11 hours ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

Wouldn't she get bottlenecked with the CPU? 

no, no, that cpu is top of the line, and so are the rx 480 and up, u wouldnt have bottlenecked ANYTHING

[paddy-stone]

Just now, The Belgian Waffle said:

Wouldn't she get bottlenecked with the CPU? 

Shouldn't do, it'll be mostly using the CUDA cores for the rendering which frees up the CPU a lot.

[Daniel644]

2 minutes ago, Enivitation said:

Ok, when you start asking these kind of questions...

 

What is your budget? With her workload I would go for a i7-6700(or I7-6800). When you know how to overclock, might even go for the k version. But note, a cpu upgrade might go with a mobo upgrade, since socket is different than yours. I believe you run on a 1155, now we run a 1151. So keep that in mind.

Also, Adding 8gb of ddr3 ram is around 30eu atm, so I would do that anyway. That little money for a big boon. 

in this case a CPU upgrade to ANY mentioned CPU's so far would require a motherboard upgrade, which would also likely mean the switch to DDR4 Ram, the machine is simply at that age the ONLY upgrade you can do is add more RAM, anything else necessitates a complete rebuild of the PC.

[The Belgian Waffle]

3 minutes ago, aries757 said:

no, no, that cpu is top of the line, and so are the rx 480 and up, u wouldnt have bottlenecked ANYTHING

 

3 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Shouldn't do, it'll be mostly using the CUDA cores for the rendering which frees up the CPU a lot.

This means I can leave the CPU and I have to enable some kind of hardware acceleration, if it's not already enabled, in order to use the power of the whichever GPU we'll buy? 

12 minutes ago, FPS-Russia said:

I use Maya.

As you're using Maya, is it hardware accelerated? And if yes, is it worth it using the power of a GPU instead of CPU? 

[WoodenMarker]

10 minutes ago, Enivitation said:

What is your budget? With her workload I would go for a i7-6700(or I7-6800). When you know how to overclock, might even go for the k version. But note, a cpu upgrade might go with a mobo upgrade, since socket is different than yours. I believe you run on a 1155, now we run a 1151. So keep that in mind.

Also, Adding 8gb of ddr3 ram is around 30eu atm, so I would do that anyway. That little money for a big boon. 

A 6700 isn't much of an upgrade from a 3770. 

X99 is the choice for a substantial upgrade here. 

10 minutes ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

Talking about GPU, she has a gtx 660, I think. Should I upgrade it or it doesn't affect much 3D rendering? 

9 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Hmmm,  have no experience of Maya, but if it can use GPU rendering such as CUDA cores would be more beneficial to get a GPU such as a GTX1070 with the money.

8 minutes ago, aries757 said:

ohh, def for 3d rendering, get atleast an 950, not the best, if u can, get an rx 480 or an 1060, if u even have more than that, an 1080/1070 would be perfect. and also upgrade ram to ATLEAST 16, 

6 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Shouldn't do, it'll be mostly using the CUDA cores for the rendering which frees up the CPU a lot.

CUDA can be used but only for specific renderers like iRay and isn't useful for most people when rendering in maya. 

 

The CPU is supposed to be at 100%. You should be worried if that wasn't the case since the renderer should be using as many resources as possible to speed up rendering. If she needs to use the system while rendering, she can choose to render using fewer threads in the render settings. 

If rendering is too slow, Going for a hex-core or even more on the x99 platform is probably the best option. Another option is to use more optimal render settings. 

If you're running out of ram, that's a good sign that you should get more ram.

[aries757]

11 hours ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

 

This means I can leave the CPU and I have to enable some kind of hardware acceleration, if it's not already enabled, in order to use the power of the whichever GPU we'll buy? 

As you're using Maya, is it hardware accelerated? And if yes, is it worth it using the power of a GPU instead of CPU? 

tbh with that bottle neck isnt a problem, just use the 6800 k, and as long as u get an fairly new graphics card ( 970+) you will be fine

[Beeeyeee]

upgrade the CPU. sadly though, you'll have to upgrade the motherboard and possibly RAM as well. 8GB should be fine but she might benefit slightly from a 16GB upgrade. but heres the big question... does the PC have a Graphics card? if it does, than do what I said above. if it doesn't.. THAT IS ESSENTIAL in a 3d Rendering application. get one NOW.

[The Belgian Waffle]

2 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

If rendering is too slow, Going for a hex-core or even more on the x99 platform is probably the best option.

Board + CPU is gonna cost a lot, I'm guessing. Since I'm a basic user that knows just a bit thanks to LTT, I don't think i'm gonna go play that game. 

So the upgrade to a better GPU isn't worth it, if she uses Maya, from what I understand. Is it correct? 

 

[WoodenMarker]

4 minutes ago, The Belgian Waffle said:

This means I can leave the CPU and I have to enable some kind of hardware acceleration, if it's not already enabled, in order to use the power of the whichever GPU we'll buy? 

As you're using Maya, is it hardware accelerated? And if yes, is it worth it using the power of a GPU instead of CPU? 

Hardware acceleration with the gpu is usually just for the viewport. For quality renders outside of specific renderers mentioned earlier, the cpu is what's used.