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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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Are second hand used GPUs a good idea or high risk?

 

ie to get around the Quadro vs Geforce situation, get both but one new and the other second hnad say in a month.

 

Like Quadro rtx 4000 now then later a second hand Geforce rtx 2080ti off ebay if get lucky with an auction or CEX store (*as tested)  or are they likely to have been worn out, burnt out, over clocked etc

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Toying with the idea of holding back on the storage 4tb array or iron wolf hard drives for a bit to put the money towards upgrading to the 3970x processor but you loose a little 0.1 ghz (TR 3960x 3.8-4.5    TR 3970x 3.7x-4.5). Its going £200 over the budget but could manage it but then would just have the 1tb SSD  for a while which is more of a risk and still have stuff on a stuffed external drive.

 

Was also looking to try this with upgrading to a Quadro 5000 rtx instead of the 4000 but that costs far more so can't see how to make that affordable.

 

But out of curiosity given the use and software I was planning which out of upgrading the processor or the GPU would be more useful

 

 

Top processor would be nice but the 3060x is still second best  for the render and encoding side

 

Given my use not sure if worth such a big cost increase for the Rtx 5000 now

 

 

Thanks for all the help

 

 

Edited by Spikey
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Take a look at these benchmark results: http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/10/group-test-nvidia-quadro-titan-and-geforce-rtx-gpus/ There you can compare the graphics cards for many of your software. Purely in terms of performance, you're usually best off with the RTX 2080s, especially when you consider the price.  It is 40% or 60% cheaper than the Quadro RTX 4000 or 5000, while even in Solidworks the Quadro RTX 4000 performs worse and the 5000 only marginally better.
Afterwards you put the saved money into the better processor, because there you get practically 1:1 better Renderworks performance for the extra money, while the single-core performance is only 0.2% worse. (But only if u use CPU renderers (e.g. Renderworks) at all. If not, of course you don't need the bigger Threadripper. But then I would consider whether the cpu should be a threadripper at all and not just one of the high core count consumer Ryzen.

DDR RAM is probably not that important in your application area. Statistically speaking, with 64GB you have about 2x per month one bit that flips. Usually this results for example in a single pixel with a different color when rendering, if anything happens at all. In the worst case you will have a crash, but most of these flips do not lead to a crash. Buggy software is much more of a problem here. The money you save is better spent on faster clocked RAM with lower timing. The Threadripper loves low timings and high clock rates. In my benchmarks I was able to get 5%-10% performance in OpenGL with faster RAM. So you can decide: approximately 5 crashes less per year or permanently 5%-10% more OpenGL-Performance.

Edited by herbieherb
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Thanks herbie that was VERY useful apart from the annoying bit where the Geforce RTX 2080ti whihc was the alterantive to the Quadro RTX 4000 is was looking at wasn't included Grrr not your fault.

 

But correct me if wrong here it did appear to show that Geforce cards whilst not certified DI seem to work well in Solidworks including the visualise render viewport and that may just make the decision between the two.

 

Not sure if worth getting a Quadro rtx 4000 in a few months as well to swap depending on application used or if thats just a dumb idea and waste of money.

 

 

have you made any use of the MSI creature centre like on the MSI RTX40 creator and if its actually useful enough to make the MSI the choice over the Zeneth Extreme?

 

 

The main reason why I was feeling trapped into the Quadro would be if in Solid works the Geforce card stopped it actually working or being buggy, problematic, visualise not working etc. When I ask on the solid works forum its all get Quadro or you will have problems... Not sure if that's just to push Quadro as I agree in that when I look at results Geforce cards are way faster.... I was even toying with the idea of maybe getting one of each to swap depending on the job and possibly trying to get one second hand but been told too risky and thats a £850 to over £1000 extra.

 

Don't know if its Quadro workers posting on the Solidworks boards pushing their  cards or there is a genuine issue with it not working.

 

I ca swap to the GEforce card within or a bit over budget but that or use the Quadro and upgrade the processor to 3070x, but BOTH ups it from £4400-4600 to £5000 and my entire savings is about £5850 with very little expected to come in as only have odd days film extra work and no steady job. The idea of getting the system is to help build skills enough o get entry level design work with more skills and portfolio or some sort of self employed work to get out of this situation and out of parents home which at my age is insane.

 

 

 

 

Also you mentioned ram and Im a little confused.

 

I understand over clocking is more power in processor, heats up must cool it , risks damage and wear and instability crashes etc

 

But how does this relate to higher speed ram.?

 

is it you have to get higher speed ram to match the over clock or it dont work

 

is it you put higher speed ram it forces an over clock

 

 

or can you have faster ram that reduces latency and makes the processor run better but without over clocking it?

