New Threadripper build

[michaelb-01]

I work as a visual effects artist and i'm looking to build a workstation for home. I've not built a PC before so would like some advice but i'm up for the challenge and i've done a fair bit of research into this parts list.

My original budget was £3k but i've gone slightly over budget with this list (by £600). I'd really appreciate anyones comments on whether they think this is a good build for the price, if it could be improved anywhere, if there are any potential issues with parts etc.

 

(PCPartPicker says the Noctua cooler is not compatible but i'm planning to get the threadripper version of that cooler that was recently announced)

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cf2zVY
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cf2zVY/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16-Core Processor  (£979.99 @ CCL Computers) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  (£51.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI - X399 GAMING PRO CARBON AC ATX TR4 Motherboard  (£339.99 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-3333 Memory  (£549.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£204.00 @ Aria PC) 
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Founders Edition Video Card  (£663.62 @ Amazon UK) 
Case: Corsair - Carbide 400C ATX Mid Tower Case  (£72.00 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£115.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  (£82.20 @ Aria PC) 
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WDN4800 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter  (£26.98 @ PC World Business) 
Monitor: LG - 34UC79G-B 34.0" 2560x1080 144Hz Monitor  (£479.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Keyboard: Logitech - K120 Wired Standard Keyboard  (£15.13 @ More Computers) 
Total: £3581.82
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-03 22:06 BST+0100

 

[ImNotThere]

you have a 1080ti on that list and a 1080p widescreen? id cut in places to at least get a 1440p monitor

only 500 gb of storage? 

this cant be enough for your workload surely?

you can buy windows 10 at kinguin for cheaper

ask yourself if you honestly need all of this, or would the r7 1700 be better suited to allow for higher res monitor and a lot more storage?

[cj09beira]

seems well put together

[ImNotThere]

also the motherboard you have wont fit in the case youve picked

[cj09beira]

2 minutes ago, ImNotThere said:

you have a 1080ti on that list and a 1080p widescreen? id cut in places to at least get a 1440p monitor

only 500 gb of storage? 

this cant be enough for your workload surely?

you can buy windows 10 at kinguin for cheaper

ask yourself if you honestly need all of this, or would the r7 1700 be better suited to allow for higher res monitor and a lot more storage?

i have a 2560x1080 screen, and the height is a bit limiting,

[ImNotThere]

Just now, cj09beira said:

i have a 2560x1080 screen, and the height is a bit limiting,

the monitor is decent its just that he has a 1080ti with it where a 1070 would be more than enough

[cj09beira]

Just now, ImNotThere said:

the monitor is decent its just that he has a 1080ti with it where a 1070 would be more than enough

not for 144hz and he is also an artist 

[ImNotThere]

Just now, cj09beira said:

not for 144hz

he said hes a visual effects artist, how is he going to benefit from 144hz in the first place? unless im just being stupid here

[knightslugger]

the only thing suspicious is the cooler.

[cj09beira]

Just now, ImNotThere said:

he said hes a visual effects artist, how is he going to benefit from 144hz in the first place? unless im just being stupid here

i guess we dont have enough info to respond that question.

OP will you game as well?

[ImNotThere]

Just now, cj09beira said:

i guess we dont have enough info to respond that question.

OP will you game as well?

my comments are based off of the workstation comment, i feel as if he will benefit more from a 100 hz 2560x1440 monitor and a r7 1700 with a 1080ti than this set up

[Cyracus]

depends on how many cores/threads the programs you use actually leverage, if they don't use more than 24 threads no reason to go over a 1920x... then again if you multitask high core use processes then a 1950x would be what you want. Basically what I'm saying is don't throw money at more cpu than you need, you'll know better than me how much cpu you need

[revoconner]

Hey vfx artist, I'm another vfx artist (among other things) and I'll try to help you choose the right parts, considering this is mainly a work PC

 

CPU: Lots of core is great for video rendering so I do agree with your choice.

GPU: 1080ti, is a bit overkill. Will you be using CUDA in your workflow, if not try to downgrade to 1070. 

 

Ram: 64GB, what do you need it for? I havent had my zbrush reach that amount with multiple subdivision while sculpting a 3D model. You'll be way beyond fine with 24gb of ram. Also you dont need that much of a higher clock speed, cas latency will be higher anyway and real world gain are almost none.

 

PSU: since you arent going dual gpu, something like corsair RM650 will be better suited.

