what specifications should hardware have if i want to specialize it on designing and rendering with blender?
I’ve put multiple gaming-systems together in the past already. Specifications for gaming-systems like this are way different from those of a designing-system. Sadly i do not know what exactly to look out for and which factors play a big role, so i hope some of you can give me some advise on what to look out for and where to spare some.
So far i was looking for a system with 2 Intel-CPUs, each 8 cores. For the graphics card i wasn’t sure if it would be better to go for a dual-gpu from amd or to combine two of the newer nvidia cards. I was thinking of using two of the 1060 gtx with each 8gb RAM, or the amd dual-gpu FirePro with 16GB RAM. The price of the two 1060s is way lower, but i dont know how the dual-gpu influences the performance. I also read somewhere, that the amd-graphics cards don’t support cycles, not sure tho. For the RAM i was thinking of 64GB DDR4 regECC.
Is this a good setup to aim for (in a range of 5k€) or should i consider making some changes?
For 3d work you would benefit from less cores with higher clock speeds if we are talking about the processor, so it seems single i7 7700K at the moment would be the best choice if you are not rendering on CPU. If you are rendering on CPU, you need a render farm anyway. The i7 will be most smooth to work with since some operations you need to perform often are single threaded. I assume you are going to render with Cycles, then GPU is the most important thing, you would be limited by it’s memory, so 64 GB of RAM while will not hurt, are absolutely unnecessary for most 3d work needs. 16 is really enough 32 would be unnecessary for my work for example, so you could save there and get better GPUs. I would strongly recommend trying 16GB you can add more later if needed, but I don’t think you will. 2 or 3 GTX 1080 would probably be the best choice now, someone please correct me if I am wrong. You don’t need to connect them with SLI. You just put them in and they render. the more the better. The more memory the better. GPU memory does not add. If you have 3 with 8 GB each, you can render only scenes that fit into 8 GB. 8GB vRAM is actually really a lot and would be comfortable to work with. I work professionally and render architectural visualizations with two GTX970 4GB with no major issues most of the time(unless someone needs a furry carpet, then I start crying) I personally like fast SSDs RAIDed together as well, but there are concerns about their reliability when used intensively I have a backup HDD. This works for me quite well so I think I can recommend it.
@MartinZ thanks for the reply.
Biggest thing i’ve rendered so far was a 3d model of a room. Furry carpet, table, sofa, tv, … blah blah blah. Rendering it on 1k samples, full hd and 100% quality took my computer a while… So far i’ve been rendering in cpu. I am designing on a gaming-computer with a 1080 8GB and an i7 4,5ghz 6 cores (overclocked ofc).
So what you are saying is, if i install 2 graphics cards with each 8gb vram its not gonna be upped to 16 but instead still maxes at the 8gb of a single one?
And you also think, that 2 cpus with each 8 cores and round about 2,5 ghz wont render as fast as a single quad-core i7 with round about 4ghz?
The harddrives sont rlly matter for the rendering and designing part, since all of that is happening in the ram and the cpu/gpu. This system is purely there to stand in the corner and render stuff. Im gonna have it transfered via a external harddrive to another computer afterwards. so id just have installed a 150gb ssd for the operationgsystem and the few programms i need like blender etc.
the more the better. The more memory the better. GPU memory does not add. If you have 3 with 8 GB each, you can render only scenes that fit into 8 GB. 8GB vRAM is actually really a lot and would be comfortable to work with. I work professionally and render architectural visualizations with two GTX970 4GB with no major issues most of the time(unless someone needs a furry carpet, then I start crying) I personally like fast SSDs RAIDed together as well, but there are concerns about their reliability when used intensively I have a backup HDD. This works for me quite well so I think I can recommend it.