 

 

and whats the difference between unbuffered dimms  ram verses say corsair LPx vengence ram (seen both on a quote)

 

 

Thanks for the help you guys are excellent

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But if a user decides to work like this anyway, for other reasons

2 hours ago, Spikey said:

The main reason why I was feeling trapped into the Quadro would be if in Solid works the Geforce card stopped it actually working or being buggy, problematic, visualise not working etc. When I ask on the solid works forum its all get Quadro or you will have problems... Not sure if that's just to push Quadro as I agree in that when I look at results Geforce cards are way faster.... I was even toying with the idea of maybe getting one of each to swap depending on the job and possibly trying to get one second hand but been told too risky and thats a £850 to over £1000 extra.

I don't use solidworks myself, so I can't say if you will really have stability problems with a Geforce. I have also seen other benchmarks that showed bigger performance differences: https://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/18630/Whats-the-Difference-Between-GeForce-and-Quadro-Graphics-Cards.aspx It will probably be similar to Vectorworks and integrated graphics cards. Many people have a MacMini and only draw with the onboard graphics card. This works great as long as they don't work on larger models, but it can also cause graphics problems. That's why nobody in the forum would recommend a computer with an onboard solution. But if a user decides to work like this anyway, for other reasons, it can still work quite well, depending on the workflow. If Solidworks is the main CAD, I would clearly decide for a Quadro.  But in your case it is the only software among many that would benefit from Quadro. With all others the system would be slower. That's why I'd think carefully about where I want to take the performance penalty. You can also buy the RTX 2080 Ti and if you notice that Solidworks really doesn't work reliably with your workflow, you sell the Geforce again and install a Quadro. Changing it later is very easy: take out the old card, put in the new one, install the drivers and you're done.

 

2 hours ago, Spikey said:

Also you mentioned ram and Im a little confused.

Like the CPU and the GPU, the RAM also has a clock rate with which it works. They are all independent of each other. You can have a CPU at 4GHz, RAM at 3GHz and a GPU at 2GHz. The number measures how many steps the component does per second. The clock speed of RAM has no effect on the clock speed of the processor, so the processor will not suddenly be overclocked. AMD processors just have been found to perform better when combined with fast clocked RAM.

 

Then with RAM there are the timings that are important. With timings you measure how long RAM needs to respond. But high clock speed with fast timings will be extremely expensive. The sweet-spot of DDR4 RAM is about 3200 GHz clock speed and CL 14 timings.


For the same reason I wouldn't use ECC RAM if it is not absolutely necessary. Not only are they much more expensive, they are also not available with high clock rates.

 

Registred/buffered RAM is RAM with an extra chip that acts as a buffer between processor and memory unit. It provides higher reliability for very large amounts of RAM, but also provides higher latency, so it is slower than unbuffered/unregistered RAM.

 

So faster RAM basically means what you statet in this conclusion:

2 hours ago, Spikey said:

or can you have faster ram that reduces latency and makes the processor run better but without over clocking it?

 

The most important question has not yet been asked. What do you want to do with all this software. Are you going to push the limits of every program with hugest possible projects? Or do you want to learn the programs with smaller tutorials and medium-sized sample projects.

 

This might also give an answer to your graphics card question. If you don't feed Solidworks with gigantic projects, the 2080Ti will probably still perform very well, because it is an absolute high-end card despite its consumer orientation and you won't need the power boost of a Quadro in Solidworks at all.

 

I find your list very ambitious, by the way. I've been learning Vectorworks for more than a decade and still haven't finished. 🙂 I'd have a look at all of these programs and then concentrate on just a few that you find most useful.

Edited by herbieherb
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The most important question has not yet been asked. What do you want to do with all this software. Are you going to push the limits of every program with hugest possible projects? Or do you want to learn the programs with smaller tutorials and medium-sized sample project

 

That's an easy answer, at the is stage train and practice and get some portfolio material both to try and get entry level work at a high age (46) or due to difficulty in getting the intern/graduate/trainee/ genuine junior roles (ie one that don't require lots of experience) then maybe looking into some sort of self employment creative use such as youtube blogging or videos, podcasts, design work, maybe look into product design prototyping, or something I can make a mould of and sell copies of etc.

 

One reason for the wide range is always seeing different job requirements but not many entry level jobs ie this one wants Google Sketchup, that one want Rhino this one after effects when I just want a creative career job. 

 

Plus not say 2 days unpaid as an art department assistant every few months if lucky when not really getting taught much... at least a solid 6 months or more would tech something and count as some sort of recognisable experience.

