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First Build for VFX
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07-05-2012 8:24pmI'm trying to pick out the best build for my buck and I'm almost ready to buy and build, but i'm hitting a few brick walls!
My budget is currently €1,300, but could be stretched to €1,500 in a couple of weeks. I'm struggling to get it down the last couple of hundred though. Any thoughts?
My main use is for VFX and video-editing. I'd be mostly compositing in Nuke and After Effects. Premiere Pro and Photoshop would be my next most used programs and then a fair bit of 3DS Max, Houdini and Maya (although 3D isn't really my main focus).
Below, I picked a CPU along with a socket 2011 motherboard so that I'll be able to add up to 64gb of RAM and have the option to upgrade to the 6 core monster or the inevitable 8 core down the line. I'm 100% happy with the CPU and the motherboard. One question: is it possible to add only 2 slots of RAM to the DIMM slots or does it need to be at least 4 slots? I'm hoping to buy 16gb of RAM in two slots of memory (2 x 8gb) so that I can add to that, eventually bringing myself up to 64gb without having to remove RAM.
I went with a 60gb SSD with a 2tb HDD. Hoping to use the Asus onboard SSD caching (same deal as Intel's SRT). I know that I'd probably get slightly better performance out of a dedicated boot SSD with After Effects and the likes installed on it, but I can't afford a huge SSD and I think the SSD caching will work better for me than just having Windows by itself on the SSD. Thoughts?
For the CPU heatsink, I was nearly going to go for the Corsair H100 liquid cooling solution with some Noctua replacement fans (to keep it quiet), but then thought I was going a bit overkill as I won't be overclocking. Instead I went with the Noctua D14 as it's supposed to be whisper-quiet while doing a good cooling job. Do you think my RAM will fit with it or should I go with something a bit lower in height like the Kingston HyperX series? Would it be necessary for me to go with the liquid cooling solution like the H100 or would I be ok with the Noctua?
And finally, my main concern: the graphics card. I keep hearing different opinions that conflict. I won't be using this PC for gaming. I have an Xbox for that. But I'm sketchy on what kind of a graphics card After Effects, Premiere, Houdini and Nuke might require to work well? OpenGL compliant, grand. I hear that I should be looking at the insanely expensive Quadro series or at least a 580 with 3gb of VRAM. Overkill? My original choice was the 560 Ti "448" series (because of price and CUDA support). Like I say, I mostly work with compositing and video-editing moreso than 3D stuff in Maya, but there would be some degree of 3D development. Advice?
Let me know what you think! Cheers!!
YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 580 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £339.95
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £215.99
1 x Asus P9X79 PRO Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £203.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10) £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £99.95
1 x Corsair Carbide 400R Midi Tower Case - Black £79.99
1 x Akasa Venom 750w Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply £79.99
1 x Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler with PWM Fans (Socket LGA2011) £72.98
1 x Corsair Force GT 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F60GBGT-BK) £69.98
1 x Akasa USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Memory Card Reader (Internal header) (AK-ICR-14) £20.99
1 x LG GH22NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,442.76 (includes shipping : £12.50).0
Comments
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Item|Price
ASRock X79 Extreme4, Sockel LGA2011, ATX|€174.41
Intel Core i7-3820 Bx, LGA2011, ohne Lüfter|€260.74
16GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€87.22
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€102.63
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€111.29
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€17.50
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€113.84
PNY QUADRO 600 1024MB DDR3 BULK|€160.55
Corsair Carbide Series 500R White, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€98.67
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011, Sockel LGA 2011|€69.89
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750, 750 Watt|€144.09
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1359.82
You said you wouldn't be gaming so the quadro gfx should do you fine.
I gave you a 128gb SSD so you won't need to use the SSD-caching.
The ram i linked has no "UBeR" heatspreaders so you'll be fine with the noctua.0 -
Item|Price
ASRock X79 Extreme4, Sockel LGA2011, ATX|€174.41
Intel Core i7-3820 Bx, LGA2011, ohne Lüfter|€260.74
16GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€87.22
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€102.63
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€111.29
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€17.50
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€113.84
PNY QUADRO 600 1024MB DDR3 BULK|€160.55
Corsair Carbide Series 500R White, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€98.67
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011, Sockel LGA 2011|€69.89
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750, 750 Watt|€144.09
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1359.82
You said you wouldn't be gaming so the quadro gfx should do you fine.
