Well… We are talking about spending money here. No reason not to go for 4090 and 32GB RAM might be enough, but even I use 64 so for high end machine it should probably be at least 128. Nice for Geometry Nodes and what not…
If money’s no object, you may as well go all out. The Studio M3 Ultra with tons of shared memory will do well for rendering complex scenes that require a lot of VRAM, and a Threadripper equipped PC will chew through simulations like nothing.
Buying the best of the best won’t hurt anything but your wallet.
It money is no object, you’d be hard pressed to do better than a dual MOBO build, each with 128 GB of RAM, one with a Threadripper, one with a top of the line Ryzen, and a 4090 on each. You know, a causal 15,000 dollar beast ![]()
This is the other reason why I want to start up that charity, by the way.
If money is no object, I would not forget a good monitor.
Not sure I’d agree with that. The current RTX 4090 is basically the best gaming GPU you can get. Yes you can spend $20k on some other top Nvidia GPU, but it won’t be any better for gaming.
At the same time, it will also do a pretty darn good job at 3D Rendering and even AI/ML, UNTIL it runs out of VRAM. Then stuff like a $20K GPU with 48GB+ VRAM or a Mac with 128GB of unified RAM will matter. But that only matters if that is the sort of work you are working on.
If not, then the super expensive Mac Studio will be out gunned by a cheaper PC.
Assuming that the code is good and multi-threaded, not always a given.
Mind you, if one is also planning on say working on a lot of video editing (with a lot of clips at once), then the Mac really could be a good option, with all of its media encoders/decoders.
So really, one needs to be very sure about the use cases and double check (with quality reviews/benchmarks), how the hardware is going perform. I mean I just quickly speced a Mac Studio at basically max options and the local price is like $12k AUD.
I could build/spec a very serious PC setup (including top quality monitor/keyboard/mouse/graphics tablet/chair/desk, etc) and likely still have some money left over.
I don’t think the OP ever said that money was no object.
If looking at a maxed out Mac Studio, then that is just about ‘money is no object’.
If we are talking about Apple products, that should be the case.
I mean - yeah, Apple is stupid expensive. I just meant - you know, the price of the Studio seems to be around the $6-7K USD range, so in my mind - that’s sort of the budget, not $12-20K…
But, also doesn’t mean that spending $7K is the goal.
haha, you know what is even more funny, I just noticed that the $12K AUD Mac Studio, doesn’t even include a keyboard or mouse. You only get the box and a power cord… that’s it.
What would you go for with 7K budget?
Offhand, I’d go with exactly the workstation I’m typing this on (i7/13) … except I’d have a faster nVidia card than the 3060ti I’m using now. Maybe another 64G of ram, I guess that adds $120 or so.
I think I paid about $1500 for this system, so… far, far under $7K.
My computer has 96GB of RAM, a 3070ti, a Ryzen 5…900x? I believe? A 24 inch drawing tablet, three more monitors, and it still only cost about 3500 for all that. And that’s counting a motorized standing desk ![]()
So my opinion is no, unless you’re working with massive worlds that require triple digit VRAM, the Mac Studio is not worth it
Good god, man. How many monitors do you need?
N + 1, where N is the number I currently have. You’ll never guess what the next big thing I’m saving up for is
Considering where I’m at, my insistence to only ever use one monitor probably makes me the weird one out here.
Yeah, I mean, but what if you had to?
What if someone is standing with a gun pointed to your head and demanding you build a workstation for yourself for 7K?
OK so for me 4090 is probably no question, so RTX4090 Asus variant where I live costs 2 021€
I don’t need a good CPU, but hey, got to spend that money, so… maybe Ryzen 9 7950X?.. that’s 545€
Let’s grab some motherboard. 5 minutes of research led me to Asus ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI. Looks OK with the time spent. 500€
I want that DDR5 goodness, and don’t want to be shot, so maximum amount supported by motherboard 192GB. That’s around 850€
For storage I can’t get crucial T705 where I live, found only T700 4TB so let’s get 2 of those - 606€ each. Can you connect those to RAID maybe?.. Got rid of another 1212€
Let’s get some ridiculous PSU for 600€ and a case for I don’t know, maybe 200€.
That’s only 5078€. I am starting to sweat… I’ll get shot…
Let’s add a monitor BenQ SW321C looks fine. That’s 1938.80 €. OK, I am 17€ over… I guess I’ll have to use my old keyboard and mouse…
That was fun.
grab yourself a vid capture card with your leftover funds…
Yeah, I was stressed by the guy holding the gun to my head. You could also get just an adequite PSU and buy some audio monitors. KRK Rokit 5 are only around 300€. They sound amazing.