 

My interest has always been something like special effects, props, product design that utilises both creative and engineering, but all I seem to get is a mix of odd days film extra, promo (think auditing stores demoing products, sampling etc). Have a degree but never got the 'mentored' trainee followup 'bridge' job that takes you from teen part time like work to experienced professional.   Did for a few years have a print shop graphic design job but that was mainly simple stuff like text business cards and invoices or invites, some TV runner and research work and used to make live action role play weapons (think foam swords for the dungeons and dragons folk), pus few days here or there in art departments but mostly just odd days film extra work and looking to change that and develop skills. Hence I returned to university on an industrial design course.

 

But looking for a system that can be also used for more professional work if can get good enough to be paid and afford more up to date legit software and find where to focus on as kind of need the stable job first to work that out.

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On 1/6/2020 at 7:56 PM, Spikey said:

Are second hand used GPUs a good idea or high risk?

There is a chance the GPU may have been used for cryptocurrency mining (e.g. Bitcoin) and may have been running under full load most of the time. Then the chance for it to fail is definitely bigger than with a GPU that has had normal use. This mostly applies to high(er) end GPU's, so if you do want to get a 2nd hand GPU this is something to check.


E.g. the AMD Vega cards were very popular for cryptocurrency mining when they just came out, the hype is basically over so the chance of getting a GPU used for mining is not as big as it used to be, but as mentioned above it is something to check.

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4 hours ago, herbieherb said:

If Solidworks is the main CAD, I would clearly decide for a Quadro.  But in your case it is the only software among many that would benefit from Quadro. With all others the system would be slower.

There are still enough programs in that list of software that would benefit from a Quadro card depending on what is being done with that software. Quadro is not about raw speed but about moving large amounts of complex data (e.g. lots of high poly vertices) in a stable and reliable manner whereas gaming cards are more about moving large amounts of relatively simple data in a fast manner (e.g. lots of low poly vertices).

 

So it it does depend on what kind of 3D modeling one is doing whether the benefit is substantial enough for getting a Quadro GPU if there are Quadro optimised drivers for the programs you are using. If there are no Quadro drivers, e.g. Vectorworks, then it makes much more sense to get a good GeForce GPU which is either cheaper for similar performance or having better performance for the same money in that case.

 

4 hours ago, herbieherb said:

Like the CPU and the GPU, the RAM also has a clock rate with which it works. They are all independent of each other. You can have a CPU at 4GHz, RAM at 3GHz and a GPU at 2GHz. The number measures how many steps the component does per second. The clock speed of RAM has no effect on the clock speed of the processor, so the processor will not suddenly be overclocked. AMD processors just have been found to perform better when combined with fast clocked RAM.

 

Then with RAM there are the timings that are important. With timings you measure how long RAM needs to respond. But high clock speed with fast timings will be extremely expensive. The sweet-spot of DDR4 RAM is about 3200 GHz clock speed and CL 14 timings.

They are independent, technically speaking, but... the last paragraph quoted above does mean there is a dependency because the CPU has to wait for memory so the RAM must be capable of "synced" timing cycles with the CPU, or the CPU needs to be overclocked to make the best use of those fast timings. In the past a bad combination could actually make things worse, which is much less of an issue these days but if you want to get the most out of the fastest RAM then it is likely the mobo/CPU software will use some overclocking to get the best speed.

 

With that said, if the manual states that some overclocking is needed for certain RAM then good cooling is even more important to maintain stability, though there could be stability issues anyway if one manually overclocks the system. If the CPU/mobo software is doing the overclocking it will usually be within safe margins. Which is what I think the MSI Creative Content stuff is doing.

 

4 hours ago, herbieherb said:

This might also give an answer to your graphics card question. If you don't feed Solidworks with gigantic projects, the 2080Ti will probably still perform very well, because it is an absolute high-end card despite its consumer orientation and you won't need the power boost of a Quadro in Solidworks at all.

This I totally agree with.

 

4 hours ago, herbieherb said:

I find your list very ambitious, by the way. I've been learning Vectorworks for more than a decade and still haven't finished. 🙂 I'd have a look at all of these programs and then concentrate on just a few that you find most useful.

Ditto, it is better to become an expert at some titles than a jack of all trades and master of none though it is not always easy these days to know which directions things are going. What is required today may be outdated within the next 2 years, though most things do transfer from one software to another software in the same area. (e.g. AutoCAD skills don't become completely useless when switching to Vectorworks or vice versa).

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3 hours ago, Spikey said:

But looking for a system that can be also used for more professional work if can get good enough to be paid and afford more up to date legit software and find where to focus on as kind of need the stable job first to work that out.

This at least clarifies why you are looking for what you are asking about as I was also wondering if you even had some idea of what direction you wanted to go.

 

I don't know what the job market is in the UK but you might want to check with a local employment agency/office to find out where the demand is and how much competition there would be in that area. E.g. if there is a lot of demand for a skill and there are lots of people with such skills then it won't be easy to stand out, the same applies for rare skills that are low in demand. The optimal would be to develop (a combination of) skills that are somewhat rare to find but are reasonably high in demand and that is where an employment agency/office might be able to give you some information about and what would be needed to have a decent chance for success so that you can decide on what you want to focus on first. Try to avoid spreading yourself too thin by trying to do too many different things.