 

Monitor: instead of getting an ultrawide 144hz monitor, get two 1080 widescreen monitor of 60hz. I doubt you'll ever encounter any scenario in your work where you need to see refresh rates above 60. On the other hand, having two monitors is the most amazing thing you can do, maximized program on one, while tools and pallettes on the other screen or maybe something related.

 

 

Storage: Get two 1tb hdd at least unless you already have a NAS. Use them in raid 1, and keep all your files in that drive. You'll be thankful when one day one of the drives fail and you still have your projects. Use your SSD only for software installs and OS. 

[Cyracus]

2 hours ago, revoconner said:

Also you dont need that much of a higher clock speed, cas latency will be higher anyway and real world gain are almost none.

threadripper is the same cpu tech as ryzen, ram speed will have a sizeable effect on cpu functionality

[michaelb-01]

9 hours ago, ImNotThere said:

you have a 1080ti on that list and a 1080p widescreen? id cut in places to at least get a 1440p monitor

only 500 gb of storage? 

this cant be enough for your workload surely?

you can buy windows 10 at kinguin for cheaper

ask yourself if you honestly need all of this, or would the r7 1700 be better suited to allow for higher res monitor and a lot more storage?

Quote

you have a 1080ti on that list and a 1080p widescreen?

How do you know its a 1080p widescreen? Is there a (not too pricey) ultra wide monitor you could recommend?

Quote

only 500 gb of storage? 

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to add another hard drive. The SSD is just for caching heavy simulations, I was planning on getting a 4TB WD drive as well (about £120)

[michaelb-01]

9 hours ago, ImNotThere said:

also the motherboard you have wont fit in the case youve picked

Ah thats exactly the kind of info I was looking for! I just picked one of the cheapest black cases (I don't want any RGB) that looked decent. Is there a case you could recommend for this build?

[Sanctorum]

First of all, you're probably going to want to at least wait for some actual benchmarks of TR.

 

Secondly, no one is going to be able to help you with such little info. You say the system is for VFX, yet you have a 144Hz monitor and a 1080Ti? Also, a £15 keyboard in a £3000+ system, really?

 

What programs/applications will you be using?

What games will you be playing, if any?

[michaelb-01]

Thanks for all the responses, really helpful! Just to add a bit more info.

9 hours ago, cj09beira said:

OP will you game as well?

This won't be used for gaming at all, so maybe I could cut down on the monitor? I've not used an ultra wide monitor before but I would either go for that or dual monitors and an ultra wide monitor just seems neater on the desk, less cables etc.

9 hours ago, knightslugger said:

the only thing suspicious is the cooler.

Would you recommend liquid cooling instead? I've heard these Noctua fans are some of the best and rival liquid cooling, but are easier to install for a novice like me..

9 hours ago, Cyracus said:

depends on how many cores/threads the programs you use actually leverage

My primary software is Houdini which i'm 90% sure can utilise all these cores in most areas of the software (i'll triple check this) - although I have read about some issues where Windows can throttle this (not a problem with Linux apparently)

9 hours ago, revoconner said:

1080ti, is a bit overkill. Will you be using CUDA in your workflow, if not try to downgrade to 1070.

I plan to render with Redshift which is built on Cuda so I definitely want to get a high-end gpu (although there is possibly an argument for getting two 1070s instead..)

9 hours ago, revoconner said:

64GB, what do you need it for?

I do a lot of heavy simulation work with Houdini so I definitely can't go below 64GB RAM. A lot of machines at work are 64GB and even they struggle rendering some scenes/simulations. I plan to upgrade to 128GB at some point but I may wait for DDR5 in 2018..

9 hours ago, revoconner said:

I doubt you'll ever encounter any scenario in your work where you need to see refresh rates above 60

You're probably right here, the only reason i've heard you may want higher is just that if you're staring at a screen all day your eyes can get more tired from a lower refresh rate - higher refresh rates are smoother and so easier on the eyes (or so i've heard..)

6 hours ago, Cyracus said:

threadripper is the same cpu tech as ryzen, ram speed will have a sizeable effect on cpu functionality

So you're talking about the actual MHz of the RAM? What speed would you recommend?

 

Thanks again!

 

[michaelb-01]

18 minutes ago, Sanctorum said:

First of all, you're probably going to want to at least wait for some actual benchmarks of TR.

 

Secondly, no one is going to be able to help you with such little info. You say the system is for VFX, yet you have a 144Hz monitor and a 1080Ti? Also, a £15 keyboard in a £3000+ system, really?

