macj89 Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 Hi guys! I need some advice from hardware magicians. Since our studio is expanding a lot, we are looking to build some new powerful machines to renew our old workstations. Our main software is Houdini, 3dsmax and Modo, and renders are Redshift and Vray. We also want to use them as a farm, when no one is working on them or for night sims/renders. But for this one, it will be only for Houdini+Redshift, so im going to write down the list of hardware that i have in mind, and let's see if you can give me any help to have better specs. We can get up to 5-6k per machine. MOBO: Asus Z10PE-D16 WS CPUs: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630V4 (i really think that is a bit overkill, i think it will be better and cheaper to get an i9 or one of this new AMD ones) RAM: 2x Crucial DDR4 2666MHz 32GB CL19 DRX4 ECC ( 64gb total, maybe getting 128, since this one will be the main houdini machine) SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD: GOODRAM SSD 960GB 2.5" CX300 LIQUID REFRIGERATION: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120 PSU: Be Quiet! Dark Power PRO 11 1200W 80+ Platinum BOX: In Win 805C ATX GPU: 4x Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8GB Let me know guys! Thanks in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 5 hours ago, macj89 said: MOBO: Asus Z10PE-D16 WS CPUs: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630V4 I wouldn't use hardware from two generations back. If you're fine with older hardware like that then just buy used at this point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 15, 2019 Author Share Posted May 15, 2019 Hey thanks Luke! I never thanked you enough! I build my own houdini workstation for freelancing almost 3 years ago with your Hardware advice and still rocking it! Never had a single problem hehe! Thanks man! This time is for my studio build, so i asked for a budget in a local shop, and they gave me this list. And, because the guy is a bit shady, i was sure he wanted to sell me old hardware to clean up old stuff from the shop, so that's why i come here to you guys, to avoid that since i trust more this community. I want new hardware so it can last longer since its a big investment, so, what do you think about the list i posted in the first post? Now i know that i should get another mobo and cpu, thats a big step ! haha Thanks again man @lukeiamyourfather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 xeon clocked at 2.2 ? your GPU's will wait long time to get data.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 15, 2019 Author Share Posted May 15, 2019 Thanks @schwungsau, I think that is the main issue we have we our current workstations. Can you advice a good combo? (Mobo+CPU) thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted May 15, 2019 Share Posted May 15, 2019 (edited) 23 minutes ago, schwungsau said: xeon clocked at 2.2 ? your GPU's will wait long time to get data.... That's less relevant these days because of the "turbo" mode modern processors have. I used to work on workstations with the Xeon E5-2630 v4 and they would regularly hit 3.5GHz for single threaded tasks. The listed "turbo" is 3.1GHz but it would go well above that with sufficient cooling. Either way I wouldn't go with those processors because they're old but the base frequency isn't an issue. Edited May 15, 2019 by lukeiamyourfather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 16, 2019 Author Share Posted May 16, 2019 So, what would be a good alternative speaking of new hardware? Maybe i9 or Threadripper? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 9 hours ago, macj89 said: Maybe i9 or Threadripper? Threadripper is a great option if you don't need a ton of memory (128 gigabytes or less). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 17, 2019 Author Share Posted May 17, 2019 Thanks Luke! How about this: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 3.5GHz Asrock Fatal1ty X399 Professional Gaming board 128GB ram 4x GTX 2070 1500w PSU A huge case a big Noctua instead of liquid cooling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) I don't trust products from ASRock but otherwise I think that's a decent plan. I had a server board from ASRock die three times for the same reason. They replaced it twice under warranty and the third time it was out of warranty (replaced it with a different brand board). That was my first and last board from ASRock. Edited May 18, 2019 by lukeiamyourfather 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magneto Posted May 20, 2019 Share Posted May 20, 2019 Any reason to wait for the next gen Threadripper? Will they have more cores and/or base GHz? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 24, 2019 Author Share Posted May 24, 2019 Guys! My new plan update after all the feedback: TR 2950x 2x2080ti (I'll upgrade later to 4) Motherboard ???? (I need something capable to plug 4x2080ti with space for the Air flow, can you recommend me something?) 128gb RAM (can you guys recommend something compatible? I read that the TRare capped in max speed) Any huge box recommendation? Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macj89 Posted May 28, 2019 Author Share Posted May 28, 2019 Hi guys! After the new Ryzen 9 release, what do you think? The new 3900x is 12 cores and its like 500$ only! Im not a hardware guy, what are the limitations of this guy vs the 2950x? It is worthy to but it over the 2950x? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fioxman Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Hello, As far as i know, the motherboards for the 3000x serie are limited to 64Gb memory. Only 4 slots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoltenCrazy Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Jumping in late, but researching X570 chipset boards right now. Although most appear to have shifted to a 4-slot DIMM design (as opposed to the traditional 8-slot), many of them support up to 128GB of RAM. Guess we just have to be a little more careful with our upgrade planning... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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