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3 hours ago, Art V said:

This at least clarifies why you are looking for what you are asking about as I was also wondering if you even had some idea of what direction you wanted to go.

 

I don't know what the job market is in the UK but you might want to check with a local employment agency/office to find out where the demand is and how much competition there would be in that area. E.g. if there is a lot of demand for a skill and there are lots of people with such skills then it won't be easy to stand out, the same applies for rare skills that are low in demand. The optimal would be to develop (a combination of) skills that are somewhat rare to find but are reasonably high in demand and that is where an employment agency/office might be able to give you some information about and what would be needed to have a decent chance for success so that you can decide on what you want to focus on first. Try to avoid spreading yourself too thin by trying to do too many different things.

 

 

Local employment offices are utterly useless. They only have local retail, security, temp agency, fast food, catering, delivery driver, customer service, minor clerical, bus driver type unskilled jobs, nothing on a graduate level, for anyone with a degree, most entry level positions, apprenticeships, trainee roles and things like a media and creative workshops only accept 16-24 year olds. The work coaches have no specific industry experience like engineering, media, production, medicine, science etc. the courses they do are how to write a generic CV and cover letter for a conventional background or things like here is how you turn on a computer, use windows or basic MS work...  nothing 'intelligent' for those with any education and not even things like workshops skills like say wood, metal, model making, certainly no cad skills or anything resembling the kinds of demands for experience you would see in any professional or even junior career job. basically they are geared to people with no qualification, who bearly know what a computer is and just trying to push them into brain dead, min wage work with no prospects.

Its also next to impossible to fill in an application form when your work is something like film extra work which is occasional random days work for different agencies each time, where there is different pay each day when you have no idea when you get paid then get various deductions and the form wants to know what is your employer, person to ask for references, your salary when there isn't not one, what achievements etc when the work is hang around on set, walk from here to there be in a moshpit one day, a office worker then next and then maybe acting as a psychotic ferel max max type the next. Or show how you improved things or made achievements when it was just sampling cranberries at a festival or being very bored trying to show people how to use smart speakers when there is no internet connection in a PC world store.

 

My CV lists many 'have a go once on a course skill and some more practiced but only a tiny percentage of the mostly no brain work Ive done which is not at all relevant to content creative work, and some more relevant work on the first page with huge date gaps, often just one week or less temp positions 

 

I use brains and creativity mainly at home post university, be it doing photo artwork for a neighbour, designing something to be 3D printed, restoring furniture, doing horror makeup, or just playing total war. Plus some unpaid art department experience on sets. Making audition videos as well and a confident presenter. If it helps my portfolio website is www.chrisrosedesigns.com

 

I get email alerts from online agencies like Glassdoor and pay for many.com both film crew and theatrical. Most job agencies are for office like work and only list positions for those with lots of experience and want achievements and how you handled tasks using the Star system. More so I have seen what appears to be training or advice for recruits to red flag those who appear to have lots of unrelated short temp jobs with no linear progressive career history and want jobs in 'date not relevance and skill order.

Hence when I get email alerts for the few creative jobs I see it has been very much this one wants autodesk, that one google Sketchup, this one after effects etc, rather than  lots wanting one or two software packages. The likes of Rhino does come up alot along with Premier, After Effects, Sketchup, Vectorworks, V-Ray 3D studio Max, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Sketch etc. Nothing consistent though. Higher level industry jobs at the likes of Lucasfilm list Houdini, Maya, Katana, etc.

UX/UI jobs seem to be in demand and will look to learn sketch

 

One issue with some of the rarer software is it costs masses of amount and appears to need high end computers and you are expected to have lots of experience.

 

I get the spreading thin bit. In university we used Solidworks, a bit of Alias, Photoshop, Indesign (I need a lot more practice with Illustrator, i just have not had that much use for it). But when I started to apply thats when it was all sorts of software being asked for in the few creative design jobs I could find and much of that has only been with more specialist agencies.

 

What I need is to get a job somewhere that say uses Rhino V-Ray and a couple of others then I would know to practice with just those.  Im in London.

 

Hence the difficulty in focusing. It would be different say if you lived in a ship building port then you could do weilding.

 

 

Hence looking maybe to find something I can do myself.

 

As said which direction is difficult and it does not help when there is large demand for things like UX/UI skills that were not taught at school or uni, you are older and been stuck in a vicious circle of no brain , non career temp work, nobody around you is technically or creative minded in the slightest so nobody ask for help or guide you.