 

What programs/applications will you be using?

What games will you be playing, if any?

I added a bit more info above, but to reply to your questions specifically.

- I won't be gaming with this at all

- My main programs are Houdini, Maya and Nuke

- I plan to render primarily with redshift which is a GPU renderer, hence the 1080Ti. But I also use Arnold

- The keyboard is one area I saw I could cut down. Every keyboard i've ever used seemed pretty much the same (though i've only ever used bog standard keyboards) and i'm not interested in rgb lighting or anything like that..

[ImNotThere]

44 minutes ago, michaelb-01 said:

How do you know its a 1080p widescreen? Is there a (not too pricey) ultra wide monitor you could recommend?

i know its a 1080p ultrawide by the resolution look for a monitor with the resolution 2560x1440 and maybe 75hz if 60 is too low for you

not sure on reccomendations however

[michaelb-01]

2 minutes ago, ImNotThere said:

i know its a 1080p ultrawide by the resolution look for a monitor with the resolution 2560x1440 and maybe 75hz if 60 is too low for you

Sorry I think I read 1080ti ultrawide and didn't know what that was. I understand, thanks

[ImNotThere]

Just now, michaelb-01 said:

Sorry I think I read 1080ti ultrawide and didn't know what that was. I understand, thanks

okay good, look into the r7 1700 and weigh up if you really do need threadripper

they are both new platforms so wont be killed off soon so only buy into threadripper if you really need it

[cj09beira]

look for 3200 cl 14 14, which usually have a chip called B-die and ryzen loves that chip (best compatibility)

on the monitor side i have a 29inch ultrawide with the same res, and having my second 1080p monitor still helps a lot, but in my case its because i use many programs that are fullscreen, i mainly use the second monitor to monitor ltt, youtube, and my mining cards 

[cj09beira]

1 minute ago, ImNotThere said:

okay good, look into the r7 1700 and weigh up if you really do need threadripper

they are both new platforms so wont be killed off soon so only buy into threadripper if you really need it

Quote

My primary software is Houdini which i'm 90% sure can utilise all these cores in most areas of the software (i'll triple check this) - although I have read about some issues where Windows can throttle this (not a problem with Linux apparently)

 

[revoconner]

2 hours ago, michaelb-01 said:

Thanks for all the responses, really helpful! Just to add a bit more info.

This won't be used for gaming at all, so maybe I could cut down on the monitor? I've not used an ultra wide monitor before but I would either go for that or dual monitors and an ultra wide monitor just seems neater on the desk, less cables etc.

Would you recommend liquid cooling instead? I've heard these Noctua fans are some of the best and rival liquid cooling, but are easier to install for a novice like me..

My primary software is Houdini which i'm 90% sure can utilise all these cores in most areas of the software (i'll triple check this) - although I have read about some issues where Windows can throttle this (not a problem with Linux apparently)

I plan to render with Redshift which is built on Cuda so I definitely want to get a high-end gpu (although there is possibly an argument for getting two 1070s instead..)

I do a lot of heavy simulation work with Houdini so I definitely can't go below 64GB RAM. A lot of machines at work are 64GB and even they struggle rendering some scenes/simulations. I plan to upgrade to 128GB at some point but I may wait for DDR5 in 2018..

You're probably right here, the only reason i've heard you may want higher is just that if you're staring at a screen all day your eyes can get more tired from a lower refresh rate - higher refresh rates are smoother and so easier on the eyes (or so i've heard..)

So you're talking about the actual MHz of the RAM? What speed would you recommend?

 

Thanks again!

 

Ultra wide monitor look good but I still recommend two monitors. Once you go that way, you will never ever want a single monitor at work.

 

Stay away from two 1070, you will need the higher VRAM since its not shared, if you are working with huge textures. I hit some limits there of my own on my previous 780ti.

 

AIO liquid coolers are pretty easy to install. They are nothing at all different from a air cooler except that you also have to screw the radiator to the case, so maybe 4 more screwing?

 

Ah I see that you use houdini, I mostly work with Max and Realflow or UE4 so I can't say a lot about that. If it's required do go for it. I'd recommend 2666 Mhz with a CAS of 17 or lower. Corsair LPX is a good choice, look at the 16 gb kit

 

I dont know about that, I have been working on 60Hz (recently overclocked all my monitor to 75Hz) and my eyes dont tire at all, you do have to take breaks and follow all the ergonomic stuff. In all honesty you cant really tell the difference at all between those refresh rates in day to day usage.