Another PC advice thread...
Quasar
Posts: 638
Here I am, running an Asus computer that will be five years old next April. Four years and eight months doesn't sound very old to me but I think I need to replace it soon. It's been a pretty decent machine but it's been quirky over the years and is getting worse. At this point, it takes forever to wake from sleep, if it does at all. When it finally does wake up, it is very sluggish for a long time afterwords. Because of this, I turned the sleep feature off all together and just shut it down each night. It's been starting up fine this way at least. I've done RAM and HDD tests and they seem to be OK so I'm not sure if my PSU is going bad or if there could be something wrong with the motherboard or if it's a software problem. I've found that diagnosing these things is a real pain with a lot of trial and error. I've also been unable to update Windows 10 with the Creators update because the update process freezes every time. So, I don't have the ability to troubleshoot hardware problems, and don't really want to spend money on a dying computer anyway. Buying a new computer seems like the best option.
These are the specs of my current computer:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770
GPU: Nvidia GTX 660
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB
RAM: Adata MI64C1D1629Z1 2x8GB
MBD: Asus CM6330_CM6630_CM6730_CM6830_M11AA-8
I'm a quadriplegic so I can't build my own PC with parts. That's why I've been shopping around for a complete computer, and I think I found one I want to get. I want the 8th generation i7 for 3Dlight renders and the GTX 1080 Ti for IRay renders. This computer doesn't have connectors for optical drives but I can't remember the last time I used the disc drive on the computer I have now. I think I could get away with a USB DVD drive if I ever want to use old discs. One of the reviews said the CPU was running hot at 100C but that's why I'm looking at Best Buy because if I have a problem with that, I could probably have one of their tech people upgrade the cooling fan for me. However, I'm wondering if this is a reasonable deal or if I would be over paying for what I want. I like that it has an SSD drive to run Windows on as well. Is there anything else I'm missing with this computer that I didn't think of? It's no small chunk of change so some helpful opinions would be appreciated before I decide to pull the trigger or not.
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Comments
That was my thought as well, at least 24, but 32 would be better if you can fit it into your budget.
...I would look consider a custom build house over a big box electronics store that sells everything from audio systems to washing machines. It may cost a little more but you can select the components and configuration you want and the system will be fully set up and tested before it ships. You also won't end up with a tonne of pre-installed bloatware wasting system resources either.
CyberPowerPC is a custom build house selling through Besy Buy. Given the needs Quasar mentioned in his original post, buying through someone with a local store seems rather important if he doesn't have an authorized sevice center for a different brand nearby.
...I didn't know the two were affiliated. When I was shopping around for a new system, I was not impressed with the offerings I found at BB. Of course that was five years ago when all they had were "mainstream" home/business systems. Had to go to Frys to find gaming rigs.
Thank you for the feedback! Since it's been mentioned I should get more system RAM, would 16gb get me by for now? Also, why would more system RAM be needed if there is more VRAM?
DS will hold a lot of the information for Iray in system RAM to improve the time it takes to get the information from system ram to the GPU. So it can take almost an equivalent amount of system RAM preparing your scene for use in the GPU. This can vary, but to avoid any problems it's just a good rule of thumb to have approximately twice the GPU memory on your system. You could still work effectively with 16Gb, but you might have issues with large complex scenes that come close to the capacity of your GPU. So 24Gb would give you plenty of room if you don't run a lot of additional software while working in DS. I typically run in the 18-24Gb usage range (6GB GPU), but I usually have several things open at once (a browser with several tabs, Gimp, DS, maybe Carrara and/or three to six other applications).
Of course you could always wait and get more installed later if you start pushing your system really hard. Depending on what you do and how you work, you may never feel the need to upgrade, or you may whish you had gotten it with the system (installing additional RAM is usually quite simple, Best Buy could do it).
I recommend 64 GB of RAM if you can afford it. That is my personal minimum for all but my basic company office laptop.
If you are using IRay then some scenes can use a lot of RAM, even when it is rendering completely inside GPU (I also have a GTX1080Ti). I have just done a scene with 5 Genesis characters, plus a few props, walls etc, and DS was using 16GB of RAM, despite "only" needing around 7GB of VRAM. With everything else I had running at the same time my box was hitting 25GB and started acting up at that point (browser crashed for example).