 

 

I really like and need the kind of situation you see in films like : Karate kid, Zorro, Star Wars, Surfs up, Eddie the Eagle etc where you have the older mentor guiding the younger directionless but keep rookie or the go to an academy which automatically leads to the career job at the end (Usually something police or military/med school based though). Kinda of what I need.

 

Or real cases where (Like when I did a prop course) you have dad and daughter who has grown up being brought along on film sets or that could be a custom car mechanic work shop and learning how to do props and effects etc as then you get taught properly can focus and have access to the resources to learn and at they end you dont get dumped out of school and they did not teach industry software or practices or uni or a college short course where you find out what your were taught does not match real world job requirements demanding a 1 year or mores experience. or you do a tutorial online but when you try and doing something on your own you find out it hardly taught you anything with nobody to ask for help or what it taught is not how things are done in industry.

 

 

 

I like making things run better, have a very critical analytical mind and how things work, I like making things that wow people, or cross them out, or looks cool, or is cute or works well and gives them a competitive edge, like TV and film production. the combination leads to things like practical  special effects, set design, (Vectorworks)  props or the visual effect equivalent that looks real (After Effects). So would like to be able to make a dinosaur animatronic and CGI version (Maya, 3d Studio Max, Cinema 4D). The theme  warm up and look of an amusment park ride like a haunted house. Designing the interior of some quirky venue (hence Vectorworks).Confident in presenting some form of youtube comes to mind. Or developing a product as inventive Ideally something with a organic flowing form, more Rhino than Solidworks (But not learned surface modelling in it yet) . Or maybe go back to live role play weapon design where the likes of Zbrush may help create something ornate. like a hilt.

 

A wild naughty rock and cheeky radio show thats as takes the 'elephant scene' in the movie as inspiration so podcasting comes to mind as would not be allows on uk radio.


All creative design.

Once I can get something at least semi perminent that is paying and secure thats when I can focus as would know what to focus on or more likely a combination of them.

 

Says Premier, Maya, After Effects, Nuke

 

or Blender, v ray keyshot, Solidworks, Rhino, Zbrush and mudbox to 3d print etc

 

 

The idea of the workstation is to enable me to try and learn and work out where to focus and have the means to be able to develop and do these things and have some options with something that can do them practically and fast and thus the potential to profitability. (Ie no good trying to do photo restoration with calibrated monitors where what you see on screen does not match prints) or trying to edit videos that takes ages for the implies things then over night to render.

 

 

Sorry if a bit long but trying to explain how I got into this mess as opposed to someone who news what direction to go in from childhood as had the mentoring, workshops, support, tutoring and entry jobs after to build a career from teens.

 

Thanks for all time

 

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LOl everytime I decide on Quadro or Geforce more info pulls it back to the other one... unfortunately cant afford both.

If Solidworks and the other fussy ones will work well with the Geforce if not perfectly then maybe could try that first but can you see whey this is taking a whilse and stress when being pulled in two directions on this let alone the other components. Especially when its not a little but a huge difference in performance between the  11gb rtc 2080ti and Quadro 4000x and higher grade Quadro cards cost so much more. Need to make decisions and get this done.

 

(And out of your helpful hair)

 

Its also driving mum and girlfriend batty the time taken to try and sort this.


Plus not good spending all the money on pc parts when will be needing things like podcast /audio kits, green screen studio kit, DSLR camera and not much money comming in

 

Hence pressure to do it right

 

 

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How good for all this is the Quadro 4000rtx from what Ive been describing compared to 1 or say a pair or linked Quadro RTX 5000 or 6000? 

 

What is really needed for the levels of work and software I have been describing to do a half decent job that does not take forever and that I could with a bit of practice have some kind or profitable work out of it.

 

Will the 4000 work  and do the task and the pair of RTX 5000 major over kill or  the 4000 RTX too low level, Is this impossible with a £4400 /5200 euro?

 

Or start with the Geforce till can save up for a Quadro as well? and whihc one for it to be worth it? 

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15 hours ago, Art V said:

They are independent, technically speaking, but... the last paragraph quoted above does mean there is a dependency because the CPU has to wait for memory so the RAM must be capable of "synced" timing cycles with the CPU, or the CPU needs to be overclocked to make the best use of those fast timings. In the past a bad combination could actually make things worse, which is much less of an issue these days but if you want to get the most out of the fastest RAM then it is likely the mobo/CPU software will use some overclocking to get the best speed.

 

With that said, if the manual states that some overclocking is needed for certain RAM then good cooling is even more important to maintain stability, though there could be stability issues anyway if one manually overclocks the system. If the CPU/mobo software is doing the overclocking it will usually be within safe margins. Which is what I think the MSI Creative Content stuff is doing.

