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Please advise on a Threadripper 3 build for Vectorworks. Mainly MB, GPU Quadro RTX 4000 or Geforce 2080 RTX Ti


Spikey

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Trying to finalise a build for a custom workstation to use and learn a variety of content creation. (In particular Vectorworks as just done a course for that with an education 1 year licence) : CAD, Editing, Visual effects 3d Modeling, Character Modelling and even Podcasting. Budget around £4200 in the Uk

 

Come of it is set such as a

 

  • 4th gen 1 or 2 tb SSD for the operating system. Most likley a Corsair Force Seagate Fircuda 560 or Gigabyte Aurus
  • A Raid 1 pair of 4tb Seagate Ironwolf hard drives,
  • 64GB of Corsair Vengence LPX Ram.

 

 

Most likly the AMD Threadripper 3960x processor (Budgetwise)  but big decsions are:

 

GPU: Quadro RTX 4000*3XS* EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLOWER    or    Quadro 4000 RTX

 

Motherboard: 

  • ASUS TRX40 ROG STRIX
  • ASRoc TRX40 TaiChi
  • ASRoc TRX40 Creator
  • Gigabyte TRX40 Designare
  • MSI TRX40 Creator

or one of the others?

 

I noticed serveral suppliers only have ASUS in their build configurators... Seem to push the cheapest and lowest spec ASUS Prime Pro or top end expensive AUS Zeneth Extreme.
Would this be more due to deals and commission or as the other brands have major problems? in particular are the Gigabyte and MSI reliable and good brands in this area as have been looking into these as inbetween and good speced.?

 

How important is it to have all 4 Gen 4 PCIe 16 size slots runnign at full 16 speed as opposed to 4,,8 or one (Ie some boards have all four and others 2 16 speed 2 8 speed etc)

Gigbyte board have Thunderbolt add on cards and headers, the MSI, Gigabyte and Taichi have 4th gen M2 (Can add 4 SSDS) Add on cards.

 

I was looking more at the be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 Orange rev. 2, Corsair Graphite Series 780T or Fractal Design Define R6 Black (what most custom workstation suppliers are pushing)

 

Also Noctura Air cooled or Corsair AIO water cooler?


Which GPU and Motherboard should I go for to try and learn Vectorworks?

 

Ideally looking for it to alsowork well with

 

  • Adobe Premier (including effects like Greenscreen. Looking for a studio kit soon after workstation build subject to cost) 4k video
  • Adobe Encoder for Transcoding
  • Adobe After Effects
  • Solidworks (Plus rendering on Keyshot)
  • Rhino (Plus rendering on V-Ray and use of Rhino Plugins and Addons)
  • Looking to Learn Sketch UX/UI and Wireframing
  • Podcasting with Adobe Audition (Interested in a XLR podcast /Audio narrate set up. Most likely soon after depending on workstation cost)
  • Looking to Learn Google Sketchup
  • Lookign to Learn Cinema 4D (Plus associated Rendering packages such as Renderman, V Ray and Blender)
  • Looking to Learn 3D Studio max (Plus associated Rendering packages such as Renderman, V Ray and Blender)
  • Looking to Learn Z Brush
  • Looking to Learn Mudbox
  • Looking to Learn Maya (Plus associated Rendering packages such as Renderman, V Ray and Blender)
  • Autodesk Alias
  • Looking to Learn Nuke
  • Looking to Learn Autocad
  • Looking to Learn Autodesk Inventor
  • Looking to Learn Modo and other Foundary software
  • Looking to Learn Softimage (Plus associated Rendering packages such as Renderman, V Ray and Blender)

 

Plus use Photoshop and Indesign

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It's an interesting mix of software so I'll split my response across the various pieces of software.

Where I mention RTX support it refers to being able to use the RTX hardware raytracing, RTX cards do work with all of these programs though not all of the programs may be able to use the RTX component yet.

 

Starting with Vectorworks:

- Quadro cards need a specific driver for your software to make the most of them, there are no Quadro drivers for Vectorworks so for that they are of little use

- VW 3D rendering is still mostly CPU based, though the VGM (Vectorworks Graphics Module) is using the GPU more and more, but it does at the moment not support RTX nor do I expect it to support it soon.

If Vectorworks is going to be the most used program then I would suggest to take a look at the price difference between the GeForce and the Quadro  card and use the difference for a better CPU as that makes more difference for your 3D rendering at the moment.

 

The next group is: Solidworks, Adobe Premiere, Maya, Alias, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, 3DS Max, Rhino

- There are Quadro drivers for these programs so there a Quadro card will have some advantages over a GeForce card when it comes to large and/or complex models and FEA.

- None of them support RTX at the moment to the best of my knowledge, though Rhino may support this in the upcoming V7 (V6 does not yet support RTX)

 

Vray/Blender: supports RTX or they will in the near future. Quadro or GeForce makes not much difference for these two as they will work with both. Don't know about the other render programs. That being said, V-Ray can use multiple graphic cards at the same time. If you are going to use multiple graphic cards in your workstation then a model with a blower fan is to be preferred as that will have better overall cooling than normal fans, though it will be noisier.

 

Something to consider... unless you must learn AutoCAD and Inventor for a specific reason (look for jobs requiring those) I would suggest to take a look at BricsCAD Mechanical, or better BricsCAD Ultimate. That will give you most of the mechanical capabilities of Inventor as well as better 3D parametrics than AutoCAD and at a lower cost than both AutoCAD or Inventor alone, not to mention both together. I dropped both AutoCAD and Solidworks for BricsCAD Ultimate and never looked back. Solidworks is more mature than BricsCAD Ultimate for certain mechanical things but if you don't need those I think you might be happy with BricsCAD Ultimate.


