CPU upgrade for Workstation 3D artist

[ThomasDB]

Hi,

 

First time poster here. I've been following Linus on youtube for quite some time and got a lot of good advice from the video's.
So I figured this would be a good place to come to for some advice on something specific.

 

USER PROFILE:
I have a one man business focussing mainly on post production, special effects and video.
I use my workstation mainly for the following:

- Adobe premiere
- Adobe After effects (animation, compositing, 3D (element 3D, trapcode particular)
- Maya (advanced character animation, simulation, rendering with Arnold)

And also, of course, some gaming when I have some time to spare.

THE MOTIVATION

The upgrade I have in mind is the CPU since I’m doing more and more work in Maya with the Arnold renderer which is still very CPU dependant.
To give you an idea: this character is a work in progress and I do everything from the modelling (mudbox), rigging, simulation and animation on one machine:

 

Maya viewport performance is still very workable with two GTX 960’s in SLI (though I will upgrade those as well in good time). But it’s the rendering performance which really bogs me down. Especially when I’d like to render something in 4K

CURRENT RIG:

Case: Antec Performance One p280

Intel i5 6600 Skylake – with stock cooler
32 GB DDR4 2133mhz
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 motherboard
Antex High Current PSU 850W
2 Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce 960 4GB GDDR5 SLI

Samsung 512 GB M.2 Flash
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
2 x WD 3TB (Data mirror)

EXPECTATIONS:

My current rig is extremely reliable. It never overheats, with no hardware related crashes. Since a significant portion of my income relies on this machine working when I need it to, I tend to prefer reliable, stable components to raw performance.

My main goal is to get increased render performance in Maya. A better CPU should also contribute to faster, and more precise simulation (muscle system, cloth and Xgen fur and feathers).

Although 4K editing is very workable on this machine a future graphics card upgrade is also coming to smooth out premiere performance. This is a far simple choice for me. (wait for a price drop on the 1080ti’s).

BUDGET
I would like to stay in the €500 – €750 range.
($571 - $856)
Compelling arguments might cause me to push that higher.

GETTING TO THE ACTUAL POINT
- What CPU upgrade should give me the most bang for my buck.
- Also, do I need to upgrade my motherboard along with it?
If yes: Which motherboard should I get?
Is there a good second hand market for my old one?
- My machine does not need to be quiet. It’s a workhorse and it is allowed to be noisy. Can I go with stock cooling? (the case is huge and has great airflow).

Thank you so much in advance for any advice / help you can offer!

Kind regards,

Thomas

[LukeSavenije]

don't know where you are buying this, but this is some work for treadripper. first gen is actually pretty cheap at the moment. take a look into that. you have to get an expensive, but realiable mobo with that, my suggestion would be something from asus, msi or asrock here. what region are you buying this?

[Origami Cactus]

Threadripper 1920x should fit into your budget. It has 3x the core count and 6x the threadcount of your current cpu. (12c/24t)

You can reuse the ram, then you just need a new motherboard and a decent cooler.

 

Something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Threadripper 1920X 3.5GHz 12-Core Processor	€418.93 @ Mindfactory
CPU Cooler	Noctua - NH-U14S TR4-SP3 140.2 CFM CPU Cooler	€74.40 @ Amazon Deutschland
Motherboard	ASRock - X399 Taichi ATX TR4 Motherboard	€330.99 @ Amazon Deutschland
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€824.32
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-27 18:56 CEST+0200

 

[ThomasDB]

Thanks for the replies so far!
To answer LukeSavenije: I live in Belgium.

[LukeSavenije]

I'll use tweakers then, dutch version will be easier for me, but then you have kinda accurate prices. I'm dutch myself

 

edit: never mind, I can set belgium pricing in it

[emosun]

too bad you're using ddr4 because I'd replace the platform with a dual xeon which could fit into the budget if you had the ram for it.

an i7 7700k works on the board you have if you want the upgrade to be easy , just update the bios first

[ThomasDB]

Just now, emosun said:

too bad you're using ddr4 because I'd replace the platform with a dual xeon which could fit into the budget if you had the ram for it.

an i7 7700k works on the board you have if you want the upgrade to be easy , just update the bios first 

Would an I7 7700k be a decent enough upgrade compared to my current CPU?

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, ThomasDB said:

Would an I7 7700k be a decent enough upgrade compared to my current CPU?

it would be decent, but not meant for it like a treadripper. It's still only 4 cores 8 threads

[Origami Cactus]

3 minutes ago, ThomasDB said:

Would an I7 7700k be a decent enough upgrade compared to my current CPU?

Not really, it has the same amount of cores, so pretty useless, you will get like 20% boost from it.

For the same money you could buy a r7 1700 and a motherboard, and use stock cooler. 

I5 6600 = 4 cores 4 threads

i7 7700= 4 cores 8 threads

r7 1700 = 8 cores 16 threads.