I gave you a 128gb SSD so you won't need to use the SSD-caching.
The ram i linked has no "UBeR" heatspreaders so you'll be fine with the noctua.
Cool thanks. Never heard of that site before, are they reputable?
I'd change back to the P9X79 Pro mobo because of the 8 dimm slots among other things.
Is that graphics card enough for vfx and video editing? I'm just noting that it has only 1gb of VRAM? Sorry, can't get my head around what GPU I need.
Love the PSU!0 -
Adobe After Effects CS6 tech spec regarding GPU:
The following NVIDIA GPUs are supported in After Effects CS6.
- GeForce GTX 285
- GeForce GTX 470
- GeForce GTX 570
- GeForce GTX 580
- Quadro CX
- Quadro FX 3700M
- Quadro FX 3800
- Quadro FX 3800M
- Quadro FX 4800
- Quadro FX 5800
- Quadro 2000
- Quadro 2000D
- Quadro 2000M
- Quadro 3000M
- Quadro 4000
- Quadro 4000M
- Quadro 5000
- Quadro 5000M
- Quadro 5010M
- Quadro 6000
- Tesla C2075 (Windows)/Maximus configuration
* Adobe® After Effects® CS6 renders ray-traced 3D images using your computer’s CPU, employing all of its physical cores. Additionally, it may also take advantage of NVIDIA OptiX™ for highly accelerated rendering (requires a supported NVIDIA GPU and with 1024+ MB of texture memory).
† This product may integrate with or allow access to certain Adobe or third-party hosted online services ("Online Services"). Online Services are available only to users 13 and older and require agreement to additional terms of use and Adobe's online privacy policy. Online Services are not available in all countries or languages, may require user registration, and may be discontinued or modified in whole or in part without notice. Additional fees or subscription charges may apply.
Same from Houdini's website:
- It is VERY important that you install the latest driver for your graphics card. Failing to do so may result in display issues and/or slow performance.
- Workstation-class OpenGL graphics cards, such as NVidia Quadro and ATI Fire Pro, are required for professional use in production.
- The viewport is now based on OpenGL 3.2 It is a modern shader-based renderer for OpenGL 3 and 4 hardware, with additional features such as selection highlighting and geometry shaders. It has the ability to handle large data sets, and is now the default Scene Renderer. You can change the scene renderer in the Main Preferences.
- Depending on your graphics card and driver, some of the advanced display options may not be available.
- OpenGL 3.2 and OpenCL is not yet supported on OSX. It will be supported once Apple updates their drivers.
- Non-workstation cards, such as GeForce, Radeon, and Intel integrated graphics can be used at your own risk. They may be used for learning and personal use but are not supported: you may experience display problems, slow performance, and the software may exit unexpectedly.
- Graphic Card drivers: NVidia: 256 or higher, ATI: 8.911 or higher.
- Minimum resolution: 1024 x 768; Recommended resolution: 1920 x 1200 (widescreen).
- 1GB VRAM or more is strongly recommended. Less than 1GB of VRAM may result in display errors.
- 1.5GB VRAM or higher required for dual displays or single displays greater than 1920x1080.
- Minimum OpenGL version of 2.0; recommended OpenGL version 3.2.
- Color depth of 32-bit (“true color”) required.
- Hardware-accelerated OpenGL required for optimum performance.
- Performance may suffer with complex scenes on non-workstation graphics cards and on laptops.
- Houdini does not require support for Direct3D (all viewports and interfaces use OpenGL).
We don't recommend any specific computer manufacturer. As long as your machine has the recommended RAM, CPU, graphics card, and VRAM, it should be acceptable for use.
- On certain graphics cards, Houdini can use the GPU to dramatically increase the performance and speed of your Pyro FX simulations. Pyro FX is currently the only area of Houdini that uses GPU acceleration via OpenCL but it may be expanded to other areas in the future.