You're mixing up two different things. Overclocking RAM is not the same as overclocking the CPU, nor does it affect the CPU itself.
The supported range of RAM clock speed varies depending on the processor and is listed in the mainboard specifications. There are clock speeds that are natively supported, and those that are achieved by overclocking RAM. While overclocking the processor is associated with certain risks and can also limit the life span, overclocking RAM is unproblematic because you only set the RAM to the clock speed for which it was produced. To do this, you change an option in the UEFI (BIOS) so that the motherboard reads the supported clock rate from the RAM bars and the BIOS should automatically set everything correctly. Since the RAM was produced for this clock, they do not become too hot. No additional cooling is needed. So overclocking the RAM has really nothing to do with overclocking the processor.
Faster RAM has the same effect on the processor as a faster graphics card would have. The CPU runs exactly the same as before, except that the overall system can perform better. Most TRX40 motherboards support RAM up to 3000 MHz natively and are tested with OC up to 4666 MHz. Using 3200 Mhz RAM is no problem.

 

10 hours ago, Spikey said:

How good for all this is the Quadro 4000rtx from what Ive been describing compared to 1 or say a pair or linked Quadro RTX 5000 or 6000? 

Only use one graphics card. Most programs could not use the second graphics card at all. The money is better invested in a single, but better graphics card.

 

The way you describe your intention, you'll need an all-round workstation. I also looked around in the forums of Solidworks again and it seems that besides performance there are sometimes graphics problems with consumer graphics cards.
Since the more expensive Threadripper would only make a difference in CPU rendering, I'd do without it. Take the Quadro card instead.
This way you get a computer that is less powerful in one specific application, but can handle all kinds of programs.
Due to the very large budget, you still have a computer that will surely outshine 95% of all CAD workstations. By comparison, the most powerful computer in our office cost £2900.

 

It might just as well be a good idea to set half the money aside and invest in cheaper hardware that you upgrade later, or if there is a lot of activity in the hardware market, replace it completely.
Threadripper is very strong when it comes to CPU rendering. But I don't think this is your focus. You could save a lot of money if you only use a Ryzen 3950, because then the mainboards are also much cheaper.
With a Threadripper 3960x, a Quadro 5000 you're in the 4400 pound range. With a Ryzen 3950x and a RTX 4000 you are already at 2700 pounds. So you have saved a lot of money, which you can put into the next graphics card generation in a year. The cheaper system still has more power than probably 90% of all workstations here in the forum.

Edited by herbieherb
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7 hours ago, herbieherb said:

It might just as well be a good idea to set half the money aside and invest in cheaper hardware that you upgrade later, or if there is a lot of activity in the hardware market, replace it completely.
Threadripper is very strong when it comes to CPU rendering. But I don't think this is your focus. You could save a lot of money if you only use a Ryzen 3950, because then the mainboards are also much cheaper.
With a Threadripper 3960x, a Quadro 5000 you're in the 4400 pound range. With a Ryzen 3950x and a RTX 4000 you are already at 2700 pounds. So you have saved a lot of money, which you can put into the next graphics card generation in a year. The cheaper system still has more power than probably 90% of all workstations here in the forum.

^^This is probably the best route to take at the moment after reading your explanation of where you are and where you want to go, especially if you are not doing high end CPU rendering at the moment. When push comes to shove later you could still get a Threadripper mobo and CPU and then use the existing RAM, Quadro card and drives etc. with it.

 

Things are a bit different with recent VW version but at one point I had a 3D model that took AutoCAD an hour to render and I had to do 10 different renders (It was a very large model and needed close up renders of various sections). I loaded the DWG model in VW to see how well it would do... on the same machine it took VW+Renderworks 5 minutes per render with a much better quality, this on a "measly" 2nd gen i7 with 8GB of RAM. The point of this is that even with relatively modest hardware (compared to a full blown Threadripper, RAM and Quadro setup) you may still get very good performance if the software is well written. Even on an i5 CPU laptop I could get sufficiently fast renders with Renderworks.

 

Yes, programs like V-Ray can max out a Threadripper and RAM and GPU and yes it does make a lot of difference if you are doing tons of renders on a daily basis but it is overkill if you are not at that point yet. Given your situation you might want to save some substantial money that you could use to pay for training etc. which would probably be more beneficial for your career perspective than buying a top of the line system with too little money left to quickly improve your skills with training/courses.

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7 hours ago, herbieherb said:

You're mixing up two different things. Overclocking RAM is not the same as overclocking the CPU, nor does it affect the CPU itself.

You're correct, I mixed up with overclocking RAM as that often also does require to increase voltage etc. but not to the extent like it would be with a CPU as the extra voltage needed is relatively small for RAM.