Regarding cooling, the Noctua NH-D14/D15 would be the better choice for a Noctua cooler, or get a very good water cooler. For Threadripper I would be inclined to go with a water cooler (but the Noctua air cooler would beat a mediocre water cooler, so make sure you get a water cooler with very good cooling capacity). If you want you could get water coolers for the graphic cards (GeForce is more likely to have water cooling options than Quadro) and end up with less noise than a blower cooler. Water cooling does require a big(ger) case though, especially if you are also going to use water cooling for the graphics card(s). I'd certainly check on cases with quite a bit of space and multiple large (120mm+) fans to get the heat out of the casing.

 

For motherboards I would suggest Asus first and then MSI. I'm hesitant to advise Gigabyte as I've heard too many issues about their AMD support quality (i.e. Asus and MSI  are apparently doing a better job with AMD processors and graphics cards than Gigabyte, even though I do have a Gigabyte MB but it took 6 months to get all glitches solved, the first time I didn't go for an Asus MB and chose Gigabyte because of its connections and it turned out to be a hassle with UEFI crashing and memory support even though the memory was on the QVL and supported).

 

For graphics cards the same more or less applies, I would choose Asus and MSI over Gigabyte if you are going to use an AMD graphics card after all (the next AMD cards are said to support hardware raytracing like nVidia's RTX, if you omit RTX and/or Quadro support depending on how much you will use the other programs compared to Vectowroks then the AMD cards might be something to consider). For nVidia cards the GeForce Gigabyte cards are apparently ok though I have only used Asus or MSI for graphics cards so far. None of them do have Quadro cards though, you probably have to look for nVidia or PNY for those.

 

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53 minutes ago, Art V said:

It's an interesting mix of software so I'll split my response across the various pieces of software.

Where I mention RTX support it refers to being able to use the RTX hardware raytracing, RTX cards do work with all of these programs though not all of the programs may be able to use the RTX component yet.

 

Starting with Vectorworks:

- Quadro cards need a specific driver for your software to make the most of them, there are no Quadro drivers for Vectorworks so for that they are of little use

- VW 3D rendering is still mostly CPU based, though the VGM (Vectorworks Graphics Module) is using the GPU more and more, but it does at the moment not support RTX nor do I expect it to support it soon.

If Vectorworks is going to be the most used program then I would suggest to take a look at the price difference between the GeForce and the Quadro  card and use the difference for a better CPU as that makes more difference for your 3D rendering at the moment.

 

The next group is: Solidworks, Adobe Premiere, Maya, Alias, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, 3DS Max, Rhino

- There are Quadro drivers for these programs so there a Quadro card will have some advantages over a GeForce card when it comes to large and/or complex models and FEA.

- None of them support RTX at the moment to the best of my knowledge, though Rhino may support this in the upcoming V7 (V6 does not yet support RTX)

 

Vray/Blender: supports RTX or they will in the near future. Quadro or GeForce makes not much difference for these two as they will work with both. Don't know about the other render programs. That being said, V-Ray can use multiple graphic cards at the same time. If you are going to use multiple graphic cards in your workstation then a model with a blower fan is to be preferred as that will have better overall cooling than normal fans, though it will be noisier.

 

Something to consider... unless you must learn AutoCAD and Inventor for a specific reason (look for jobs requiring those) I would suggest to take a look at BricsCAD Mechanical, or better BricsCAD Ultimate. That will give you most of the mechanical capabilities of Inventor as well as better 3D parametrics than AutoCAD and at a lower cost than both AutoCAD or Inventor alone, not to mention both together. I dropped both AutoCAD and Solidworks for BricsCAD Ultimate and never looked back. Solidworks is more mature than BricsCAD Ultimate for certain mechanical things but if you don't need those I think you might be happy with BricsCAD Ultimate.


Regarding cooling, the Noctua NH-D14/D15 would be the better choice for a Noctua cooler, or get a very good water cooler. For Threadripper I would be inclined to go with a water cooler (but the Noctua air cooler would beat a mediocre water cooler, so make sure you get a water cooler with very good cooling capacity). If you want you could get water coolers for the graphic cards (GeForce is more likely to have water cooling options than Quadro) and end up with less noise than a blower cooler. Water cooling does require a big(ger) case though, especially if you are also going to use water cooling for the graphics card(s). I'd certainly check on cases with quite a bit of space and multiple large (120mm+) fans to get the heat out of the casing.

 

For motherboards I would suggest Asus first and then MSI. I'm hesitant to advise Gigabyte as I've heard too many issues about their AMD support quality (i.e. Asus and MSI  are apparently doing a better job with AMD processors and graphics cards than Gigabyte, even though I do have a Gigabyte MB but it took 6 months to get all glitches solved, the first time I didn't go for an Asus MB and chose Gigabyte because of its connections and it turned out to be a hassle with UEFI crashing and memory support even though the memory was on the QVL and supported).

 

For graphics cards the same more or less applies, I would choose Asus and MSI over Gigabyte if you are going to use an AMD graphics card after all (the next AMD cards are said to support hardware raytracing like nVidia's RTX, if you omit RTX and/or Quadro support depending on how much you will use the other programs compared to Vectowroks then the AMD cards might be something to consider). For nVidia cards the GeForce Gigabyte cards are apparently ok though I have only used Asus or MSI for graphics cards so far. None of them do have Quadro cards though, you probably have to look for nVidia or PNY for those.

K

53 minutes ago, Art V said:

 

 

Thank you that was very useful as been steerign to the Gigabyte designare due to the Titan thunderbolt card and 4 M.2 ssd add in card that comes with it.

