Help this n00b buy a PC
Hylas
Posts: 5,070
So, skipping all the back story, I decided to buy a PC for IRAY rendering! Hooray!
I don't know much about PCs. I did some research here on the forum and elsewhere but I'm still pretty clueless.
Will you help a n00b out (or further confuse me with contradicting opinions?)
I'm basing much of my choices on this information but the document is 5 years old, so I don't know how much of it is still relevant...
I don't want to build my own PC (I don't have the knowledge and experience to do it, and don't have the patience/energy/time to learn it) but I found a company where you can pick the components from a menu and they'll build it for you. Which sounds good to me.
Here's what I assembled, does this make sense for IRAY rendering?
Are there areas where I'm being too fancy, or not fancy enough?
The whole thing would cost me about 1200 euros.
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i5 6 Core i5-10400F (2,9 GHz) cache van 12 MB
I picked the cheapest CPU with 6 cores, because the DAZ document mentioned 6 cores. Does this make sense? Could I get away with less?
There's also AMD options, which end up just slightly more expensive. Intel or AMD, does it matter?
Motherboard: ASUS® H410M-A: Micro-ATX, DDR4, USB 3.2, SATA 6 GBs
I don't know anything about motherboards, this is just the cheapest one on the list. Good? Bad?
RAM: 32 GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400 MHz (2 x 16 GB)
I picked the cheapest one that has 32GB, again because the document recommends 32GB. Does this make sense? Could I get away with less?
GPU: 6 GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 - HDMI, DP
Ballparking it, is 6GB enough to render 3 G8 figures & some scenery? Or should I go with the 8GB option?
1 TB PCS 2,5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520 MB/R, 470 MB/W)
CORSAIR 550 W CV SERIES™ CV-VOEDING 550 W
The estimated requirement is something under 350W but I read somewhere that you should go with a lot more than you need, or the performance will be sub-ideal and the rig will be more prone to overheating. Is this true? Could I get away with the 450W or 350W option?
Processorkoeling: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (120mm) koelingsventilator voor de PC, zwarte editie
Warmtegeleidende pasta: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREEM WARMTEGELEIDINGSONDERDEEL
Extra behuizingsventilatoren: 2 x 120 mm zwarte behuizingsventilator (geconfigureerd voor afzuiging via de achterkant/bovenkant)
Cooling is supposed to be important but I'm pretty lost here. I picked something in the middle of the price range they offer. Does this look decent?
Thank you sooooo much for taking the time! 
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Comments
6 gig is not near enough for 3 figures and scenery unless they are naked and the scenery uses procedural texturing, LOL
2070 Super min for GPU, as the 30xx cards are either not available or over priced. If you can get a 3070 for MSRP, go for that. 650w min for PSU, 800w better. 500 will limit your future upgrade options as the new cards are power hungry.
I'm just waiting for somebody to say you should build your own even though you clearly said you don't want to do that.
+1
With Scene Optimizer you might be able to get by with a 6Gb GPU, but an 8Gb card will be much better. I'm working on a 3 figure scene right now, and can only switch from filament or texture shaded to Iray preview 3 or 4 times before Iray drops to CPU. I haven't run scene optimizer yet, but if I add anything else I will have to. However, many of the texture maps are already 2k, but there are still quite a few 4k maps that might still look OK at 2k and give me a lot more headroom on the GPU.
That rig should be OK for 3DL rendering of minimal scenes. It depends on how hard you want to push your hardware and what sort of renders you want to do.... and of cause how long you're prepared to wait for renders to happen.
If you're thinking of Iray and larger scenes then, as mentioned above, you'll hit a wall with 6GB VRAM and slow render speeds with a 2060. I have a MSI 2080 and it can easily fit 5 fully textured G8s and render them quite quickly in Iray.
Unfortunally this whole DS game is a money pit even for hobbists. Forget about CPU and the other system specs and buy the best GPU you can afford. I would suggest a RTX 3070 or up..... if you have 500 bucks (US) to spare. They're $1000 where I live.
Thank you @everybody for the feedback so far! 8GB VRAM it is then!
What is a "slow render" in your eyes (for a render with GPU)? 5min? 20min? 1h? 8h?
