My spec for 3D rendering and Graphics

[donny5150]

Hi everyone,

I am in the market to buy a new machine which will be split between Cinema 4D / Octane Render - 70%, and Adobe After Effects - 30%.

- Octane Render is a GPU renderer so thats why I went with 2x1080ti.
- After Effects is a single core application so I was going to overclock the 8700k to around 4.5GHz (or so I've heard).
- 64GB Ram I think is good idea but not sure about how important speeds are.

All the other things like cases and cooling/fans are a bit alien to me (I don't care how it looks, but quiet would be nice).
Im also not that sure about the CPU, does it have enough lanes, etc? Could I think about another GPU in the future???

I won't be doing any gaming/movies or anything like that. It's purely for my work.

Oh and a budget of around £3k is what Im working with.

Any help or ideas is hugely appreciated!!

Donny.

Case
THERMALTAKE VIEW 27 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-8700k (3.7GHz) 12MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
FREE Middle-Earth: Shadow of War with select GTX 10 Series Graphics Cards!
2nd Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
FREE Middle-Earth: Shadow of War with select GTX 10 Series Graphics Cards!
1st Hard Disk
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
512GB WD Black™ M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 2050MB/s R | 800MB/s W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB Options
2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.0 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £3,076.00 including VAT and delivery

 

[Stephen M]

I would change the m2 SSD to one of the fast Samsungs, an SM of PM as they are really good and with a rig that expensive would certainly go for the silver warranty, only a fiver. What are your plans when the 30-days trials run out, Libre Office is free and will as good a job as anything else, as will Avast a free anti virus. Sorry cannot help on the case and stuff as am laptop user.

 

[Oussebon]

Agreed with the above. The WD Black SSDs don't at all live up to the reputation of their HDD namesakes. A PM961/SM961 or 960 Evo would be a much better bet.

- After Effects is a single core application so I was going to overclock the 8700k to around 4.5GHz (or so I've heard).

4.5ghz is pretty tame given it's own boost frequency is 4.7. PCS sell pre-overclocked systems which, last I checked, only cost about a tenner more than a stock clocked one, and it means you get the OC covered by their warranty.

All the other things like cases and cooling/fans are a bit alien to me (I don't care how it looks, but quiet would be nice).

The case you've gone for above doesn't do particularly well for cooling, and the GTX 1080 ti is a fairly hot GPU. Nevermind 2 of them, paired up with an OCed i7. The Corsair 540 and 740 both have excellent cooling (though the 540 is older, I've seen some reviews that suggest it has a bit better GPU cooling, so I went with that one).

I'd also suggest a better CPU cooler, e.g. H100i or H110i

Im also not that sure about the CPU, does it have enough lanes, etc? Could I think about another GPU in the future?

I don't know enough to answer about PCIe lanes in a 3 GPU setup - the motherboard and the Corsair 540 should support 3 GPUs, but the one in the 3rd slot would be hosted by the chipset rather than the CPU and I've no idea if that has any implications for Octane or any of your other software.

It seems there's no real difference between the GPUs running off lanes hosted by the CPU at x8 vs x16 for Octane though:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...Rendering-1030/#BenchmarkResults-OctaneRender

You definitely shouldn't run a 3rd 1080 ti off the 850W PSU though, with an i7 and all the rest.

USB Options
2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.0 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS

I wouldn't buy this unless you absolutely need it. The motherboard and case will already have a lot of USB ports, and with 2-3 GPUs in there you'll want to have as few things impeding airflow as possible.



Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ AIR 540 GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i7-8700K Six Core (3.7GHz @ up to 4.8GHz)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
FREE Middle-Earth: Shadow of War with select GTX 10 Series Graphics Cards!
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
FREE Middle-Earth: Shadow of War with select GTX 10 Series Graphics Cards!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3200MB/R, 1900MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H110i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
EK-TIM ECTOTHERM THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £3,232.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z370-overclocked/!H!pezUUpa/


...by the way, if you end up with a Shadow of War code you don't need, I could put that to good use *cough*

 

[donny5150]

Wow, excellent advice guys. Thanks very much!!

I'll have a look over those specs and chew it over.

Oussebon: If I do go with this, the extra copy of the game is yours no prob.