Upgrade question

#1

So my set up is:
i7 2.93
evga x58sli (motherboard)
24gb ram ddr3 1333
quadro fx3800 1gb ram
128gb ssd disk (primary only windows)

My question is in 3 parts. So you could say 3 questions.

  1. What would you change. cpu (motherboard) or graphics card?
  2. Should I buy another Quadro fx 3800 and put them in sli mode for a faster preview render times?
  3. if not, should I buy amd firepro w7000 or just a plain but good gtx something, card?

My problem is this I usually do zbrush and photoshop work. So there is no reason to upgrade anything while using these programs. But, when I render something in 3dsmax it takes looongggg! I usually do some heavy models in zbrush export them in 3dsmax and render them. So most of the time moving a camera or some selection takes (depending on the scene) sometime. Of course rendering takes like ages. 10-15 hours for a heavy scene. I usually dont render through my GPU. I hope these helps.

#2

graphic card won’t help anything in zbrush since it’s a CPU driven app. Photoshop hardly cares much about the graphic card other than a handful of functions. SLI is worthless for graphic card performance other than gaming and specific GPU renderers

get a new cpu and motherboard and you’ll have a a solid improvement across the board

#3

I’d suggest for what youre after, holding out a little longer for the release of the 8 core i7s, they will give you a worthwhile upgrade in a few months.

#4

8-core i7 will be realised ONLY in extreme class of CPUs, so it means 1000$… its no worth of so much money.

http://www.techpowerup.com/201243/intel-core-i7-haswell-e-processor-lineup-detailed.html

#5

Looks like the 8-core cpu is only 3ghz which is about what I figured given the new 12-core xeons only do 2.7ghz when the other xeons with fewer cores are doing 3.4ghz

I’m sure the new revised turbo mode will close the gap a lot, but still I wouldn’t pay top dollar for a CPU that’ll likely only be 20% faster only in certain circumstances.

The new i7-4790K (4-core) ships at 4ghz and is supposed to be available in a couple weeks or so. It might be interesting to keep an eye on it since it’s designed for high clock speed

#6

So I guess you all agree on a newer cpu plus motherboard. I knew this would be the answer. Damn Install everything all over again is killing me… :sad: :sad: Ok. Move to a newer question. Do you have an ultimate workstation to propose. Lets me large, money is not an issue. hehe :wink:

So what’s the best workstation to buy? :beer:

#7

After some research does this seem like a good upgrade for rendering? is it going to be a lot faster? I mean in vray and 3dsmax?

Here is what we put together:

ASUS Z9 PE-D8 WS Motherboard: http://amzn.to/1bmOyH9
Intel Xeon E5-2630 (Two): http://amzn.to/1bXq1I6
Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler (Two): http://amzn.to/1aF6pEL
RAM (Two Kits): http://amzn.to/19cDACk or for more speed get this: http://amzn.to/15Fb2AL
ASUS GTX 780 Direct CU II: http://amzn.to/16aD3yt
ASUS 12x Blu-Ray Writer: http://amzn.to/1bmrbtX
Fractal Define R4 Case: http://amzn.to/16QDLMP
OR for large motherboard, Fractal Define XL: http://amzn.to/16QWGHq
Corsair AX1200 PSU: http://amzn.to/19cyk1y (this is overkill for most of you)
256 GB Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series: http://amzn.to/1eUGFJu
128 GB Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series: http://amzn.to/19cyx4U
Seagate 3TB HDD: http://amzn.to/14BUmHq
Motherboard & CPU Ideas:

https://teksyndicate.com/videos/build-workstation-pc-our-dual-xeon-build-and-guidelines-help-yours

#8

I wouldnt use that as a workstation, it will be quite slow for anything other than rendering. the slow 2.3GHz cpu will be much slower than your old machine. It will be quicker to render, but I wouldn’t do it myself.

Why two SSDs? Just get a single larger one. Using different drives for apps and temporary storage won’t do anything when youre talking SSDs.

#9

pffff no good? Ok do you have a good spec? I guess you think I should wait for the new i8?

#10

That would be my suggestion yes. If you must have a new machine now, dont pick anything with a cpu speed slower than 3.5GHz, theres just no need to cripple yourself like that. More cpu cores are always nice, but the machine has to run at a decent speed for all the apps and features within apps that arent multithreaded.

#11

I agree with Mash.
We’re close enough to the edge of an architectural tick with DDR4 coming out, retirement of 4 cores for many configurations, overclock potential coming back and so on.
I would at the very least wait for Haswell-E to pan out if you can wait a bit longer, doing a mobo + CPU + RAM upgrade now, when we’re close to EOL of chipset, socket and ram all together would be a tremendous waste of money.

Haswell-E and Samsung’s new pricing for DDR4 are supposed to come out in September, so around October, before the Christmas craze, I expect things to be a little bit clearer, and at the very least the previous gen will have dropped in price considerably.
Prices are likely to remain fairly stable between October and February as well (post XMas dump aside).

If you really need to buy sooner than that, and don’t mind OCing, Devils Canyon CPUs are looking pretty good, big bump over the 4770k without the retarded price hike of X or 49xx lines.

#12

Thnx guys. I’ll wait for the next year… Cheers everyone