 

Only thing all the comparson charts and reviews seem to skip is things like reliabiluity, customer service, bios etc as having got a 3D printer learned having a good list of features is not good if the damn thing wont work right and constantly jams or in the case of a 3d printer makes a blob of plastic spagetti.  Reliability to get the job done is more important and there has been very little info on  MSI so far.

 

From own reserach I was startign to think that Only solidworks was going to be a pain in demanding Quadro cards or not working properly and all the others better off with a geforce card.

 

how do you tell what is a good all in one cooler... they dont seem to have a cooler capacity measurement in the configurators and compasrions charts Ive seen

 

What I have been looking at is 

 

Threadripper 3960x (cant afford the 3970x  plus not a faster clock speed)

  • 64 gb Corsair vengence LPX Ram (Was originally lookign at EEc ram but hear it dotn actually stop crashes) 
  • 2x 4tb Seagate Ironwolf 7200rpm Hard drives in a raid 1 backup array (And the 2 years free data recovery service was of interest)
  • A dvd writer... not that fussed which as long as it works
  • A fourth gen M'2 SSD drive (Corsair force, Gigbyte Auros, Seagate Firecua 560 all looked similar, the corsair having a bigger heatsink (not sure if this would get in the way of PCIe cards like the GPU, whilst the other teoo looked a tiny bit faster). The choice between 1 and 2 TB will be very much dependant on the cost of the rest.. Most likly 1Tb now and another later.
  • The motherboard has been one of the components I have been most indecisive about and needign the most help on
  • The GPU has been a real toss up between the Quadro RTX 4000. Would the lower grade P one be  better bet? (Cant really afford a Quadro rtx 5000) and the Geforce 11gb RTX 2080 ti card running far better, which seems to be the suggested car on most cases but not in important software like Solidworks which seems to need the less powerful and slower Quadro RTX 4000.
  • The 3rd decision has been the Case which is proving hard as was looking for a good mix of: Silence (in bedroom), cooling air flow,  space and upcrae capability, connections (be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 rev.2 scores top there) and want some looks and coolness not a plain black box . Want to be able to install one 5.25 " DVD writer at least.

    The custom suppliers like PC Specialist and Scan 3SX only seem to offer the Fractal Design Define R6 black case.
  •  
  • I have also been looking at the afore mentioned 
  • Be quiet! Dark Base Pro 900 rev.2
  • Corsair Graphite Series 780T
  • Fractal Design Meshify S2 (white one with window)
  • Plus noticed a new whte with window version of the Fractal Design Define R6 (not sure of the soundproofing)

    Not sure if you can help there.

Know anything about now anything about trx80 or wrx80  motherboards?

 

Thanks

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Regarding the graphics cards, the Quadro RTX 4000 and the RTX-2080 Ti cost roughly the same over here.

 

However when you look at RTX/CUDA etc. then the RTX-2080 Super beats the Quadro RTX 4000 in a lot of aspects except power usage (the  2080 Super uses more power) and it does not have optimised Quadro drivers but it is a few hundred pounds/euro cheaper than the Quadro card. So unless you really need the Quadro or the 2080 Ti I would take a serious look at the 2080 Super and spend the difference on trying to get the 3970x (the few hundred you save on the Quadro/Ti should get you fairly close if the price difference is the same in the UK as over here). For most of your rendering options more cores will definitely benefit your rendering times more than clock speed and RTX at the moment.

I'm not really convinced Solidworks needs a Quadro card except for the complex/advanced stuff and very large 3D models/assemblies. If you do create such things in Solidworks then the RTX 2080 Ti should be left out of the equation and a Quadro card is the way to go. I would compare the RTX-4000 with the P4000 for specs but the price difference is relatively small so I would be inclined to go for the RTX-4000 because that will probably do better with V-Ray and Blender cycles because of the raytracing support they (will) have.

 

The reason I am bringing this up again is because the Quadro RTX 4000 is in the lower end and when you look at the Quadro GPU guide it tends to favour the Quadro RTX 6000 and up for heavy duty stuff (e.g. Rhino, high end 3D etc.), see the link below.

Quadro GPU guide

 

In that case I would spend my budget on a somewhat "lesser" card now and get the higher specced CPU that gives you more benefit right now than an RTX GPU for rendering and when you have more budget in a year or two years from now get a really good high end graphics card once you know which software you will be using the most and whether you really need a Quadro high end card or not. By that time RTX should be better supported as well and the cards should have better RTX performance as well. RTX is still in its infancy and things should considerably improve with the next one or two new series of GPU cards.

 

Solidworks is the fly in the ointment though, so it really depends on what you are going to use it for. For heavy duty stuff a Quadro and the lower Threadripper, otherwise you may want to think about the balance between CPU and GPU for rendering and then decide whether it will benefit more from more cores and get the 2080 Super to make that possible or go for the Quadro after all.

 

ECC memory does not stop crashes in the sense that if the application crashes then ECC will not stop it. However because of the error correction it may/will reduce the chance of crashes to occur if the cause would be RAM related, but this also depends on the application being well written or not. ECC will not help with a buggy application 😎.

If you decide to get a Quadro card then by all means do also get ECC memory because you would then be aiming for large/complex 3D etc. and then ECC will provide that extra bit of stability.

 

Having the RAID1 as backup array sounds like a good idea, if it is for offloading finished projects from the SSD and you want to keep at hand. Otherwise I would suggest getting a fast NAS and put the drives in there and backup everything from the working drive on it instead of your PC in case your PC itself crashes. Then you can always access the files in that case and it would allow to sync your data with a laptop or 2nd computer you can use to continue to work.

