Optimised hardware for DAZ?

a_s_lord

Happy new year!

My old cmptr has come to the end of its life and its time to ring in the new year with a new rig. A fairly obvious question is what to get.

OK, hardware specifications change on an almost weekly schedule, and it is always possible to pay a bit extra. I also understand that DAZ and its content management are likely to continue to develop.

With this question, I'm not looking for today's best buy (eg. "I'd go with a GTX980 Ti...") that kind of recommendation is valid for a limited time only, but rather the *reasoning* behind the contemporary example (DAZ 4.9 as of January 2016) so that I can review the hardware at a future time and derive the best cost-benefit rig for my needs. Note that I'm not specifying any budget here beyond "reasonable" (whatever that means).

What I am looking for are the *factors* that optimise for 3D, and particularly DAZ 3D (ideally detailed character animations with higher frame rates in IRAY; I also use my PC as a soft-synth DAW, but I do not game). I am also interested in where the point is on diminishing returns on spend - so I am not spending a lot more only to make a tiny difference. On the other hand, should I pay that bit extra if it will make a massive improvement. To some extent, I am also relying on folks technical knowledge of how DAZ (etc.) actually uses cpu cores, memory, cuda, and so on.

I gather more cuda cores is good - no question! I suppose get the best GPU I can afford.

CPUCores? the more the better? Does DAZ do the grunt work on the models then farm rendering out to the GPU, if so does having more cpu cores make any difference; if so, is it worth considering High-end/enthusiast product lines, or extreme editions and relevant chipsets? I don't game so is overclocking useful?

RAM & Memory channels: again I guess more the better, but is there a limit to how much DAZ uses? Should I be looking at DDR4 technology? faster speeds, or is it worth it?

I also suppose somethings can be upgraded over time while others must be got together; obselecence is a factor.

 

 

I'm taking monitors, PSUs and the like seperatly.

 

As of Jan 2016, I've been advised to consider

i7 4790K; Asus Z97-WS; DDR3

I'm also looking at the

i7 6700K; Asus Z120; DDR4 (Skylake; Sunrise Point)

or should I wait for something better (Kaby lake; Union Point)

but I'm also curious about such as socket 2011, X99 (wellsburg) chipset, or even Xeon

 

Again, I'm not after a shopping list per se, but rather general guiding principles.

TIA

 

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JCThomas

If all you want is guiding principles, then go for high clock speed on the CPU over core count (but definitely a hyperthreaded i7) and the more CUDA cores the better for IRAY rendering. The second best of whatever the component is usually the better buy...850 EVO vs 850 PRO, 980 ti vs Titan X, for example. A fast SSD is vital for app loading time and loading of content. Don't waste money on fast RAM. Amount of RAM is more important. Whichever chipset you go for, just use the basic ram speeds. 1600 is fine for DDR3 and 2400 is fine for DDR4. 

All of those recommendations are solid so far, although I think you mean 2011-3, which is newer than 2011. 2011 is the X79 chipset, 2011-3 is X99. X79 would take the older V2 Xeons or 49-- series of i7s, while X99 takes Xeon V3 and 59-- series i7s (and 5820k). Xeons are good but fall into the category of a little extra performance for a lot more money. And sometimes the performance is worse, depending on the task. 

a_s_lord

Thank you, that was the kind of answer I was after. To clarify:

OK, clock speed over core count: which lends to 6700K (socket 1151; Z120 chipset), rather than the Xeon (2011-3 X99). I gather DAZ itself would use the cores when optimising objects etc., but farms out the raytracing to the GPU.

OK, I understand the more CUDA the better - so (hyperthetically) 3 * 980Ti would be better than 2 * Titan X/Z?

OK on the idea of SSD, although I havnt figured out how to write the progressive rendering canvas there yet.

RAM - amount over speed. When you say basic speeds, would the faster DDR4 have some significance for multimedia production (eg DAZ, Cubase acoustic modelling plugins) seeing as 16Gb DDR4 (2400) is only $10 more than 16Gb DDR3 (1600): http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2015/november/ddr3-vs-ddr4.

This final bit between DDR3 and 4 seems important for the rest of the rig as they require a different chipset and cpu. To boil these principles down, I am looking into the pros and cons of the following options:

i7 4790K; Asus Z97-WS; DDR3

i7 6700K; Asus Z120; DDR4

I suppose one final factor would be the upgrade potential of each option - and some tentative roadmap to future builds.

 

TIA