CGTalk - hardware choices - specific the use of SSD raid and scratchdisk

View Full Version : hardware choices - specific the use of SSD raid and scratchdisk

grootvriend

07-30-2012, 01:08 PM

I'm currently looking to buy a new pc and found a company with some nice builds to start of with. Now there are two builds I'm looking at from different price classes and I'm thinking about either upgrade the first build or downgrading the second one. Now it is the second one with which I need a bit of help. I already know that I want to change the quadro card for a GTX because of bad experiences I've got with quadro's and the amount of memory and hdd space might also be bit overkill for me. What I'm wondering is how useful the 2 x SDD's for the OS and the seperate Scratch disk is. My guess would be that it's pretty much overkill unless you're doing video editing or working on huge scenes for movies.
So what I'm basically asking is, are all those extra's the second build has worth it or a waste of money?

To give a bit of background for what I use the computer. I mainly work with single frame renders (rarely movies), asset creation and animation for games and a lot of baking (textures, aoc, lightmaps). The software I use is Maya(I might switch to Modo though), Photoshop and Unity.

Builds 1
Mobo: Gigabyte X79-UD3, Intel X79 chipset
VGA: NVidia GTX 560 CUDA
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600 Quad Channel
CPU: Intel Core i7 3820 3,6GHz QuadCore (4+4=8 cores!)
SSD OS: SSD 120GB SATA3
HDD Data: WD 1500GB SATA600

Build 2
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 Socket 2011
VGA: NVidia Quadro 2000 1024MB
Memory: 16GB DDR3 Quad Channel
Cooler: IBL 12UE Highend cooler
CPU: Intel Core i7 3930K Hexacore met Hyper Threading (6+6=12 cores!)
SSD OS: SSD 2x60GB in RAID 0 leest 1000MB/s
HDD Scratch: WD 250GB SATA600
HDD Data: WD 2000GB SATA600

olson

07-30-2012, 02:19 PM

I'd go with something like this, a mix between the two.

Mobo: Gigabyte X79-UD3, Intel X79 chipset
VGA: NVidia GTX 560 CUDA
Memory: 16GB DDR3 Quad Channel
CPU: Intel Core i7 3820 3,6GHz QuadCore (4+4=8 cores!)
HDD OS: WD 2000GB SATA600
HDD Data: WD 2000GB SATA600

tswalk

08-03-2012, 03:39 AM

CKPinson

08-03-2012, 03:51 AM

I have been the office guinea pig and have been using Windows 8 preview with everything- couple of hiccups but everything is working, less reboots and faster boot times even with the traditional 7200 HDD. Not for the faint of heart because ppl with a short attention span or lack of ability to adapt will not survive the transition. I have finally gotten to a point where I prefer it over Windows 8. At work it's about 90% XP and the incoming Windows 7.

grootvriend

08-03-2012, 07:04 AM

SSD is about performance. What in your daily production requires the best disk performance?

booting your OS or scratch/swap space while rendering?

I just ask because in my mind, it would be a huge waste in performance to want to boot your OS up a little faster once a day.

Thanks a lot, you've comfirmed my thoughts. I had the idea the double SSD and the extra scratch/swap would be more of a show off thing than truly useful to me.

tswalk

08-05-2012, 10:44 PM

Thanks a lot, you've comfirmed my thoughts. I had the idea the double SSD and the extra scratch/swap would be more of a show off thing than truly useful to me.

I just think putting the OS on the SSD in any build is a waste... however, i do think that putting scratch/swap space on it would be beneficial.

I guess that's what i was trying to say.

grootvriend

08-06-2012, 05:54 AM

Thanks for the clarification, that is indeed different from what I thought you meant. Using the ssd for the scratch/swap files instead of the os.. That's something I wouldn't think of but it does make sense.