SPECS ADVICE

[NickT1]

HELLO, IM BULDING A NEW DESKTOP/ TOWER AND WOULD APPRECIATE ANY ADVICE ON WHICH SPECS WOULD BE BETTER FOR ME TO USE FOR CHEIF.  RAY TRACE PRODUCTIVITY IS A ABSOLUTE MUST AND I DONT WANT TO SACRIFICE GRAPHICS CARD QUALITY EITHER, I WAS DEAD SET ON THE WORKSTATION UNTIL I READ ALL OF THE COMMENTS ON HERE ABOUT THE QUADPRO NOT WORKING WELL IN CA......?  REALLY.   MOVING ON, HERE ARE MY CHOICES:

 

#1.  INTEL ZEON  W-2155 3.3GHz, 4.5GHz TURBO, 10C, 13.75M CACHE, HT, (140W) DDR4-2666)

       NVIDIA  QUADPRO P4000, 8GB (5820T)      32GB (2X16GB) 2666MHz DDR4 RDIMM ECC                                    WORKSTATION

        M.2 512GB PCLe NVMe CLASS 50 SSD       2.5" 1TB 7200rpm SATA HARD DRIVE

 

 

#2.  INTEL CORE I9 7900X (10-CORE, 13.75MB CACHE, UP TO 4.5GHz WITH INTEL TURBO BOOST MAX 3.0)

       NVIDEA GeFORCE GTX 1080 WITH 8GB GDDR5X         32GB QUAD CHANNEL DDR4 AT 2666MHz                    ALIENWARE

       512 GB M.2 PCLe SSD (BOOT) + 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/S (STORAGE)

 

I HAVE SURFACE BOOK WITH PURFORMANCE  BASE INTEL I7 6600U 2.8 2.81 AND NVIDEA GeFORCE GTX 965M WITH 2GB DEDICATED AND I HAVE A FEW  GOOD & THEN A WHOLE BUNCH OF NOT SO GOOD DAYS WITH RUNNING (2) ASUS 27 " 1080 DISPLAYS FOR THE PAST 3-4 MONTHS IVE JUST REVERTED BACK TO ONE SCREEN BECAUSE ITS NOT WORTH THE HASSLE OF THE SCREEN FREEZING AND THE I GET "C.A HAS STOPPED WORKING.....WINDOWS IS CHECKING FOR SOLUTION..... UGH......    AND I GUESS I DIDNT EXPECT THESE ISSUES WHEN I PAID $2799.99 FOR IT 11 MONTHS AGO.  ....... AND SLIGHTLY HESITANT ABOUT THE NVIDEA GeFORCE SERIES BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF STABILITY THAT IM EXPERIENCING AND IN ADDITION, IT WOULD BE REALL REALLY NICE IF THE NVIDEA GEFORCE GTX CARDS HAD DRIVERS THAT WORKED WITH WINDOWS 10 DRIVE UPDATES BECAUSE IT SURE WOULD BE NICE TO USE MY DOOR LABEL AGAIN SOME TIME OR ATLEAST BE ABLE TO PLACE A LIBRARY OBJECT WITHOUT HAVING TO CLOSE C.A AFTER EACH OBJECT IS PLACED...... ALREADY CALLED TECH AS I HAVE SSA AND ROLLED BACK BUT THE SURFACE BOOKS JUST KEEP ROLLING BACK FORWARD....ITS BEEN GREAT... SO MOVING ON I HOPE ONE OF THESE TWO OPTIONS WILL DO GOOD AT BOTH RT AND RENDER BETTER AND HOPEFULLY BOTH MULTI THREAD WELL.  PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHICH SYSTEM YOU WOULD RECOMMEND AND IF YOU HAVE TIME LETME KNOW WHY.

 

THANKS 

[DRAWZILLA]

I would stay away from the Zeon's and the quadro's

[Kbird1]

Please do us a favour , don't use all caps , it is very hard to read and not good Forum ( or internet) etiquitte , thx.

 

I agree with Perry Chief does not benefit from typical CAD Workstation Hardware , you don't need the latest and great either , so could save a $1000 probably but get the best you can afford now , and hopefully it will stave off future upgrades longer.... go PC#2

 

I have rolled back to 382.05 (may) and turned Windows Driver Updates off for now using this Tutorial on TenForums

 

***EDIT  

it seems Nvidia has removed all drivers before 385.12 from the Drivers Download page but 382.05 is still available by this direct link

 

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/118514/en-us

[DavidJames]

I'd most definitely go with build #2. 