I'm currently a CPU renderer so I truly have no reference point.
To what extent can I "forget about" cores and RAM?
The lowest I can go on the site I'm currently looking at is CPU 2 cores (3.5 GHz) 2MB cache and 4GB RAM.
Would it be smart to save a little in that way?
My understanding is that figures and objects would load more slowly when setting up a scene. Beyond that, what other negative consequences would there be?
2060 6gb would be decent for display purposes
10GB is the minimum imo; yes we can all manage with less, but for a better experience go 10/11
for the 2000 series i wouldn't get out of bed for anything less than a 2080ti; 3080 (and anything else that has 10) for the 3000 series.
All time is going to do is make lower ram cards more annoying.
This is for Iray, which IMO is a massive resource hog.
The listed system would work. Yes, the 6GB Graphic card is limiting for complex images but if you avoid scenes with three modern tech peoples & clothes, and scenes with large numbers of textures for the background a 6GB graphics card works OK for me with those limitations (I have an MSI Nvidia 1660).
Complex scenes can easily be rendered in layers to keep the IRay from failing over to CPU rendering. But if you do fail over to CPU rendering you might want to consider a little bit faster RAM than 2400. The CPU specifications of an i5-10500F https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199277/intel-core-i5-10500-processor-12m-cache-up-to-4-50-ghz.html list 2666 as its base speed so I'd go with that instead of 2400.**
Also when rendering by CPU in 3Delight that's where your number of CPU cores/threads is beneficial. It's an absolute joy to watch a 3Delight scene render with many cores independently painting little squares. Lots of activity all over the screen. Kinda fun to watch the little dance they do building your picture. However, since you're a n00b you probably won't be doing a lot of 3Delight renders because IRay is so prevalent in the newer model people & scenes.
The 500w powersupply is bare bones. Yes, it will probably work OK but future expansions of memory/graphics/IO/fans/external_drives could be affected. 650w would be better.
Now, for the motherboard. Personally I'd find a board with four memory slots instead of two and populate only two initially. Then in the future when I needed memory I could just buy two more of the exact same type and add them in. (DDR type memory should always be added in matched pairs). But if you only have two memory slots, buy what you need now or you'll just have to waste them later. How much do you need? At least 16GB. Whereas 32GB is better and will probably satisfy your wildest experiments. 64GB+ (at this time) is for digital gearheads.
Also, I notice that there is an M.2 socket on your motherboard and the specs say it supports PCIe and SATA interface protocols but doesn't specifically say it supports NVMe protocol for SSDs. I'd double check on that if you ever want to add an M.2 NVMe SSD for super fast storage.
In summary: All this having been said, your indicated choice of system will function OK for simple scenes. But at bare minimum I'd increase the memory speed to the specified 2666. No need to strangle the singer. It won't cost that much extra, but check with your system builder people.
**NOTE: The motherboard specifications specifically discuss memory speed at https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813119299 under Memory Standard saying "DDR4 2666/ 2400/ 2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory*
* For 10th Gen Intel processors, only Core i9/i7 CPUs support 2933/ 2800/ 2666/ 2400/ 2133 natively, others will run at the maximum transfer rate of DDR4 2666MHz.
* Refer to www.asus.com for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists)."
Thanks!
I'm now thinking:
CPU: Intel® Core™ i3-processor 4 Core i3-9100F (3,60 GHz) cache van 6 MB
Still would appreciate more input re CPU. 2 core, 4 core, 6 core? What makes the most sense? I'm not doing 3DL.
RAM: 16 GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400 MHz (1 x 16 GB)
@LeatherGryphon: I didn't really understand what you said about RAM. The 2666 option is indeed not that much more expensive than the 2400 option but it's not compatible with the CPU I now picked. Do I need to pick a more fancy CPU?
GPU:
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 Ti - HDMI, DP
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
Can someone ballpark what the difference in rendering time would be between these?
Eg. "a scene with two G8 characters and some scenery might take about Xmin with the 3060ti and Ymin with the 3070."
I understand that these things are not that easy to guess and it depends on all kinds of parameters; but I truly have no point of reference at all, which makes it very hard to make a decision.
