Building a Computer specifically for Daz3D - Recommendations.

White Phantom Games

Hello,

I do a lot of work in Daz3D and I'm looking at upgrading my old computer to make it a rendering machine.

Here's what I've got at the moment:

AMD FX8350 CPU
Asus Formula-z Motherboard
16GB DDR3 RAM
TB WD Black HDD
SI GeForce RTX 2060

I'm thinking of replacing it with this:

Intel i9 13900K CPU
MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI Motherboard
128GB DDR5 4800mhz RAM
2TB Samsung 980 Evo M2 SSD
MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM

I've seen that a ThreadRipper CPU would be better, and already that the upcoming RTX Quadro Ada Generation GPU would be too.

Am I going to notice any real difference in these? I use 98% Daz, 2% Blender, and then just Photoshop and Lightroom for post and fixes.

I don't use Cinema4D, Maya or any of these tools and I don't envisage ever doing so (I don't know how). I've seen on some comparison videos that the Quadro cards are really only faster in very specialised programmes that need the extra CPU power of them. In Daz I make most of my stuff as still renders with a few animations here and there, but mainly stills. I do produce a lot though so the really important thing for me is rendering speed.

Would appreciate any advice, thanks! 

Richard Haseltine

The CPU is not critical for DS as most of the multi-threaded things (as far as I know) can be handled by the GPU, so hanging on for the best CPU or buying a top-of-the-line existing CPU is probably overkill (though I imagine still dwarfed in cost by the GPU). I would consider adding an internal HD for content - 2GB isn't going to hold much, and external drives are noticeably slower - though in a typical work session I'm not sure how often that would matter.

FP_b647bf2dae

My 3090 is constantly crashing on DAZ Studio - and I mean a total BSOD and reboot in the middle of rendering. I had not been able to solve this (drivers, DAZ Studioupdate...) So you may search if 4090 doesn't have this issue...

PerttiA

FP_b647bf2dae said:

My 3090 is constantly crashing on DAZ Studio - and I mean a total BSOD and reboot in the middle of rendering. I had not been able to solve this (drivers, DAZ Studioupdate...) So you may search if 4090 doesn't have this issue...

Based on previous threads here in the forum, not having enough RAM and malfunctioning/underpowered PSU can cause crashing

richardandtracy

I did a bit of reading around before specifying my much lower spec machine recently. From what I read, the single thread performance of the AMD's is not as high as the equivalent bracket Intel processors. You will mostly be using single thread when running inside DS, so the i9 performance is likely to be better under the circumstances you will encounter most often. The i9 may (only may) be slower while rendering if the GPU drops out because of insufficient vram - how likely is that with a 4090? 128gb ram - can't complain. The only thing that's out of balance to me is the drive size. I have a pair of raid 1 array 3tb drives on my much lower i5 spec machine, so if one dies, the other should be a backup. I'm surprised you've not got a 6tb internal HDD. The 2tb SSD is fast, but you're supercharging a relatively small proportion of the loading and saving process and that's the limit of the effect. It's such a small part of the DS experience, I don't think you'd notice the benefit, but will notice the lack of storage space caused by spending the money on the SSD instead. Otherwise, I wouldn't object to having that machine myself. Regards, Richard.

AgitatedRiot

FP_b647bf2dae said:

My 3090 is constantly crashing on DAZ Studio - and I mean a total BSOD and reboot in the middle of rendering. I had not been able to solve this (drivers, DAZ Studioupdate...) So you may search if 4090 doesn't have this issue...

I love my 3090 haven't had a BSOD. It flickered a couple of times at first, but then I put separate power lines coming from the PSU all is good...

White Phantom Games

Thanks for the replies.

I am planning on also buying a Multi-Bay NAS Drive where I was going to store all of my assets as I have a second computer and whilst it is fine to just redownload everything through DIM, sometimes it is very annoying when I use SkinBuilder or Optimise Scenes to have to limit those files locally to that one machine, so storage shouldn't be too much of a problem as I'll be using that.

Is there any real benefit to the Quadro Cards other than the 48GB of VRAM? I've never used one of that series of cards but have always heard they're the very top ones for rendering.

YouTube videos say there isn't really that much of a difference, but maybe you guys have a more experienced view?