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On 1/8/2020 at 7:36 PM, Art V said:

^^This is probably the best route to take at the moment after reading your explanation of where you are and where you want to go, especially if you are not doing high end CPU rendering at the moment. When push comes to shove later you could still get a Threadripper mobo and CPU and then use the existing RAM, Quadro card and drives etc. with it.

 

Things are a bit different with recent VW version but at one point I had a 3D model that took AutoCAD an hour to render and I had to do 10 different renders (It was a very large model and needed close up renders of various sections). I loaded the DWG model in VW to see how well it would do... on the same machine it took VW+Renderworks 5 minutes per render with a much better quality, this on a "measly" 2nd gen i7 with 8GB of RAM. The point of this is that even with relatively modest hardware (compared to a full blown Threadripper, RAM and Quadro setup) you may still get very good performance if the software is well written. Even on an i5 CPU laptop I could get sufficiently fast renders with Renderworks.

 

Yes, programs like V-Ray can max out a Threadripper and RAM and GPU and yes it does make a lot of difference if you are doing tons of renders on a daily basis but it is overkill if you are not at that point yet. Given your situation you might want to save some substantial money that you could use to pay for training etc. which would probably be more beneficial for your career perspective than buying a top of the line system with too little money left to quickly improve your skills with training/courses.

 

 

Not sure, as one reason for the thread ripper system was the number of lanes and thus space to upgrade that comes with them not just the power. It could help towards getting items like a Greenscreen  & photo studio set up, podcast kit and or DSLR cameras

 

if I was going to go down this route I think the two board I may look at would be the 

 

  • MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION
  • ASUS Pro WS X570-ACE

 

You familiar with them?

 

More likely the former due to the wireless and lan and m2 add on card. The ASUS board was the top option on the Scan uk configurator and PC Specialist

 

Not sure if anyone is familiar wit them...

 

That would be the only way I could afford a Quadro RTX 5000 but then whilst gaining some single core speed would loose it with the render times and lack of lands and connect and upgradabilty. Plus render speed

 

 

Something else has come up

 

Raid one plan issues

 

Got directed to this article

 

Why RAID is (usually) a Terrible Idea

As president of Puget Custom Computers, I get a unique perspective on computer products and technology. Our company specializes in selling high performance custom computers, and that naturally brings up the question of RAID often. There is an overwhelming opinion out there that if you have the...

 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Why-RAID-is-usually-a-Terrible-Idea-29/


Having had hard drive failure before causing me catastrophic problems and setting me back tow years as it have all my portfolio and uni work for four years on it and had several external drives fail having been considered a RAID 1 4t sea gate ironwolf essential


This would also get an online or other method added ot it when affordable


But what are your experiences of motherboard based raid 1 as a level 1 backup?

 

 

 

 

------- You can see below as to why I was so keen on RAID 1 cut and paste...

 

 

I have had catastrophic hard drive failures. Including the 2 TB external drive with most of my 4 years university work on it, several other external drives. The laptop only had 1 TB at that time I think. l've had a good 3 x 1 tb external hard drives with other content on them I had been using as back ups. These either just went or may have been a result of a knock. Only one external drive remains and thats one in a rubber case , 1TB and its pretty much full up and the only back up I have. 

 

Also I have effectively been saving for this system since July 2017. Basically I had been attending some top prop making courses and had purchased several hundred outs of materials to practice with but shortly after the July 2017 by portfolio website was up for renewal and they were seriously over charging so I cancelled the subscription and had just copied and taken it all down when  my laptop and its hard drive failed with all on it along with everything else on it and nothing had been backed up for several months.

 

This has effectually killed chances of a career in this ares for a couple of years as  I managed to get some sort of recovery software working on the hard drive but it tool over a month to extract stuff from the drive which I had to leave along.

 

When this finished all I got were thousands of folders with any recovered files all mixed up with no file structure at all only unnamed pdfs, jpegs, tiff and word files. Most work had been in Indesign files.

 

More so these were not simply what had been on there, but every thumbnail, part version of images files, in all manner of sizes, unnamed in unnamed random folders, and what appeared to have been every file that had ever been trashed and leads of stuff I had never seen,.

 

The only way to work out what the Jpegs were was from their thumbnails but when opened these could be any size from a stamp size button to large jpgs and there must have been hundreds of each and many only part versions... to try and go through all these and isolate what was useful then get each in some sort or folders with the different versions of each took several months more and thats as they had thumbnails, the pdf and word files did not so had to on through those one at a time, I still have 10s of thousands to try and find things like an assignment, most likely earlier version of them..

 

 

This on what had been my mothers low spec laptop and still on it a think pad Edge i3 machine.

 

Its 500gb hard drive is stuffed too with only a few gigs left.

