Help Please; Graphics PC: Photo Editing & 3D Rendering

[micsim]

Hi,

I really need help speccing a pc & I am not getting an answer to my question, likely because I did not understand what I needed to ask. Maybe my old thread could be deleted and I can start over here?

I get asked "what is your budget", and my answer is "what do I need to spend"? I don't want to spend a lot of money, but if I need to I will. I could raise £50k, but there might be a hint of overkill there?

The serious stuff that I do on my pc is Photo Editing (24mp camera) & 3D Rendering (which takes forEVER and locks up all the RAM on my current machine making it unusable for 12 hours plus), I also surf the net & do a bit of gaming, but nothing too intensive or important.

My problem is that I do not understand the relative merits of the i7-3770 the E3-1270V2 & the (AMD) FX-8350 (or any other) type CPU. Is it right that lots of cores/threads helps?

None of this is helped by the fact that in the future I might use a rendering program that runs mainly on the graphics card CUDA cores - more cores again?

Clearly it would be nice if I could simply upgrade my present machine, however the more I read up on this the more I think this is unlikely;-

Current Machine;-

Case
Silverstone SST-GD04B Black Brushed Aluminium Case + 350W PSU
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core G850 (2.90GHz, 3MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-M LE/USB3 (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6790 - DVI,HDMI,mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 3 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 10 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

It would be great if those in the know could suggest options for upgrade and new pc :yes:

Thanks in advance

 

[Niem]

Hi there
In answer to your question about CPU's, for example the i7-3770 uses Hyper-Threading.
Hyper-threading is a technology used by Intel to simulate more cores than actually exist on the processor. While Core i7 products have all been quad-cores, they appear in Windows as having eight cores. This further improves performance when using programs that make good use of multi-threading.

Also, it would be helpful for you to give us some kind of budget here so we know what to work with.
Here's an example spec for you using an i7 build as you will be 3D rendering etc. As I don't know what you are willing to spend I'm not sure if you are wanting to go over the £1000 mark.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LK: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 660 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,119.00 including VAT and delivery.

- Not sure if you wanted the OS, without it, that takes the price down to £1,040.00

 

[Teaz]

If you wish to currently upgrade your current spec then I would say your best bet would be get new motherboard as your current one is quite restricted, cpu upgrade i7 and popping in more ram.

For you use, pretty much what I do, you will definitely want to consider an i7. It will speed up your 3D renderings a lot.

Those three cpu's are the same thing, just that one is more powerful than the other, one is a different brand (AMD).

For you use, it will surely be using the cpu so to answer, yes. it will definitely help with the processing and rendering, also part of an answer to what you need to spend on.

What are you currently doing renderings for as some rendering will take a lot longer than the other so this could help pick your choice for the cpu.



Is space a requirement for you? since your current specs are inside a small form factor case.

 

[micsim]

Hello & thank you, my renderings are artwork, some quite complex. Space is not a great problem, noise bugs me

 

[Teaz]

Do forgive my badly written previous post, was checking back and forth with a rendering that moment while eating.

What's your longest render to date? I would say a good choice for you is the i7 3770k. It's a 'K' variant version so you can overclock to add extra horse power if ever needed then pop it back to its stock clock once finished. It still provides plenty of power at its stock clock though.

What are do you currently prefer? a new fresh build or to upgrade your current?

 

[micsim]

Overnight, more than 12 hours.

Upgrade if possible, but as the upgrade costs mount the balance shifts to a new, I guess the xover is £600-750.

Thanks

I have just been rendering an image, the resource monitor readings were;-

Used physical memory 90% more or less

CPU1 90%

CPU0 10-20%

 

[Teaz]

If upgrade then I would suggest moving some components to a new build which is better.

This is something to consider:

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Quiet case

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Should be enough power for your rendering. Should it not be enough, you can overclock it.

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
You can add another 8GB of ram if the current 8 isn't enough.

Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
You can move your 6970 over to this build.

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5003AZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Same as the gpu, you can move over your caviar green drive to use as a secondary drive for storage.

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)

Processor Cooling
Corsair H40 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£39)
A better cpu cooler over the stock to allow overclocking should you need.

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Total: 802

You can adjust it to your preference in this link

You can move over your bluray drive to this build as you currently have an optical drive.

 

[micsim]

Thank you Teaz - that is all really helpful

 

[prixat]

...I have just been rendering an image, the resource monitor readings were;-

Used physical memory 90% more or less

CPU1 90%

CPU0 10-20%

Can you say which software you're using?
Which GPU renderer are you thinking of?

That 90% memory use is a bad sign, looks like the model is taking the whole of memory and the CPU is wasting time and effort moving data around instead of using 100% on both cores.

I've been OK so far with 8GB and able to max out all 6 cores but I do mostly product visualisation and not especially big scenes.

If the GPU renderer you have in mind is CUDA only (like Octane for example) then you're limited to nVidia cards. Sorry if thats obvious, just thought I'd mention it in case...

 

[bcr5784]

The software you are using is critical. Low end packages such as Serif Movie Plus or Premier Elements don't use GPU acceleration, Sony Movie Studio (was Vegas) only has only just got it on version 12 - but a friend who uses it found it slowed his machine down with a low end graphics card (GT430). Adobe Premier does use it - but only with a very limited number of graphics cards (Nvidia only on PCs) (see their site for a list).

I'm in the same boat as you - and I use Movie Plus and so am tempted to go with a 3770k and use the inbuilt HD4000 graphics initially - but I don't do gaming so I don't have any other use for a high end graphics card.