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May I trouble you for hardware advice, please?

GrizzlymoonGrizzlymoon Posts: 7
edited April 2023 in New Users

Good Day Folks,

May I trouble you for hardware advice, please? Didn't know whether to post this here in New Users, or Technical Help...please forgive me if I erred.

I am currently running DAZ Studio on my 2015 iMac. For those who don't know, it has a 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 (6500) cpu (only 4 threads), and an AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB gpu, and 64GB of RAM.

I am currently putting together a shopping list to build a dedicated DAZ Studio render box. I do not play video games, so I'm not looking for a gaming rig, I will only have DAZ Studio, Blender, possibly Carrara, and some form of image editing software installed. I am on a fixed income, so regretfully the top of the line, bleeding edge components are not feasible. I have not yet learned enough about DAZ Studio to create very complex scenes, but will hopefully grow into it. Unfortunately my trusty old Mac is very slow to update the iray preview in the viewport window when I have even 1 clothed and textured G9 figure in it, let alone lights, props, backgrounds, etc., and the render times are truly horrific. Time for an upgrade.

I am going with an Intel based cpu setup as opposed to AMD, and was wondering, would I see significant performance increses going with an i7 16 core/20 thread processor over the i5 14 core/20 thread processor? Additionally, I would like to ask, would I be better served going with an NVIDIA gpu having 12GB of VRAM and fewer CUDA cores, or 8GB VRAM and more CUDA cores (specifically the 3060 vs. the 3060 ti)? Is the NVIDIA chipset necessary for iray? I may be mistaken, but the iray shaders I purchased here at DAZ3D seem to load and work properly on my very dated AMD Radeon gpu.

I welcome any, and all, constructive input, as I switched from PC to Mac over 10 years ago, and haven't built a PC since.

My sincerest thanks,

Grizzly

 

P.S. I did read earlier forum posts, but was unable to find anything recent, or anything addressing cores vs. threadcount, and the gpu discussions left me a little confused

Post edited by Grizzlymoon on

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,506

    A 12GB GPU is probably going to be best - 8GB doesn't give a lot of free space, and the fastest card is useful only if the scene fits into its memory.

    Assuming you rarely drop back to CPU render I would think either CPU would work. The AMD GPU will not be used at all by Iray, so your Mac is a purely CPU renderer.

    How much system memory were you thinking of getting? 16GB would be mean, especially with a 12GB card.

  • GrizzlymoonGrizzlymoon Posts: 7

    Richard Haseltine said:

    How much system memory were you thinking of getting? 16GB would be mean, especially with a 12GB card.

    As far as memory, my iMac is comfortable with 64GB, so I figured that I will probably start with at least 64GB in the new render box.

  • leemoon_c43b45a114leemoon_c43b45a114 Posts: 866

    Hi Grizzly!

    I'm a Mac owner who has recently purchased a PC strictly for running DAZ Studio and doing some image editing.

    I still do a lot of my initial set up work on the Mac, but then transfer a scene subset file over to the PC for final rendering and sometimes initial image editing.

    Here's what my systems are:

    • Apple M1 iMac (16GB RAM, 2TB SSD.)  This is my main desktop system.  Use it for my daily needs and working with DAZ Studio including some final renders.
    • HP Omen 40L (6 core Intel i5, NVIDIA 3060 with 12GB VRAM, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD.) Recently upgraded RAM to 48GB and added a second 1TB NVME M.2 SSD.)  This is my main DAZ Studio system now.  It renders much faster than any of my Macs with respect to Iray.
    • M1 MacBook Air (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.). Travel laptop.
    • Intel i9 16" MacBook Pro (32GB RAM, 2TB SSD.)  Mostly my media hub system now.

    Instead of having a PC custom built, I went with a name brand pre-built system.  The HP Omen 40L is quick enough to run DAZ Studio smoothly and the 12GB VRAM on the NVIDIA 3060 renders so much quicker than any of the Macs.  It's also pretty quiet and I'm using a 4K Samsung LCD monitor and Bose Companion 2 speakers with it.

    I valued having additional VRAM (12GB vs. 8GB) which is what lead me to the configuration I got.  Same renders I typically do on the M1 iMac take about 1.5 to 2.5 minutes, while on the Omen they're done in about 10-15 seconds.  That's a very nice improvement for what I do.

    For my uses, the HP Omen 40L has been great.  It looks like your needs mirror what I was going for in a render box.

    To summarize: I think the extra VRAM is more important than more cores, but your needs may vary from mine. DAZ Studio worked well with 16GB system RAM, but I decided to increase that to 48GB RAM.  Do note that the HP Omen family is particular about RAM upgrades.  Some upgrade kits don't work or slow down memory speed a bit.  Windows 11 is not my favorite OS - not bad to use, but seems to be a bit nosey with user data.  The price was great -- I picked mine up at a nearby Best Buy for around $1400.  Transferring my DAZ data from the Mac to the PC wasn't terrible.  I put the Mac DAZ folders on a portable USB drive (Samsung SSD) and copied them to the PC, then adjusted DAZ and DIM to find where they were.  Works great.

    Here's the exact model I picked up: OMEN by HP 40L GT21-0014

    You can find a spec sheet for it on the HP website by searching for that model number/name.  Might help guide you on what changes you'd make for your system of choice (regardless of brand.) I'm happy with what I got as a cheap, basic, render box. :)

    Hope some of this helps!

    Lee

     

  • GrizzlymoonGrizzlymoon Posts: 7

    Thank you for that input. I am checking HP's site now.

  • HylasHylas Posts: 5,026

    Go with the 3060 over the 3060ti

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