When i went from i5 6600 to r7 1700, i went from 605 cinebench to 1624, so over 2.5x perfomance gain.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, ThomasDB said:

Would an I7 7700k be a decent enough upgrade compared to my current CPU?

yeah it's not too bad , not really going to see twice the speed but it'll be a boost.

again I'd really be looking at multi socket options if you just want the cpu power to be 2 to 3 full times faster

[DocSwag]

For Adobe an Intel CPU would probably be best, but Arnold can make use of a lot of cores (so TR). So it depends on what your priority is: If premiere/AE is then I'd probably go 9700k; if it's maya a 1920x would probably be the best deal

[LukeSavenije]

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/995917/asus-prime-x399-a.html

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/1256957/be-quiet!-dark-rock-pro-tr4.html

https://tweakers.net/pricewatch/862081/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1920x-boxed.html

 

belgium pricing sucks. but still, this would be a great option

 

Edited October 27, 2018 by LukeSavenije

[ThomasDB]

Just now, DocSwag said:

For Adobe an Intel CPU would probably be best, but Arnold can make use of a lot of cores (so TR). So it depends on what your priority is: If premiere/AE is then I'd probably go 9700k; if it's maya a 1920x would probably be the best deal

Yes, this is a good point.
Maya is something I would like to see better performance in because I love doing it so much, but it is not as vital to my income as adobe software is.
Most of what I do is indeed in premiere/AE, So if intel is best for Adobe that kind of seals the deal.

[LukeSavenije]

4 minutes ago, ThomasDB said:

Yes, this is a good point.
Maya is something I would like to see better performance in because I love doing it so much, but it is not as vital to my income as adobe software is.
Most of what I do is indeed in premiere/AE, So if intel is best for Adobe that kind of seals the deal.

I get what they mean, but if you want to go intel, wait a while. with the shortage the prices are way too high

and still, the 9700 has no hypertreading, which sucks for this kind of work. and this was just a refresh of coffee lake, which is a kaby lake refresh, which is also a refresh of skylake.

[ThomasDB]

And what about them i9's?
Sorry if any of this comes of as uninformed. That's because I am.

[brob]

18 minutes ago, ThomasDB said:

Would an I7 7700k be a decent enough upgrade compared to my current CPU?

 

The most cost effective solution. An i7-7700K has roughly 50% better overall performance than an i5-6600. If you put a decent cooler on the i7-7700K this could be improved by overclocking.

 

4 minutes ago, ThomasDB said:

And what about them i9's?
Sorry if any of this comes of as uninformed. That's because I am.

 

Likely the best choice at the moment for this sort of workload would be an i9-9900K. But that would require a higher budget as it would need a new motherboard and a good cpu cooler. New, faster memory would also be very advisable.

[ThomasDB]

1 minute ago, brob said:

The most cost effective solution. An i7-7700K has roughly 50% better overall performance than an i5-6600. If you put a decent cooler on the i7-7700K this could be improved by overclocking. 

Cool...
I don't think I would like to overclock. Like i said, this is not a hobby machine. A significant portion of my income depends on it  working. I feel like that woul be risky somehow?
In case it's not what type of cooling would you suggest?

[brob]

As long as one is conservative with overclocking it is not dangerous and may add 5% - 10% more performance. Your motherboard has a utility that can automatically overclock the cpu.

 

Case limitations affect the choice of cpu cooler.

[ThomasDB]

8 minutes ago, brob said:

Your motherboard has a utility that can automatically overclock the cpu.

It does? Cool.

 

Alright. As it stands the most sensible choice would seem to be, to upgrade to the i7-7700K.
This would leave money on the table for a GPU update (1080ti) as well since I won't be replacing my motherboard.

I feel this would give me the most significant boost across the board as the new GPU would also increase maya viewport performance as well as obvious benefits for adobe software.

[DocSwag]

5 hours ago, ThomasDB said:

It does? Cool.

 

Alright. As it stands the most sensible choice would seem to be, to upgrade to the i7-7700K.
This would leave money on the table for a GPU update (1080ti) as well since I won't be replacing my motherboard.

I feel this would give me the most significant boost across the board as the new GPU would also increase maya viewport performance as well as obvious benefits for adobe software.

That is, as long as you get a 7700k for a good price. Buying them new often costs over $300 (!) at which point you may as well just get an i5 8400 or 8600k and a new motherboard and sell your old one.

[ThomasDB]

Okay, i'm going to think on this for a bit.
Thank you to everyone that replied! It has been extremely helpfull!
 

[ThomasDB]

Sorry to bump this thread.

I've reached the decision to go with AMD. As it turns out, what I want the most is to be able to render faster in Maya, as well as have 4K video editing go smoother than it currently does (workable but meh).

GPU wise, I found out that my SLI'd 960's did a great job on Shadow of the tomb raider (almost maxed out on 1080p with almost no drops below 50fps). So they still have a few games in them I feel,
And ss I am interested in RTX (especially now that GPU rendering for Arnold hit beta) I find they are just to expensive at the moment. I’ll wait for second gen and a price drop. (By then Arnold GPU might also be out of beta),

A CPU upgrade seems to be most pressing and for what I want AMD seems like the best option. (it beats the intel i9 in benchmarks for Arnold),

These are my options. Basically an expensive one and a cheap one.

My question is simply, would the expensive one be worth the extra money?

expensive
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, 3,4GHz socket TR4 processor (16 cores, €669)
Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cpu-koeler
GIGABYTE AORUS X399 AORUS PRO (rev. 1.0), socket TR4

Total: €1028

cheap
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X, 3,5GHz socket TR4 processor (12 cores, €399)
Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cpu-koeler
GIGABYTE AORUS X399 AORUS PRO (rev. 1.0), socket TR4

Total: €757.9

Thank you so much!