 

For the M.2 drives I suppose you are thinking of NVMe cards and not SATA. I suggest to get a 1 TB for system drive and use that only for Windows and your applications. Get a 2nd SSD for the data files. Given Microsoft's tendency to brick Windows with feature updates lately (happened to me twice, but it may depend on what is installed) I really wouldn't want my data files to be on the same drive as the OS.

 

You may want to have a look at Macrium Reflect or RollBack Rx for disaster protection. Currently I would suggest Macrium Reflect over RollBack Rx as it seems to be a bit more stable (I have both and RollBack Rx may not always fully restore from certain crashes (e.g. if they are boot sector related) though it can restore faster than Macrium which takes a few more steps to restore things).

 

Regarding motherboard... if you want peace of mind then go for Asus, its MB having 4 M.2 slots costs roughly the same as the Gigabyte model and then I would simply go for Asus, also because that is an EATX instead of the Gigabyte being ATX. Why does this matter?

I have a Fractal Design Define R6 case, which is a really nice case but if you are using water cooling the layout of your MB does matter quite a bit. With my Gigabyte MB the position of the CPU and RAM is really close to the water cooling sink and fans block so things do get a bit cramped there. It doesn't cause real problems once assembled but it is a bit of a hassle when putting things together.

The EATX motherboard should have a bit more space around and allow for larger GPU cards but you still have to check the layout and see if there is enough space between the processor/RAM position and the edge of the MB to allow for sufficient space between them and the water cooling fins/fan block.

 

The Define R6 allows for one 5.25 inch bay for e.g. CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive or hotswap drive bay. If you need both then get a different case. Other than that is is a nice, efficient and quiet case. Check for the GPU card size if it will fit. Plus that is is made with water cooling in mind. The Be Quiet case looks like a really nice one and allows for at least two 5.25 inch external bays but the Define R6 allows for the water cooling body to be put at the top with its mesh cover, which the Be Quiet does not seem to have.

If you go for the Noctua then the Be Quiet would probably be the one I would choose, or get the Define R6 for EATX boards if you get the Asus MB.

 

The Fractal Design Meshify does not have 5.25 inch bays for DVD/hot swap bay etc. so you would have to settle for external USB drives in that case.

 

The memory looks ok to me, with the comment of possibly going for ECC after all if you get a Quadro card for the complex/advanced 3D stuff.

Just check the QVL list and motherboard manual (download it from the manufacturer website before buying) for memory timings because it depends a lot of the memory model whether it will keep its speed or not, some memory modules will drop in speed quite a bit depending on the configuration of how many memory banks and what kind of modules you are using.

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Thank you again for great replies. 

 

Had a look at the Quadro guide and see what you mean but the likes of the RTX 6000 are right out of my budget for one let along several

 

Aggree Solidworks appears to be the pain with Visualise and talk about bugs and problems. (Not sure how much is true and how much is scarmongering to push pro card)

 

Had a look at the Super Geforce but its only £100 ish off but upgrading the processor to 3970x is £550 again a budget issue. The only way to get a Quadro 5000 would be to drop to a Ryzen 3950x system.

 

In regard to the windows 10 bricking issue (Thanks for that as been holding onto windows 7) may get a second 1tb SSD drive if not with the system soon after. I was wondering why several custom builds suggested on the likes of Scan Uk were listign a 'Project drives as well as operating system and storage drives.

 

Thanks for the backup software options, I noted you can get free versions as well.

 

With Microsoft Office  I was suggested to look into a trail download from Microsoft then purchasing a £30ish Legitamate Product Key rather than a addon purchase from the supplier. Know anythign about that?



Ive heard that that there maybe other motherboards more geared to workstations the Wrx80 and TRX 80 motherboards. Do you know anything about those? Not got a clue on them.

 

I take it you were refering to the AUS ROG Zeneth Extreme rather than RoG Strrix regarding the 4 m2 slots and also 4 16 lane (full speed) 16 size pcie slots.

 

As opposed the the Gigabyte Designare with the Thunderbolt and 4 m2 drive add on cards. How useful is thunderbolt.?

 

Regarding the cases I noticed no comments on the Corsair Graphite Series 780T case. Any experience with those at all? good or bad ? or just the R6 as the corsair and be quiet seem biggest.

 

And the MSI an ok alternative to Gigbyte then as seems close to the zenth plus its m2 add on card

 

 

Also you had any experience with suppliers,.... PC Specialist, Scan Uk and Amari as ite the later 2 that seem to have the most option and a 3 year rtb and 1 year onsite warrantee.?

 

 

Thanks a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 12/28/2019 at 2:01 AM, Spikey said:

as been steerign to the Gigabyte designare

 

I have seen a video from Randall (or was it Vendell ?),

looks like it is a very good equipped board (VRMs and such),

beside the missing 10 GBit LAN, that will eat another PCI Slo,

 if you want/need one.

 

For me the qualits order is also : Asus, .............., Gigabyte, MSI, .........., Asrock, ....

Edited by zoomer
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The 10 gb is no good if cant use it if router is not doing it at present, but would be good to have in the future. It does come accorss as something I can add on later whilst extra 16 lane PCIe slots cant. One addon that would be of interest to be able to add on later would be a PCIe gen 4.0 4x m.2 ssd add on card. You have one that comes with the MSI, Gigabyte and ASroc Taichi mother boards but n=dont think you can get one independantly at the moment for the likes of the ASUS board. I know you can get a 3rd gen one. Not sure what the future holds.

 

Got the randel video link?