I have never GPU rendered before, so I don't even know if we're talking hours, minutes, or seconds.
Power: CORSAIR 650 W CV SERIES™ CV-VOEDING 650 W
Not a big price jump from 550 to 650, but a more significant jump from 650 to 750.
So I'm now thinking 650 may be the best choice.
Cooling: MasterLiquid Lite 120 high-performance vloeistofkoeler van Cooler Master
Did some more reading and liquid cooling seems to be the way to go?
Why Intel CPU?
AMD will give you more, and the latest are comparable or perhaps better for gaming if that's a consideration.
The AMD options give me slightly higher prices. Do you recommend AMD over Intel, and why?
CPU is the most important component or foundation of your computer. Your GPU will underperform without a good CPU or everything will underperform. Not having sufficient available RAM will use storage memory as workaround.
Motherboard, you can upgrade or add feature in future with proper selection of motherboard, even CPU upgrade! Also it will support more ports to add additional and faster components.
Now the hard part
1. Select motherboard with minimum 4 RAM slots and 6 Disk (including sata+nvme etc.) slots.
2. Select CPU
3. RAM 32GB+ or 16GB for now and upgrade later.
4. GPU (RTX version and spend as much as you consider you need or your requirement)
5. Power, it depends with your CPU and GPU. Go for more than requirement.
6. Midsize case is usually sufficient.
Thanks! But how do I select a CPU that's good enough? What am I looking for?
Intel or Ryzen Minimum 6 cores, 8 cores good, more than 8 cores for better performance.
"I didn't really understand what you said about RAM. The 2666 option is indeed not that much more expensive than the 2400 option but it's not compatible with the CPU I now picked. Do I need to pick a more fancy CPU?"
Higher clock or OC capable RAM will down clock automatically according to CPU. Even Though higher clock capable RAM is always better if there is not much price difference because it will perform better due to latency advantage.
Please correct me if I'm missing something here, but I'm getting the impression that DAZ Studio doesn't use more than one CPU core (outside of CPU rendering, which I'm trying to avoid, since I'm not interested in 3DL) So that almost makes it seem like too many cores is a waste of money? What is your reasoning for getting 6 or 8 cores?
My current laptop has 2 cores. Loading stuff and posing is indeed a bit cumbersome, especially once Smoothing Modifiers get involved. I thought going with 4 cores (and more RAM) might make it a bit smoother to set up scenes.
If you're looking to save money by skimping on hardware for 3d rendering, you're looking at the wrong hobby imo.
DS is still a single threaded (akaik) program, so it won't take advantage of multi-core/multithread CPU's, so the faster and more efficient the single core performance, the better DS will run. Getting an i3 will hurt you now and become more apperent the longer you use it and the more complicated your scenes get. And when DS dumps back to CPU rendering that's when core/thread count matter so that's another situation where the lower end i3 will be a bad choice. That said, I'm not sure which way you should go, AMD has some really great CPU's out now, but you've been looking at Intel so if that's the route you want to take, I would look at some CPU benchmarks on youtube and several of the credible tech sites to see which do a better job of explaining it then we do. Linus tech tips or Gamers Nexus might have some decent CPU benchmarks.
Don't be cheap with the ram, the more ram you have, the better. Getting an 8 or 12GB video card is great but there will be a point where your system falls back to CPU rendering and if you don't have enough system ram DS will oversaturate your memory and the program and maybe even the OS will crash. Your minimum should be 32GB to be safe and don't be afraid to to get faster rated ram, it will simply run at whatever your CPU can support. Just check the mobo manufacteres website for brand compatability and you'll have no issues.
As far as video cards go, the 30XX series CUDA performance makes getting a 20XX series card a bad decision. I'm not saying that the 20XX are bad, it's just that the performance of the 30XX series is so much better that if you want the best value, the new generation is what you want. Unfortunately they're so hard to come by... you may have no choice but to take a previous gen card for now.
Power supply you should defininely not hold back on. That 650 watt you are thinking about is just at the edge of what I'd consider safe for a small bit of furure proofing. I'm going to suggest that 750 watt PSU and make sure it's a gold certified PS, so when you're not drawing in a lot of power, you're PS is still very effiecient. And since PS's degrade over time, the high rating means a longer lasting PSU usually.