- In order to take advantage of this capability, you'll need a GPU capable of supporting OpenCL. On the Nvidia side, that would be a Tesla or a Quadro x000 series (non-FX Quadro; 600,2000,4000,5000,6000) or a GEForce 400 or 500 series. For AMD, you need a FirePro card (not FireGL) or a Radeon 5000, 6000, or 7000 series GPU. Intel's graphics are currently not able to support OpenCL, but they do have a CPU-oriented CL library which may work with Houdini in the future.
- The amount of VRAM your GPU has access to will limit the size of simulation that you can run on it. 2-3GB + is ideal for larger simulations.
- GPU acceleration for H12 currently does NOT make use of multiple OpenCL devices (i.e. two or more graphics cards) but this may change at a future date.
Autodesk Maya:
The hardware below meets the criteria you provided. Select a Card for detailed information.
Selected Product(s): Autodesk Maya 2013
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Graphics Card Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Rating Card Generation Memory (MB) Type Manufacturer
- NVIDIA Quadro 2000 Fermi 1024 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro 400 Fermi 512 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro 4000 Fermi 2048 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro 5000 Fermi 2560 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro 600 Fermi 1024 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro 6000 Fermi 6144 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 Tesla 768 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 Tesla 1024 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 Tesla 1536 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 580 Tesla 512 Workstation NVIDIA
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 Tesla 4096 Workstation NVIDIA
Finally from Nuke:
Workstation-class graphics card, such as NVIDIA Quadro series, ATI FireGL series, R3D Rocket, or newer. Driver support for OpenGL 2.0.
To enable optional GPU acceleration of certain effects, you need OpenGL 2.0 with support for floating point textures and GLSL.0 -
I reckon this will be my final component list for my build. Changed the graphics card to suit the requirements of After Effects CS6, chose a different quiet case, a better air CPU cooler that's apparently near-silent yet very effective, changed the RAM so that it'd fit under the heatsink and chose a diff SSD.
Will I be able to use only 2 slots of RAM on the motherboard, not 4? I'm gonna buy more RAM later on and add them. Will I have issues adding the RAM to the mobo after the heatsink is installed down the line do you think?
Let me know if there's any other issues or if you know any other ways I can get the price down a hundred quid or so!!
Thanks!:)
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 570 Goes Like Hell 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with StreetFighter 4 PC Game £219.95
1 x Asus P9X79 PRO Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £203.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £99.98
1 x Kingston Blu 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G) £99.95
1 x Akasa Venom 750w Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply £79.99
1 x Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler with PWM Fans (Socket LGA2011) £72.98
1 x Corsair Force GT 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F60GBGT-BK) £69.98
1 x Akasa USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Memory Card Reader (Internal header) (AK-ICR-14) £20.99
1 x LG GH22NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,356.76 (includes shipping : £12.50).0 -
v.e.r.b.a.l wrote: »I reckon this will be my final component list for my build. Changed the graphics card to suit the requirements of After Effects CS6, chose a different quiet case, a better air CPU cooler that's apparently near-silent yet very effective, changed the RAM so that it'd fit under the heatsink and chose a diff SSD.
Will I be able to use only 2 slots of RAM on the motherboard, not 4? I'm gonna buy more RAM later on and add them. Will I have issues adding the RAM to the mobo after the heatsink is installed down the line do you think?
Let me know if there's any other issues or if you know any other ways I can get the price down a hundred quid or so!!
Thanks!:)
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 570 Goes Like Hell 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with StreetFighter 4 PC Game £219.95
1 x Asus P9X79 PRO Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £203.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £99.98
1 x Kingston Blu 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C10D3B1K2/16G) £99.95
1 x Akasa Venom 750w Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply £79.99
1 x Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler with PWM Fans (Socket LGA2011) £72.98
1 x Corsair Force GT 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CSSD-F60GBGT-BK) £69.98
1 x Akasa USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Memory Card Reader (Internal header) (AK-ICR-14) £20.99
1 x LG GH22NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,356.76 (includes shipping : £12.50).