 

the quality comment helps as often youtube reviewd like comparison charts list features not relaibiltiy

 

thanks

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9 hours ago, Spikey said:

Had a look at the Super Geforce but its only £100 ish off but upgrading the processor to 3970x is £550 again a budget issue.

Over here the RTX-2080 Super is a few hundred euro cheaper than the RTX-2080 Ti (approx. 450-500 euro on average) whereas the Threadripper 3970X is 650 euro more than the 3960X (roughly the same as in the UK), so that would be a gap of 150-200 euro to bridge.

 

9 hours ago, Spikey said:

With Microsoft Office  I was suggested to look into a trail download from Microsoft then purchasing a £30ish Legitamate Product Key rather than a addon purchase from the supplier. Know anythign about that?

It depends on where you are buying the legitimate product key from. This would probably be key for an EOM PC builder version which can be installed on one PC only and cannot be transferred to a new PC and may or may not get updates depending on the kind of Office version. These keys are often taken from business group licenses that were bought up during an insolvency or something like that and then split up and sold separately. If you have another computer you use (e.g. laptop or older desktop) then you will be better of getting the Office 365 home version which can be installed on up to 5 computers, though it may not be used commercially. That version should be get for approx. £60-70 on sale.

 

9 hours ago, Spikey said:

Ive heard that that there maybe other motherboards more geared to workstations the Wrx80 and TRX 80 motherboards. Do you know anything about those? Not got a clue on them.

The TRX80 and WRX80 are not being listed over here at the PC suppliers I use so other than what can be found on the internet/Google I can't give any informed advice on them.

Based on what I have seen online the TRX80 is capable of fully using the Threadripper 3 functionality, particularly when it comes to speed and memory where the TRX40 uses less memory lanes etc. and may not fully use the Threadripper 3 capabilities. The WRX seems to be aimed at pro workstation users with probably the associated hefty price tag. Given that you have budget restrictions the TRX80 might be your best bet if you want to use all of the new Threadripper 3 functionality, though I don't know what the pricing will be when it becomes available over here, most likely more than the TRX40.

 

9 hours ago, Spikey said:

I take it you were refering to the AUS ROG Zeneth Extreme rather than RoG Strrix regarding the 4 m2 slots and also 4 16 lane (full speed) 16 size pcie slots.

Yes I was referring to the Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme, which is a little more than the Gigabyte (at least over here).

 

9 hours ago, Spikey said:

Regarding the cases I noticed no comments on the Corsair Graphite Series 780T case. Any experience with those at all? good or bad ? or just the R6 as the corsair and be quiet seem biggest.

My most recent case is the R6, based on comments on this forum I took a look at it. The previous one was a CoolerMaster CM690 which was also a really nice case at the time. I have no experience with the Corsair though they are good quality in general.

 

You could take a look at the Fractal Design Define XL R2 if you want a big and silent case from Fractal Design

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-xl-r2/titanium-grey/

 

10 hours ago, Spikey said:

Also you had any experience with suppliers,.... PC Specialist, Scan Uk and Amari as ite the later 2 that seem to have the most option and a 3 year rtb and 1 year onsite warrantee.?

I'm in The Netherlands so no experience with UK suppliers. I've assembled all my own windows computers after the first off the shelf one (except for laptops), so no experience with built to order suppliers either other than BTO.eu for a custom built laptop.

 

I suggest to look for online reviews on those suppliers service with regard to warranty as published warranties mean nothing if the service/support desk is looking for reasons not to honour that warranty or if there are exceptions mentioned. e.g. their warranty may only apply to the whole system if they built it themselves, if you build it yourself they'll might only check the assumed defective part and only when you pay for inspection costs they'll check the whole system (and may still fail to find the cause at first, been there done that).

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On 12/28/2019 at 2:01 AM, Spikey said:

how do you tell what is a good all in one cooler... they dont seem to have a cooler capacity measurement in the configurators and compasrions charts Ive seen

Just realised I hadn't answered this one... I came across some review site that compare the various coolers and their cooling capacity, noise etc. Maybe I still have some of those links somewhere and will get back to you on this.

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Regarding cooling, I no longer have the links to the liquid cooler tests from when looking into them. you may want too look up the ones you are interested in on the manufacturer websites for the specs, they'll often give some indication of airflow with the fans etc. which should give some idea of which cooler may perform better.

 

The link below may give you a starting point

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=best+liquid+cooler+for+threadripper

 

Most links will be about cooling for the Threadripper 2 series though.

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On 12/29/2019 at 7:58 AM, Art V said:

Over here the RTX-2080 Super is a few hundred euro cheaper than the RTX-2080 Ti (approx. 450-500 euro on average) whereas the Threadripper 3970X is 650 euro more than the 3960X (roughly the same as in the UK), so that would be a gap of 150-200 euro to bridge.

 

It depends on where you are buying the legitimate product key from. This would probably be key for an EOM PC builder version which can be installed on one PC only and cannot be transferred to a new PC and may or may not get updates depending on the kind of Office version. These keys are often taken from business group licenses that were bought up during an insolvency or something like that and then split up and sold separately. If you have another computer you use (e.g. laptop or older desktop) then you will be better of getting the Office 365 home version which can be installed on up to 5 computers, though it may not be used commercially. That version should be get for approx. £60-70 on sale.

 

The TRX80 and WRX80 are not being listed over here at the PC suppliers I use so other than what can be found on the internet/Google I can't give any informed advice on them.