 

After that it till till Christmas 2018 before I could save up for a 40 inch 4k TV to use as a second monitor for the laptop as TV also failed during that time, and only after that could get going building a new portfolio which was not done toll July 2018. Saved roughly enough to look into a I9 or Threadripper 2 system in March 2019 but that got chipped away and ran into the ip single thread or Threadripper multi-thread argument for a couple of months before finding out the new Threadripper system to come so waited figuring it would be good with both and been researching the which of the new new motherboards (or even ryzen 3950x system) to go for plus coolers, which out of Quadro or Geforce argument ( and want to get this finally done asap..).

 

 

Hence (sorry about the story above) why I was so keen on a raid 1 array as one of the most important components as 1st level back up before having a secondary on line or safer external system with its own back up.

 

ta

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Raid 1 is not a backup. It only helps you in case of a drive failure and improves performance. But if a virus encrypts your data, you accidentally delete data or data is written incorrectly, you are screwed.
If you want to back up your data, you have to synchronize it regularly, e.g. with a cloud, so that the data is physically at a different location (fire case). Then you need an additional backup, which you do manually, but less regularly on a hard disk without internet access (e.g. 1x weekly/monthly on an external HD). This way you protect yourself against viruses that encrypt your data (your first backup system would simply synchronize the encrypted data automatically into the cloud).
Then you could consider versioning (keeping several daily/monthly/yearly backups) so that you can go back to a state of, say, the day before yesterday or a month ago if you need to.

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I wouldn't worry too much about the Lanes. If you're doing a single-GPU setup, you've had enough of them anyway.
If you later realize that you want to have multiple GPU's, you won't have much of a performance penalty, because they are only connected with x8 instead of x16. Also you could then connect two PCIe 4.0 capable graphics cards. (That's why I explicitly recommended an X570 board, these are the only ones that support it at the moment) Since PCIe 4.0 is about twice as fast as the currently common PCIe 3.0, this will also be enough for several graphics cards, even if they are therefore only connected on the 8 instead of 16 lanes. This means that two graphics cards supporting PCIe 4.0 on 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes each would be practically as fast as two graphics cards on 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes each (as for example it's the case in the MacPro which promotes its many pcie 3.0 lanes).

 

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1 hour ago, herbieherb said:

I wouldn't worry too much about the Lanes. If you're doing a single-GPU setup, you've had enough of them anyway.
If you later realize that you want to have multiple GPU's, you won't have much of a performance penalty, because they are only connected with x8 instead of x16. Also you could then connect two PCIe 4.0 capable graphics cards. (That's why I explicitly recommended an X570 board, these are the only ones that support it at the moment) Since PCIe 4.0 is about twice as fast as the currently common PCIe 3.0, this will also be enough for several graphics cards, even if they are therefore only connected on the 8 instead of 16 lanes. This means that two graphics cards supporting PCIe 4.0 on 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes each would be practically as fast as two graphics cards on 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes each (as for example it's the case in the MacPro which promotes its many pcie 3.0 lanes).

 

 

 

Thanks . Wasn't just thinking GPus but other add on cards like a 2-4 way additional m.2  ssd drive card, more ssd drives, maybe a future audio card ertc

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what do you know about NAS drive set ups as opposed to raid drives in the same system. what happens if you NAS drive fails, do they have any kind of raid set up or alternative? Like someone moves them whilst doing the cleaning when its working etc. Would an Idea be to have one of those 4tb drives in the computer and the other in the NAS instead of raid?

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If im to go with a NAS set up as opposed to the RAID one, what should I look for bearign in mind I wont be needing some major set up server etc. Just an alterantive to to the raid idea that work js as well (no good getting nice fast iron wolf drives to put in it if they then get majorly slowed down.  Should have the 10gb ethernet off the zeneth motherboard if it helps.

 

ie brands, models, what to look for feature wise what to avoid what else I would need on top, is it just a internet box you pop a hard drive in etc

 

ta

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Ryzen 3000 x570 boards are already very well equipped with lanes, so the more expensive ones have up to 3 M.2 connectors. Apart from the graphics card, most other PCIe cards use only 4 lanes. With a x570 board you are already very well equipped.

As a backup you could, for example, get a NAS, which serves as a central storage space for the entire home system. Then you just move the data you are working on to the fast SSD in your computer or you synchronize the Data from your Computer to the NAS. From the NAS, you can make a daily backup with versioning to a cloud of your choice. From the data in the cloud, you make a backup to an external hard drive once a month, for example. You only plug in this external hard drive when you make the backup.

With this method your data is very safe.

If a hard drive fails, you can replace the one in the NAS and RAID-1 will restore the broken drive. If your home is on fire and your NAS and computers are destroyed, you have the cloud. If your NAS is hacked and your data is encrypted (and the backup in the cloud is also encrypted), you have the external hard drive with the emergency backup.

Edited by herbieherb
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