So I am wondering now if I really need 64GB, not the 32GB I have. All the same I think 32GB should be fine in a computer with a GTX 1080Ti, but 16GB will be pushing things very tight.
I would honestly buy directly from CyberpowerPC. This way you can customize everything about the computer, including getting a liquid cooling setup pre-installed.
On the RAM discussion... It's always a prety good rule of thumb for your system RAM to be at least double your VRAM. This is very important when using Iray because Nvidia cards have very good hardware based texture compression that your main system RAM can't use. Depending on your scene it could take twice as much system memory as the VRAM it will take for the GPU to render in Iray.
...so by that you are saying my 8.9 GB railway station scene with a volumetric wet fog rendering at 2,000 x 1,500 should fit on a 6GB 1060?.
This is refering to the required texture memory. It would all come down to how much of that 8.9GB is textures and how much they shrink when the GPU compresses them. (I have no idea what compression method Nvidia uses)
Though with the volumetric fog, all bets are off. That was a sure way to bring my old GTX 1060 6GB card to it's knees.
My guess is it would almost certainly fit, and if it could not, then only a small amount of optimization work would get it to fit. However DS may use even more than than your 8.9 GB when rendering on a decent GPU card, so then your issue would be DS memory usage starting to push close to your 12GB of RAM, and so the machine would start swapping.
I doubt volumetric wet fog would have a significant effect on memory usage, but it would effect the render speed.
I'm curious why you feel 64GB is necessary? I have 64GB on a Ryzen 7 1700 desktop with a GTX 1080ti and GTX 1070, and personally I think it is a total waste of money for most people. I only have it because it was leftover from some PC's I upgraded.
As to the OP's question...
Yeah, IMO that Cyberpower PC is real nice. Though if you're in the mood to try to fix your existing PC, you could download the Windows 10 ISO onto a thumb drive and re-install from scratch on a re-formatted hard drive. If that works it might save you some $$. I'm not sure if 3Delight will take advantage of the additional 2 cores of the i7 8700k? I think the two clock speeds are nearly the same (3.7 vs 3.4). Not sure if the 3DL improvement will be worth the $$ on a new CPU, though I've never used 3DL so maybe somebody who has can chime in.
Then you can just buy a GTX 1080ti, and maybe an SSD like you say. BTW, speaking of SSD's...I have a 500GB SSD as a system drive with all my apps, and right now it's about 50% full (240GB). So if you're anything like me a 250GB SSD might be a little tight.
3Delight will use every CPU thread that your system has to offer. (You will see 12 little render buckets racing across the screen too see who can fill the most!)
While for most people I would agree with your recomendation, the OP made it clear that he/she physicaly cannot build a computer and would like to purchase a complete machine.
The OP mentioned Best Buy and having their tech folks upgrade a fan, so I thought they could also throw a GPU in there real quick. Though if the additional 2 cores of the new CPU makes that much difference, maybe a new machine is the way to go.
This was all very helpful. I decided to order the one from Best Buy. I went to CyberPowerPC to customize one with a liquid cooler and 32gb of RAM like @JamesJAB suggested but it got a little too pricey, especially after taxes. I'll pay this one off first and then upgrade some time after that if need be.
Now that I'll have an SSD once I get the computer, is that the drive I will want to install my software to? I'm guessing my content will be stored on the HDD. What about games? Is it best to install those to the HDD?
I have most of my DS content installed through DAZ Connect. Is there any way to transfer that to the new computer or will I have to download and install it all again through Studio?
Since you used Daz connect, you need to install the content again.
...yeah rendering scenes like that usually ended up in swap mode because most of my system's memory was taken up having to keep Daz with the scene open (basically after Windows and system utilities, I actually have only 10.5 GB of physical memory). Hence why I am increasing the memory to 24 GB (the most the board can support).
As I have mentioned in the past, the one feature of Reality/Lux I did like was being able to close the Daz programme and scene down after it was submitted to the render engine. Wish we could do that with Iray but the external version of Iray is expensive and there is no plugin for Daz.