Based on what I have seen online the TRX80 is capable of fully using the Threadripper 3 functionality, particularly when it comes to speed and memory where the TRX40 uses less memory lanes etc. and may not fully use the Threadripper 3 capabilities. The WRX seems to be aimed at pro workstation users with probably the associated hefty price tag. Given that you have budget restrictions the TRX80 might be your best bet if you want to use all of the new Threadripper 3 functionality, though I don't know what the pricing will be when it becomes available over here, most likely more than the TRX40.

 

Yes I was referring to the Asus ROG Zenith II Extreme, which is a little more than the Gigabyte (at least over here).

 

My most recent case is the R6, based on comments on this forum I took a look at it. The previous one was a CoolerMaster CM690 which was also a really nice case at the time. I have no experience with the Corsair though they are good quality in general.

 

You could take a look at the Fractal Design Define XL R2 if you want a big and silent case from Fractal Design

https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/define/define-xl-r2/titanium-grey/

 

I'm in The Netherlands so no experience with UK suppliers. I've assembled all my own windows computers after the first off the shelf one (except for laptops), so no experience with built to order suppliers either other than BTO.eu for a custom built laptop.

 

I suggest to look for online reviews on those suppliers service with regard to warranty as published warranties mean nothing if the service/support desk is looking for reasons not to honour that warranty or if there are exceptions mentioned. e.g. their warranty may only apply to the whole system if they built it themselves, if you build it yourself they'll might only check the assumed defective part and only when you pay for inspection costs they'll check the whole system (and may still fail to find the cause at first, been there done that).

 

 

Thanks Art...

 

Was wondering is an alterantive could be a better idea.

 

 

Give what I would be using this for with all the software concerned...

 

Could it be better to go for a 3950X whihc I think has a slightly higher IPC if lower core count with a Quadro RTX 5000 . Need to do some research on the best motherboards but given they are are a lot cheaper than thread ripper boards can go for the more expensive ones

 

or the 3960x with a Quadro rtx 4000 or the Geforce rtx 2080ti?

 

 

Also factoring into accoutn how the treadripper motherboard have far more lanes, connectivity, m2 ssds pcie slots etc

 

 

Edited by Spikey
forgot to take itno account motherboard pcie lanes
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The broad intended Software portfolio you showed and the interest

in expensive Pro GPUs shows that you have a solid budget to spend

and are looking for a Workstation.

In that case I would not go for the consumer platform.

You could, to test and save some money, to maybe invest a few years

later in a more professional setup when you better know your needs.

 

The Threadripper boards are just workstation boards.

They are more expensive as they need overall higher quality PCBs,

VRMs for 280+ W TDP, more lanes, 10 Gb LAN, more features and such.

All current TRX boards so far got very good critiques in tests.

 

For the whole Autodesk range, you should profit from the Quadros.

For Vectorworks, Modo, ... alone it is pretty much wasted money over

gaming cards.

But beside your intention to do CPU Rendering and looking for capable CPUs,

(Vectorworks RW Rendering, Modo, C4D, VRAY, ...)

Even Vectorworks starts already to get more and more Exchange Plugins for

real time Rendering, where capable GPUs and sufficient VRAM are more and

more needed.

(currently Lumion, Enscape coming, Twinmotion working fine with C4D exchange)

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Echoing @zoomer's comments.

 

The TRX40 motherboards are basically comparable with the TR4 series are are more aimed at "advanced consumers" or those on a smaller budget. The TRX80 and WRX80 boards are proper high end and high performance workstation boards.

 

If Solidworks is one of the definitely going to be used programs then a Quadro card is basically a must for guaranteed smooth operation. Rhino, V-Ray and the Autodesk programs will also benefit from it. Vectorworks won't be able to take advantage of the extra features that a Quadro card can provide with specific drivers but it also won't negatively impact VW and as per @zoomer's comment the same applies to Modo.

 

It really depends on how "heavy" or complex your 3D models will be to decide whether to go for the 24-core or the 32 core Threadripper when it comes to rendering. For really heavy/complex 3D I'd go for more cores and a TRX80 motherboard. For moderately heavy/complex 3D the 24-core with a more advanced Quadro GPU might be a better choice when you are going to use render engines that can take advantage of the GPU and/or RTX cores and stay within your budget. V-Ray can now do hybrid rendering (i.e. use both CPU and GPU), Blender can also use the RTX cores in the near future, don't know about the others. In that case a TRX40 motherboard would probably also be good enough.

 

Maxing out every component does not necessarily give you the best performance for your money, as different programs have different needs regarding hardware and may not be able to use all parts to the max. It's basically finding the balance between best performance for your money and where you are entering the zone of diminishing returns where you are spending a lot of money for what amounts to just a little bit of extra performance.

 

So basically it comes down to what software you area really going to use when you get the setup and base your specs on that and not on software that you might be using, giving the long list of programs I doubt you would be using all of them to the fullest within the next year so it would depend on which additional programs from the looking to learn you will be starting to use first. This is something only you can answer.

 

 

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Thank for helping to finalise the GPU issue.

 

I think its going to be work way up on the 3D models, With a decent system hopefully casn develiop that. Just wish I had not gor Raise 3D first attempt at a 3d printer as at the annual TCT exhibition show when I got it (thinking negotiating down from £2850 to £2150 and an an insane attempt to get it (it was the size of a washing machine and 50kg) home by wheeling it to the train station at the Birmingham NEC uk, and onto a train gettign donw the escilator to the underground train before intercepted by the staff though I had got a great deal.... It had an amazing 'on paper feature list, best heat, enclosed, big size 30 xm cubed, wireless, dual nozzle, supposibly able to handle all sorts of materials etc etc till tried to use it for anythgin other than basic PLA then proved very unrelaible (lots of jams, gloop, plastic spagetti etc).  Hence being way more cautious with this PC build with particualr attention to things like motherboard reliability.



im guessing the TRX80 mother boards will cost a lot more but sound more what I maybe looking for but as yet there is no info on them at all. Any idea when detals and release dates may e out... Plus I did the vectorworks course in may and only got a 1 year student licence and very expensive. Not sure if I can reset the student licence on the new system,

 

 

Im thinking when the trx80 boards come out Im going to the thinking **((*&&^^%^%%$£!!!!!!!! I wish I waited for that, but no idea whats happening with them and really need to get going.