Laptops cores are usually tiny cores. A realistic scenerio is your computer is handling lot of background task as well you also might minimized other graphics softwares, or doing multitasking. Well, practical scenerio always vary time to time. Also an i3 CPU will never going to push the limit of a powerful GPU and etc. etc. I hope you get the point otherwise I need to reference you from elsewhere as I am learning English and yet not able to express it as I actually want.
More for less.
If gaming isn't your thing, and even if it is, consider the Ryzens from previous generations; more cores/threads for less. If the i3 - a very basic processor in comparrison - serves your needs then nothing wrong with it.
At the end of the day, AMD and Intel are both perfectly capable of running windows and associated apps without issue.
3D rendering, however, is hungry, so more GPU and better CPU and definitely more RAM (on both) are a must.
As an example, instead of buying a new GPU (a Titan), I decided to wait for Nvidia's 3000 series; I moved to Blender and started in Cycles and I'm now not in a hurry as I got a performance increase using my Threadripper over my 980ti. In Iray the 980ti was significantly better.
Don't get me wrong, be it AMD or Nvidia GPU I get - Cycles will be even faster than now when I upgrade.
But I really like hanging on to my cash. 
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Reply to an earlier question: I follow the "Mama Bear" philosophy with equipment. I'd pick i5 over i3. Nothing really wrong with baby bear i3 it will function but Volkswagens shouldn't haul freight. There are some really nice 9th and 10th generation i5's out there now. An i7 or i9 will get you more cores but at a price.
I recuse myself from the AMD vs Intel religions. I know nothing about AMD so I stay quiet.
About the memory specs I quoted. I don't exactly understand it fully myself, but it seems to indicate that 2666 is the native design speed of that particular i5 CPU.
If you are really interested in the hobby and have the money, get a papa bear system. ($1700-$2000) US dollars
If you are just testing the waters of 3D and think you might get hooked but don't want to be too seriously limited by equipment or future growth potential, get a mama bear system (($1200-$1600)
If you are just curious but want a nice new computer, get a baby bear system ($800-$1200)
The system you first quoted but upgraded with 32GB RAM, and a 650 or 750w powersupply, would be a nice mama bear system. What are they quoting you for price?
Note: Sorry for not replying earlier. My computer crashed as I was answering your question a couple hours ago. (it's an old problem with an old computer that I use for web usage)
Ok, so what you all seem to be saying is that I may have taken it a bit too far when I was advised to "ignore the CPU"
I did a Google search on what CPU's pair best with RTX 3070.
Two products that came up a couple of times and seem to offer decent value for money:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X CPU 6 Core (3,8 GHz-4,4 GHz/CACHE VAN 36 MB/AM4)
Intel® Core™ i5 6 Core i5-10600K (4,1 GHz) 12 MB Cache
So maybe that's the way to go here?
Both products seem to cost more or less the same, too.
But all those sites I was reading seem to be geared mostly towards gamers.
Let me know if you have opinions!
So basically, I'm currently at:
CPU:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X CPU 6 Core (3,8 GHz-4,4 GHz/CACHE VAN 36 MB/AM4) or
Intel® Core™ i5 6 Core i5-10600K (4,1 GHz) 12 MB Cache
Motherboard:
ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6 Gb/s) - geschikt voor RGB! (for the AMD)
ASUS® H410M-A: Micro-ATX, DDR4, USB 3.2, SATA 6 GBs (for the Intel)
RAM:
16 GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666 MHz (2 x 8 GB) or
32 GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666 MHz (2 x 16 GB)
GPU:
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 Ti - HDMI, DP or
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1 TB PCS 2,5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520 MB/R, 470 MB/W)
Power: CORSAIR 650 W CV SERIES™ CV-VOEDING 650 W
Cooling: MasterLiquid Lite 120 high-performance vloeistofkoeler van Cooler Master
... which puts me at roughly 1500 euro. I was hoping for 1200 but *sigh* knowing myself, I will probably spend the extra money.
You get more return on your investment (arguably) when pushing your cash into the GPU and going for the lowest CPU possible.