Try Hardwareversand maybe? You'll probably save around 100 at least from buying from them.0 -
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FlyingIrishMan wrote: »Try Hardwareversand maybe? You'll probably save around 100 at least from buying from them.
Oh ok, cool. The last poster put up links to them as well. Never heard of them, do they have a decent reputation?0 -
Hmmm... I don't know if I'd risk the hassle of buying from them after reading this: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055161177
But besides that, can anyone answer me about the RAM issue? The NH-D14 heatsink is massive and I'm wondering is it possible to add more RAM to the mobo without taking the heatsink off in the future?
What do ye think of the rest of the system?
Cheers!0 -
Yeah, you'll be fine with HWVS. I'd double check online though. It would be shame to have to spend money on old tech if CS6 got and update to support the 600 series. (which I'm sure it would)0
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v.e.r.b.a.l wrote: »Oh ok, cool. The last poster put up links to them as well. Never heard of them, do they have a decent reputation?
Yes, they're the main site people use here.
They are German so some people are very cautious and don't want to use them, but they are a great company.
You have to pay by bank transfer, for some people thats a problem but only because they don't know how simple it is to do a bank transfer.0 -
Serephucus wrote: »Yeah, you'll be fine with HWVS. I'd double check online though. It would be shame to have to spend money on old tech if CS6 got and update to support the 600 series. (which I'm sure it would)FlyingIrishMan wrote: »They are German so some people are very cautious and don't want to use them, but they are a great company.
Does anyone have the same heatsink? It's the one aspect of the build I'm worrying about re: the RAM fitting and later fitting of extra RAM under it...0 -
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v.e.r.b.a.l wrote: »It's nothing to do with the fact that they're German (I've done enough transactions with French companies in the past), but it seems that a fair lot of people have had very negative experiences with them? They do seem a good deal cheaper and I've never heard of them myself, so I can't say, but I would be put off when so many people have had bad experiences with them. I mightn't worry so much if it wasn't such a big sum of money I was spending.
Does anyone have the same heatsink? It's the one aspect of the build I'm worrying about re: the RAM fitting and later fitting of extra RAM under it...
lol, I didn't mean it like that, I should have said, not Irish, or foreign.
People seem to prefer buying from Irish companies regardless of the price.
But the amount of bad experiences from them is nothing compared to the good ones, you just don't see the good ones because people don't come back to post about their good experience.0 -
HWVS are fine. I'd say this forum specs about 1-3 builds a day, and 98% of them go through HWVS. I can't recall more than two or three bad experiences that couldn't be rectified with a phonecall.0
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Item|Price
ASRock X79 Extreme4, Sockel LGA2011, ATX|€174.41
Intel Core i7-3820 Bx, LGA2011, ohne Lüfter|€260.74
16GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€87.22
Seagate Barracuda 7200 2000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€102.63
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€111.29
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€17.50
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€113.84
PNY QUADRO 600 1024MB DDR3 BULK|€160.55
Corsair Carbide Series 500R White, ATX, ohne Netzteil|€98.67
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011, Sockel LGA 2011|€69.89
Corsair Professional Series Gold AX750, 750 Watt|€144.09
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1359.82
You said you wouldn't be gaming so the quadro gfx should do you fine.
I gave you a 128gb SSD so you won't need to use the SSD-caching.
The ram i linked has no "UBeR" heatspreaders so you'll be fine with the noctua.
Couldnt he Upgrade that GPU to a Radeon HD 6870 for a cheaper price? and that would let him game if he ever wanted to0 -
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FlyingIrishMan wrote: »
Is that Quadro not a step down from the GTX 570? Sorry, not 100% on the GPU side of things...0 -
v.e.r.b.a.l wrote: »Is that Quadro not a step down from the GTX 570? Sorry, not 100% on the GPU side of things...
I couldn't tell you myself. Don't know much about them really.
I'd imagine the GTX 570 would do the job just as good and likely much better, and then you'll always have the option of gaming if you wanted it.0
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