 

 

Do you know anythign about specs or release dates or when the specs could come out for a comparsion?

 

Budget roughly £4300 wise I think im stuck with the Quadro RTX 4000 as the 5000 will wipe out nearly all savings. as £750 putting the system over £5000 more only have £6000 in total with very little and sporadic money comming in ie get a few days a month film extra work of £85-£200 a day with no idea when it comes in and no real assets other than the 3d printer I doubt I can sell. Plus need to still get a green screen studio set up, DSLR camera, podcast kit and a good £3000 over the next 6 months for annual car bills.

 

As you say trying to balance budget and as many good components as I can with option of being able to get others later and the room or ability to upgrade.

 

Any experience with MSI motherboards and things like their reliability, bios, build etc as the MSI Creator TRX40 seems tolook good feature wise close to the ASUS Zenenth Extreme 2.

 

Have thought about building own but when using things like part picker it looks more expensive then the custom builders (Figure they have bulk deals or something, maybe cheaper for exclusive deals to push ASUS boards etc). More than likely cood do it , just nervous about tryign first ime on own to be trying to suss it out when the parts are each over £1000 of close to that where it could just be bad or clumbsey handling or the motherboard, processor and case and psu... the rest should be easy bar any bois set up)

 

How valuable is the Thunderbolt 3 the Gigabyte Designare comes with and its main selling point? 

 

Got any trx80 links or wrx80?

 

Oh and think it would be way better to live in the netherlands as you seem to run things way better and more open minded and progressive. This britexit think is bonkers here.

 

Got any good links for that ms office product key idea? is it a safe strategy?

 

Thanks.

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It was just a rumor before Threadripper 3 was announced officially,

that there may be 2 versions of Threadripper boards.

TRX40 and W or TRX80.

But I have never again heard anything about TRX80 after Threadripper

announcement.

 

Could be that a coming 3990WX 64 core CPU will need something TRX80 (?)

I think board manufacturers designed their boards already with a 64 core

power consumption in mind (?)

 

Hope it will be more clear after CES 2020 show announcements in a few days.

Edited by zoomer
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12 hours ago, Spikey said:

Got any trx80 links or wrx80?

Just a quick reply before heading out for other things to do...

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/258739/amd-readies-three-hedt-chipsets-trx40-trx80-and-wrx80

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_s_rumoured_to_be_working_on_three_new_high-end_ryzen_chipsets_-_trx40_trx80_and_wrx80/1

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3000-cpu-trx40-trx80-wrx80-motherboard-chipset-leak/

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-threadripper-3000-chipsets-castle-peak-trx40-trx80-wrx80,40272.html

 

TRX80/WRX80 motherboards are apparently still at the rumours stage and not yet spotted in the real world, though general expectation is that these mobo's will be (more) expensive compared to TRX40.

 

There was one other link I came across that had more detailed information but it didn't show up right way after a quick find.

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Art or anyone else. Have you used the MSI motherboards (I don't think its just the TRX40 Creator) Creator Centre

 

https://ca.msi.com/blog/MSIs-Creator-Center-Enhance-Your-Creative-Process

 

https://www.servethehome.com/msi-creator-trx40-motherboard-review-for-content-creators/2/

 

 

This looks like some sort of auto hardware optimiser for different creative software.

 

Ie set the computer to work better for Maya, Cinema 4d, Solidworks, Premier etc.

 

Is this work picking the MSI TRX40 Creator over the ASUS TRX40 Veneth Extreme II? over.

 

 

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Yes it looks like some optimizer for various software titles, how much of a difference it will make I can't tell from the descriptions also because it seems they didn't really test it, but based on the test scores it is not worse than the Asus.

 

With exception of my first GPU being a Matrox (very long ago) and once a PNY Quadro card all my GPU's have been MSI and I have no complaints about them.

All my motherboards were Asus except the current Gigabyte one which had some issues to sort out.

 

I don't see much of a problem with getting the MSI motherboard, maybe the creator center will make some positive difference, but in case it makes no difference you will seemingly not be worse off than with the Asus motherboard.

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Anymore updates on those coolers?

 

This is proving difficult as whilst there seems to be good air coolers from Noctura and Dark Rock, I'm told you need an AIO cooler for warrantees if nothing else, and for when these processors are in turbo mode or overclocked for a long time heard the air coolers wont keep up.

 

I hear many AIOs don't have the right size and shape contact plate for the big Threadripper heat spreaders, some just have not that efficient upgrade / addon plates with the exception of Enermax AIO coolers. These from research I made have a top notch contact plate that fully covers the new 3rd gen heat spreader plates, brilliant contact and designed from scratch to do so.

 

However loads of reviews say the rest of the uni sucks with both 1st and 2nd versions having bad fluids inside which gunk up and get corrosive and stop it working in a few months and leak which I definitely dont want in a £4400 machine that took me years to save up for.