But, the CPU needs to be able to completely provide all resources the GPU needs, otherwise the GPU will be limited. How much by? No idea.
If you can get DDR4 RAM at little extra cost it might give you a bit of benefit, which is more supported on AMD than Intel. Both are 6 core; are both 12 threads? The AMD is, but I've no idea on the Intel.
AMD motherboards are more upgrade friendly - they have been less likely to force folks to upgrade the MB just because they want o upgrade the CPU. No idea if that is a consideration, and check what you can upgrade on the boards you've chosen.
if you're just rendering, go budget on everything but gpu.
I recommend: dont use micro ATX mainboard, dont make it small!
And use 64GB ram, you need the ram to load much 4K textures, chars etc. its better to avoid crashes if you make much detailed rooms, cost ~100$ more but... thats really it worth!
And try to get a new RTX 3K card they are better + cheaper as the 2K series, you will just make a win out of it! 3070 or 3080.
I have a AMD ryzen with 6 cores and that is good enough. GPU storage can never be enough but is hell too expensive, if the scene is bigger it will just go in ram.
Hmmm... conflicting advice... Didn't Aesop tell something similar? https://tophat.com/marketplace/arts-&-humanities/literature/textbooks/oer-aesops-fables-public-domain/1181/34178/ ;
Asking technical advice on the Internet is like tumble drying your clothes with a tornado. Way more power than necessary.
These nVidia Omniverse apps that have been talked about in other threads in the forums have a minimum VRAM requirement of 6GB and 8GB is recommended. So I'd say in the next 3 years there is a good chance some program you use on your PC, maybe even DAZ Studio, is using one of those Omniverse SDKs and/or apps as a helper SDK/app so that sort of points to the GeForce RTX 3060 6GB cards being for gamers only and the GeForce RTX 3070 8GB cards being the entry level card for 3D hobbyists. After reading the specifications of those nVidia Omniverse SDKs / apps I'm inclined now to buy a GeForce RTX 3080 10GB card even though the MSRP of the 3080 is $699 instead of the 3070's MSRP of $499. $499 or $699 for just the video card is pretty budget blowing but do you want to be stuck doing 3D with 2018 capabilities or with a video card that still has growth potential for future uses? RAM use is not going to decrease. Has it ever?
@nonesuch00: according to my 20 seconds research, Omniverse is for animation? I only do stills.
Ok guys, I done did it! I placed an order. I ended up going for:
Intel® Core™ i5 6 Core i5-10400 (2,9 GHz) cache van 12 MB
ASUS® H410M-A: Micro-ATX, DDR4, USB 3.2, SATA 6 GBs
32 GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666 MHz (2 x 16 GB)
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 Ti - HDMI, DP
1 TB PCS 2,5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520 MB/R, 470 MB/W)
CORSAIR 650 W CV SERIES™ CV-VOEDING 650 W
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (120mm)
I was initially looking at RTX 3070 and Ryzen 5 3600X but the endprice made me a little queasy.
I looked for reviews that compared the RTX 3070 and the RTX 3060ti. I couldn't find anybody who compared the two in an IRAY context (I guess we're too niche) but several gamers had published reviews. They made it sound like the 3060ti is a really solid product and great value for the money. Here on the forum I also found a smattering of posts that were excited about the 3060ti.
When looking at lists of recommended CPUs for the 3060ti, the i5-10400 came up a few times. Which is also a little cheaper than the Ryzen 5 3600X or the i5-10600K. All of which brought down the price to a more palatable level.
Now I just have to wait of course, because the 30XX products aren't actually available atm. It's ok, I'm not in a hurry. I just hope my excitement isn't going to curdle into regret by the time the thing actually arrives!
Thank you so much, everybody who contributed! I've been a Mac user for my entire adult life so all of this is very foreign to me. I find it hard to find information specific to a niche hobby like ours. I couldn't have done this without you all!
It's for animation, lip sync, and such. It's also much faster at DLSS and noise filtering to upscale. If you have old home pictures and old home video in the days before digital the 30X0 series would be much faster at those things once programs are developed to take advantage of their capabilities.
You can also buy in on the 40X0 series in a couple years regardless anyway if you go beyond stills too.