I’m about to invest in a good PC for Blender and I need advice from you clever people!
I have a lot of experience with photography and filmmaking, and some 3D knowledge via Cinema 4D.
Now I want to build a great workstation for Blender, but I’m no wizard when it comes to knowing hardware. I’ve been reading up and I’ve narrowed it down to two builds I’m considering, which I found via this PC builder tool https://www.cgdirector.com/pc-builder/
I will mainly do stills renders with cycles/e-cycles in quite large resolutions (6000 x 4000 pixels or larger).
My budget is max $4000.
The first build I consider is this one with two GPUs:
CPU: Intel i9 9900k 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor ($494.99) CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 1151 ($86.54) Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z390-A ATX 1151 ($179.99) GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2080TI 11GB - Asus Turbo ($1149.99) GPU #2: NVIDIA RTX 2080TI 11GB - Asus Turbo ($1149.99) Memory: 64GB (4 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 CL16 ($319.99) Storage SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($137.35) Power Supply: be quiet! Straight Power 11 1000W ATX 2.4 Power Supply ($199.90) Case: Corsair Obsidian 450D ATX Mid Tower Case ($167.14)
Total: $3885.88
The second one is this one with three GPUs:
CPU: AMD Threadripper 1920X 3.5GHz 12-Core Processor ($199.99) CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 TR4 ($89.90) Motherboard: Gigabyte X399 Designare EX ATX TR4 ($452.99) GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2080 8GB - Asus Turbo ($799.99) GPU #2: NVIDIA RTX 2080 8GB - Asus Turbo ($799.99) GPU #3: NVIDIA RTX 2080 8GB - Asus Turbo ($799.99) Memory: 64GB (4 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 CL16 ($319.99) Storage SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($137.35) Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W ATX 2.4 Power Supply ($239.90) Case: Corsair Obsidian 450D ATX Mid Tower Case ($167.14)
Total: $4007.23
My questions are:
Will I benefit alot with 3 GPUs instead of 2?
Are these builds cooling systems enough for those GPUs/CPU?
Would you recommend changing some part for better performance?
Are these parts compatible with each other? To my understanding they should be
It does help a lot in Cycles to have multiple GPU as one tile (area of render or portion of the full image that is been computed) is one GPU. The again you can combine Intel with CUDA and cut the times even more.
I personally did never used such a system on modern Blender 2.8x
I also can tell you that is a bit overkill for stills. For animations is cool that you can afford this kind of machine so if you like silence (why i work on macs) then maybe limit the number of GPUs? Save some money, do some 2 months of staying home and watch some great courses.
Cooling use also Linus tech tips - water is the way to go for silence
1SSD is worse that 4 in RAID -you gain in animations from speed. For safe keeping use also Cloud storages.
Also Xeon processors are heavy workers -> plug in render, leave office, return in the morning and renders are done. And it will go and go for years without dropping 100% capacity.
Nvidia is the way to go (sadly for mac people) and better to buy all from same generation + manufacturers.
Also i don’t think you will add the memory from them combined=> so if you get 11gb on 2 gpu in total you will have still 11 but two rendering tiles if you choose cuda only -> someone should correct me
And if you do render cuda only (GPU) why not buy a cheap CPU?
I’ve made some changes to the 1st list, which is preferable imh. A 1st generation Threadripper isn’t the best option for blender modeling and editing. You don’t need the core count with gpu rendering. Single threaded performance is more important. The 9900K paired with the specific motherboard and 2 gpus would be a very decent combination. PCPartPicker Part List
I would certainly pick the 2x 2080ti’s instead of 3 2080’s mainly for the Vram (11gb vs 8gb).
Thank you! I will certainly look into your advice!
I will do some animation and fluid simulations too, but mostly stills. But I plan using it for CGI work for photography, so I’ll be creating large environments with lots of detail.
When learning about cheating massive environmental projects you will see how artists achieved realism with a few gigs of ram (not Vram)
For Fluids and Particles (hair,grass, foam etc) definitely go for the 11gb VRAM - you got the greens, then there is but one option.
Two GPU is better than one (In Cuda cores) but 3 is too much heat and noise for a silent night of Blendering. Sometimes while working new ideas strike you.
Is better not to have constant fan noise when that occurs as the idea will flash away and you will be looking at the big PC box and praying all goes well during the render.