 

 

ScanUK are offering the:
 

  • Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 RGB TR4 Edition (Or my choice)

PC Specialist are offering the :
 

  • MasterLiquid ML360 RGB TR4 Edition all-in-one liquid
  • CORSAIR Hydro Series H150i PRO
  • CORSAIR Hydro H100i Addressable RGB PLATINUM Liquid/Water Intel/AMD CPU Cooler
  • Plus air coolers
     
  • COOLERMASTER WRAITH RIPPER
  • Noctura NH-U14S and here the
  • Dark Rock Pro TR4 is good

 

Amari

 

were offering the Enermax.V2 

 

 

Is the H115 v2 AIO any better?

 

Edited by Spikey
missed out a bit
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Also does it help to have faster ram say 3600 as opposed to 3200? without setting the processor to a overclock? is the overclock issue separate for ram or processor or does sticking faster ram to try and deal with latency help or do you need manual auto overclock the processor and system? and if so how high is stable and processor safe or just let it do its auto boost

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1 hour ago, Spikey said:

Also does it help to have faster ram say 3600 as opposed to 3200? without setting the processor to a overclock? is the overclock issue separate for ram or processor or does sticking faster ram to try and deal with latency help or do you need manual auto overclock the processor and system? and if so how high is stable and processor safe or just let it do its auto boost

If you want to overclock and make the most out of RAM to speed things up then you need faster RAM.

 

However... before you spend money on fast RAM you should first check the QVL (Qualified Vendor List) for your motherboard, it will list which RAM has been tested and mention the model, timings and also important what the stable memory speed will be for a given memory configuration, with and without overclock (it should indicate which speeds would require overclock to achieve the particular speed).

 

E.g. for my Gigabyte motherboard in certain 2666 MHz memory modules in certain configurations would drop the speed from 2666 Mhz to 1333 Mhz where other memory modules in a similar configuration would maintain the full 2666 MHz speed. You can probably guess which memory modules I decided to get 🙂

There was even 3200 MHz memory that would drop to a speed lower than the 2666 MHz memory I got. Because I wouldn't be overclocking there was no use for me to get faster memory.

 

If you don't want to overclock then simply use the fastest memory you can use without overclocking that also maintains its speed in the memory configuration you are going to buy and maybe in the future you are going to expand to (e.g. if you get 32GB first and then later want to expand to 64 GB, because there could be a difference in maximum speed between 32 and 64 GB due to memory bank configuration differences between the two)

  • Like 1
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2 hours ago, Spikey said:

I'm told you need an AIO cooler for warrantees if nothing else, and for when these processors are in turbo mode or overclocked for a long time heard the air coolers wont keep up.

To some extent this is correct, a good liquid cooler will be able to provide better cooling for a longer period than a good air cooler in such conditions but the best e.g. Noctua air coolers can do quite well too if the overall air flow in the case is good (i.e. big case fans with high airflow (cubic ft per minute or hour).

 

2 hours ago, Spikey said:

I hear many AIOs don't have the right size and shape contact plate for the big Threadripper heat spreaders, some just have not that efficient upgrade / addon plates with the exception of Enermax AIO coolers. These from research I made have a top notch contact plate that fully covers the new 3rd gen heat spreader plates, brilliant contact and designed from scratch to do so.

This could be true, the manufacturer website should list which liquid coolers can be used for what processor.

If the Enermax AIO liquid coolers are currently the only ones guaranteed to be suitable for the 3rd gen Threadripper then that is the one you should get, thought I would think that the usual top brands will be coming out with suitable models soon as well.

 

There are a few brands (NZXT, Corsair and two more) who usually have really good liquid coolers that consistently are in the top of the tests. Sometimes another brand has a model that comes out on top, the Fractal Design Celsius I got for my system was tested as being one of the best an also quite quiet at the time for the Ryzen CPU I have. It was also mentioned it would not be suitable for a Threadripper though.

 

2 hours ago, Spikey said:

However loads of reviews say the rest of the uni sucks with both 1st and 2nd versions having bad fluids inside which gunk up and get corrosive and stop it working in a few months and leak which I definitely dont want in a £4400 machine that took me years to save up for.

If you go for one of the reputable brands (NZXT, Corsair, Fractal Design and a few other ones) then corrosion, clogging and leakages should be rare for closed loop (cpu) cooler or CLCC or CLC (with the middle C standing for CPU in CLCC). It was true for the some very first AIO CLC's  when they came out and especially for the open loop coolers in the beginning but the big names shouldn't cause issues for recent models.

 

For open loop coolers, which are often do it yourself assembly systems that need to be refilled at times there is a higher chance for leakages if not properly assembled and installed, though these can provide even more cooling that the CLC/CLCC ones if you do it right. In your case I would go this route though.

 

One thing you should pay attention to when getting an AIO CLC is the size of the block with fans as well as the length of the tubing and power wires in combination with the motherboard (CPU position and power connection) and casing (fans perhaps getting in the way and distance of mobo to position of the cooling block of the AIO).

 

In my case the back fan of the Fractal Define R6 case and the size of the cooling block meant I had to install the block in a way that required the tubing to the CPU cooler to come from the front side which was a longer distance than if the tubing could have come from the back side of the case. Fortunate the tubing was long enough to allow for this but it caused some installation issues with the 5.25 inch hot swap drive bay as it was getting cramped in that spot. Without a 5.25 inch device in that location it would have been easier to assemble. So this is something to keep in mind when getting an AIO.

 

I can't give you an advice on which cooler to get at the moment, as I would have to search for online reviews/tests of CLC's before I could give you an informed opinion.

All I can say for now is that in general NZXT, Corsair and a few more are usually the top brands and if they have a cooler of which they explicitly state it is suitable for the 3rd gen Threadripper you should be ok. Reviews/test should then give you an idea which one is providing the best cooling.

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