Building a new station

[JJ FX]

Hi there,

So finally, after 3 years of working on a laptop Im goin back to good old proper PC

Im planning to build it on my own, because I dont have a big budget. Sth around 2000-2300 for the whole case.

And ofcourse I would love to build it with Threadripper. But whatever I do the budget always reaches 3k.  So I guess it has to be Ryzen7 1800x. Maybe next time...

This is supposed to be 100% Houdini rig. So definatelly Linux, no crappy windows. I might work on some unity game projects too, so probably I need some proper distribution. I think only Ubuntu is fully supported by unity, but im no expert on that.

 

So few questions:

1) Does the frequency of RAM matter for simulation/rendering? Do I really need 3200mhz ram instread of some cheaper 2400mhz?

2) Is it worth to get a cheaper AMD instead of GTX? Because if Im going to experiance viewport glitches for $100 less price, than its not worth it

3) And ofcourse... is it possible to build it with Threadripper within this low budget.

 

Any any help very welcome. Because Im going to buy the components somewhere next week. And dont want to make some stupid mistake

 

Thank you!

[DaJuice]

1) With Ryzen processors, memory speed can have an impact on render-times and overall CPU performance. Hard to say weather it's significant enough to spend extra money. I have a Threadripper with 3200MHz RAM, but I doubt it would be noticeably slower with 2933 or 3000. I think you're okay with 2400MHz and speed/capacity is something you can always upgrade down the line.

2) I would never get an AMD card for 3D work.

3) My Threadripper build was around $3,500, and still full of compromises. Have you considered the Threadripper 1900x though?  I think it would be worth it to be on the X399 platform for upgrade-ability reasons. The mainstream Ryzen platforms limit you to only 64GB RAM and PCIe lanes/slots are limited. 

[JJ FX]

Thx

Actually getting TR 1900x for future purpose make sense.

And when thinking about upg I dont have to buy all the best parts right now. So eg I definatelly can work on gtc1050ti for some time and 32gb ram.

This is the build (~2100CAD, ~1600USD):

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/gPf3yX

[lukeiamyourfather]

On 5/18/2018 at 9:50 AM, JJ FX said:

1) Does the frequency of RAM matter for simulation/rendering? Do I really need 3200mhz ram instread of some cheaper 2400mhz?

The memory controller on the CPU should be the determining factor for the memory speed. There's little point in buying memory faster than what the CPU can actually use. When you get an idea of what CPU you want then lookup the memory controller specifications (like on Intel Ark) to figure out what speed memory makes the most sense to buy.

On 5/18/2018 at 9:50 AM, JJ FX said:

2) Is it worth to get a cheaper AMD instead of GTX? Because if Im going to experiance viewport glitches for $100 less price, than its not worth it

At home I use Radeon cards and have for years because they offer more bang for the buck and they've been fine in Houdini. At work where money is less of an issue I've been using Nvidia cards but I think both are good options.

On 5/18/2018 at 9:50 AM, JJ FX said:

3) And ofcourse... is it possible to build it with Threadripper within this low budget.

Yes, with some compromises.

[JJ FX]

Ok good to hear that Radeon works too. Because every1 has been crying that amd cards for work are terrible. And I dont know if thats even an objective opinion or rather people just repeating what they have read in the internet.

Anyways I finally got the build. Rather cheap and most important upgradeable. However still above the budget. But you know how it is, always going above the budget.

The next day I bought my TR, the prices dropped down around 130CAD for my cpu. That was unfortunate. But on the other hand amazon by mistake send me an extra 1TB ssd drive so.... Im pretty happy Using that for caching ofcourse

 

build specs

[lukeiamyourfather]

On 6/17/2018 at 11:40 AM, JJ FX said:

The next day I bought my TR, the prices dropped down around 130CAD for my cpu.

Are you sure you bought a Threadripper? They aren't that cheap.

[malexander]

The days of bad AMD graphics drivers are over. They've been just as good as Nvidia drivers for several years now. Hard to shake that bad rep though.

[toadstorm]

AMD cards (as far as I know) can't run CUDA, which is required for GPU renderers such as Redshift. If you don't plan on GPU rendering then by all means save your money and go with ATI cards, but otherwise you're better off with Nvidia for the time being.

[lukeiamyourfather]

36 minutes ago, toadstorm said:

AMD cards (as far as I know) can't run CUDA, which is required for GPU renderers such as Redshift.

CUDA is a proprietary platform from Nvidia. There's an open source and free alternative called OpenCL which is what Houdini uses for things like Pyro and FLIP simulations among other things. You're right though, if CUDA is needed then Nvidia is the only option.

[JJ FX]

On 6/20/2018 at 7:37 PM, lukeiamyourfather said:

Are you sure you bought a Threadripper? They aren't that cheap.

Heh. What I meant is that I bought my for sth around...860 and then it went down to 730 or sth like that