I have zero time for this, but I can’t allow such flimsy and biased advice based on sound… First of all, there is nothing in the year 2019 that makes it so that a workstation has to be directly next to a 3D artist. Second of all, not all GPUs are loud or have the same cooling methods. Jeez…
OP, I have three EVGA 980Ti Hybrids (that will be replaced with EVGA 2080Ti Hybrids when I get a chance) in a Thermaltake Core X9 case that has two 200mm front fans, all powered by an EVGA SuperNova 1300W PSU, sitting right next me. I listen to dark ambient all day while I work and am able to enjoy my music fully, even during full blast rendering.
And yes, definitely go with 2080Ti x 2 to start. So many 3D artists have rued the day they did not get Ti versions of CUDA GPUs…
You are right I do not posses the new toys. At work our Dell workstations use Quadro GPU-s for other purposes but they pack some force when rendering and yep they sit right next to my feet so thats work… not home :))
So i guess you are right casses do make a difference and yes the PC can be a server in the basement and work on a mini-pc hidden behind a beautiful 5k display that uses the server as computational power. (If is that what you meant)
For the either build I’d strongly recommend getting a 500 series motherboard -> PCI 4.0. instead of 3.
Also you should note that if you have 2 GPUs there bandwidth is shared, Which is fine for rendering, and video production. (PCI express 4 = PCI express 3 x two). So if you have 2 GPUs you will want PCI express 4.0 so you can run your 2 GPUs at PCI 3 full speed.
So if you have 3 GPUs = 2 GPU @ PCI 2.0 (PCI 3 = PCI 2 X two), and 1 GPU @ PCI 3.0
To get around this you would need a server CPU and MB to run your GPUs at full bandwidth (PCI 4) which is not necessary except for Super Crazy Amazing Fast rendering for cycles. 2 player VR or a Pimax, 8k Gaming, A.I and obviously server stuff
In that thread myself and others discuss PCIe lanes extensively. The fact that GPUs get their number of PCIe lanes (1x, 4x, 8x, 16x) from the CPU is the most important takeaway from that discussion. Not naming anyone, but anyone that hasn’t built multiple GPU workstations should prolly not be giving advice on building them.
Between the TR 1920x and the 9900k I think there is. The STP difference between these two processors lies somewhere in the 20-30% area according to benchmarks. I think you can call that perceivable. A 5% difference on the other hand would be negligible. That’s roughly the difference between the 9900k and the 3900x for example.
Yeah, i’m sure there is in all kind of benchmarks. I am asking if it is noticeable in modeling or similar task inside blender? I am asking because of this I am reconsidering if I should buy TR4. I was planning on upgrading to 1950x, but you got me thinking. The new ryzen9 16/32 will make the budget, and it is much more efficient in single and multi core benchmarks. Plus, it has double cache size of the 1950x. And I don’t need more than 2 slots for GPUs.
So, you’ve got the answer aleady. The upcoming 3950X will blow away most of the current Threadripper models, both in STP and rendering performance, except for the 2990WX, which will be better in rendering only. If you can wait until November for the 3950X, do it. If not, the 3900X is still a great cpu overall.
I second that comment about 3900X. Go for it. 3950x looks even more promising but the fact that it is being released in November is a bit downside. Also not sure if 4 more cores are worth extra 250$ (Ryzen 3900X (12 cores) - 499$ vs 3950X (16 cores) - 750$. By the way you can clock that 3900X with PBO on all cores a bit - it is really powerfull CPU and matches Threadrippers in multicore area (single thread performance is out of discussion) for really decent price. As a bonus it has way lower power consumption (than TR CPUs).
Of course they will release new gen of Threadrippers in November aswell, but hey there is always something coming up and with this mindset you could be always waiting for something…
The 400C is OK (I’ve used the 400Q in my 2nd pc at home, and I can say it’s a good quality chassis), but it’s a bit compact for a rig destined for gpu rendering, I think. The Phanteks M is a bit more spacious. You should aim at a chassis with good airflow and enough room to hold the various parts, especially the large ones, like the gpu, the cpu cooler etc. A very good chassis with adequate space and top airflow is this one. Do a research if you want.
A X570/3900X combo would also be great for a 2 x gpu build like this. But, you’ll need a good AIO cooler for this beast and a carefully picked RAM kit if you want to get the most out of it. Recently, a guy I know (he works with 3d apps and uses gpu rendering too), built a 3900X rig with the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 as the cpu cooler. The temps he got were underwhelming. At stock speeds he was seeing ~40-50°C in idle and 80-85° C at full load. So, if you go for the 3900X get a beefy AIO cooler, like the NZXT X62 Kraken, the Corsair H115 etc. The STP would be almost on par with the 9900K, while the 3900X would be far better in cpu rendering (if you need it, though).
