Hello, everyone. I am planning on putting together a PC for Blender, so I went to PC Partpicker and put together a system. I have never done this before, so I just wanted some feedback. I am predominantly a Mac guy, but I have seen that Nvidia seems to be the way to go as far a graphics cards are concerned, so thought I would see what I can build. I have a budget of about $3000, and was thinking of using Ubuntu Studio as the operating system.
CPU - AMD Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16 core processor
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Masterliquid ML 360 RGB TR4 Edition 66.7 CFM
Motherboard - ASRock X399 Phantom Gaming 6 ATX TR4 Motherboard
Memory - Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 DDR4 - 3200 4x16
Storage - Samsung 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
2nd Storage - Intel 660P Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME SSD
Video Card - EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black
Case - Corsair Air 540 ATX Full Tower
Power Supply - EVGA SuperNOVA T2 1000w 80+ Titanium certified fully modular ATX
Sound Card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Rx 24-bit 192 kHz
Network - TP-Link TG 3468 PCIe x1 1000 Mbit/s network adapter
PC Partpicker did not find any incompatibilities in the components.
Looks fine to me though I wonder if going with 2950x wouldn’t perhaps be better, then again if you wait for the 3rd gen Threadripper to be out might be able to get either 1950x or 2950x cheaper then, as the prices will drop for the older ones.
Mind, if you go with the 1950x now and update the bios you will be ready for at least upgrading to the 2950x without issues later.
I wouldn’t invest money on the 1st gen Threadripper right now. Even the 2nd gen isn’t so attractive right now.
I would definitely pick a 3900X/X570 instead. The 3900X is almost on par with the 2950X in rendering tasks, but it’s far better in ST tasks, like modeling, editing, simulations etc, and almost anything that doesn’t scale well to more then a few cores.
Dont get a Threadripper! Buy a 3900x or 3950x with a much cheaper motherboard especially if you only want 64GB anyway. All signs point to the fact that the new Threadripper CPUs coming in November will not run on older X399 boards to make matters worse.
Dude, do you really need a sound card, taking up a precious slot? Outside of audio pros, does anyone actually install sound cards anymore? I haven’t in many years, and yes I do need to do sound work often… The built-in audio chip on your mobo is wonderful.
Although I love EVGA Supernova PSUs, I’d get a 1300W if I were you. You might very well end up with three 2080Ti at some point. Only a wee bit more for 1300W.
I have TR 1950x… and with recent rumours of no compatibility of the TR zen 2 based for x399… i’m not overall happy. As others mentioned the Ryzen 3900x (or soon - 2 months) to launch 3950x) easily match or outperform the 2950x, there is furhter no reason to get the 1950 with the x399 chipset.
also why did you note a seprate TP-Link network card, and 1Gbs at that?
Storage wise, good choise on he 660p as additional storage.
So to recap, do get the 1300W Supernova if you can swing it - will make your life a bunch easier if you end up with three GPUs, plus the fan may not even need to spin up if only one or two GPUs are present. And maybe hold off that sound card until you try the onboard audio.
I can tell you that the interface, that is to say, the Enlightenment window manager, is the Awesomest I’ve seen! …and which CG person doesn’t love a cool interface every time they log in to work?
Have used it, have used many other distros, have at one point even rolled my own, but to dissapoint you, I still main windows 7 for the time being. Will not be using windows 10 though.
…and which CG person doesn’t love a cool interface every time they log in to work? 
That’s Awesome!