[lbuttery]

CA states you want the best gaming card and as many cores as you can afford

 

Quadro doesn't help with Chief, if you need it for other CAD ?

 

Lew

[MarkMc]

2 hours ago, NickT1 said:

I HAVE SURFACE BOOK WITH PURFORMANCE  BASE INTEL I7 6600U 2.8 2.81 AND NVIDEA GeFORCE GTX 965M WITH 2GB DEDICATED AND I HAVE A FEW  GOOD & THEN A WHOLE BUNCH OF NOT SO GOOD DAYS WITH RUNNING (2) ASUS 27 " 1080 DISPLAYS

Ditto build #2.

FWIW I had a couple of Dell Precisions with Quadro cards when I first switched to Chief, switched to GTX and it's been better. As to your Surface issues- 2gb on the GPU is minimum and that most likely has Optimus which is a hassle with multiple monitors since it some will run on the Intel card instead of the GPU. My previous machine could have issues with other monitors depending on which ports I was using. I run the Saber in my Sig with the main screen, a 24", a 42" TV, and a 15" DisplayLink all at 1920 with no problem. From what I can tell it handles things comparable to many of the machines folks list here in their signatures- some better some worse, and it's a bit dated.

 

You may want to look over some of the recent Ray Trace threads-Graham has done a bit of research and indicates that single core performance for RT's matters even though RT will use multiple cores. Chief itself OTOH doesn't gain much from extra cores AFAIK.

 

There are a couple of folks on here with Xeon.s I know mrscott runs a Xeon machine for tracing but he just got an 8700k with a 1080, could likely give you a comparison. If I were getting a machine today and couldn't wait I'd talk to tech about what X10 will be happiest with, the new rendering engine they are previewing on youtube is different.

[NickT1]

2 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

Please do us a favour , don't use all caps , it is very hard to read and not good Forum ( or internet) etiquitte , thx.

 

I agreed with Perry Chief does not benefit from typical CAD Workstation Hardware , you don't need the latest and great either , so could save a $1000 probably but get the best you can afford now , and hopefully it will stave off future upgrades longer....

 

I have rolled back to 382.05 (may) and turned Windows Driver Updates off for now using this Tutorial on TenForums

 

***EDIT  

it seems Nvidia has removed all drivers before 385.12 from the Drivers Download page but 382.05 is still available by this direct link

 

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/118514/en-us

I rather figured that was coming, and yes I agree.   Tech informed me that the surface book would not give me this option however, I may have misunderstood them.  I will look closer into that, thank you.

[NickT1]

1 hour ago, lbuttery said:

CA states you want the best gaming card and as many cores as you can afford

 

Quadro doesn't help with Chief, if you need it for other CAD ?

 

Lew

Yes, Autocad LT and Risa 3d.

[Kbird1]

 

you may need this version for a notebook......

 

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/118516/en-us

 

you will need to disable Driver updates afterwards so check this new thread too:

 

[NickT1]

2 hours ago, MarkMc said:

Ditto build #2.

FWIW I had a couple of Dell Precisions with Quadro cards when I first switched to Chief, switched to GTX and it's been better. As to your Surface issues- 2gb on the GPU is minimum and that most likely has Optimus which is a hassle with multiple monitors since it some will run on the Intel card instead of the GPU. My previous machine could have issues with other monitors depending on which ports I was using. I run the Saber in my Sig with the main screen, a 24", a 42" TV, and a 15" DisplayLink all at 1920 with no problem. From what I can tell it handles things comparable to many of the machines folks list here in their signatures- some better some worse, and it's a bit dated.

 

You may want to look over some of the recent Ray Trace threads-Graham has done a bit of research and indicates that single core performance for RT's matters even though RT will use multiple cores. Chief itself OTOH doesn't gain much from extra cores AFAIK.

 

There are a couple of folks on here with Xeon.s I know mrscott runs a Xeon machine for tracing but he just got an 8700k with a 1080, could likely give you a comparison. If I were getting a machine today and couldn't wait I'd talk to tech about what X10 will be happiest with, the new rendering engine they are previewing on youtube is different.

I got a chance to take a quick look at the previews for x10.  PBR is intriguing, seams to be "real time" and object/code specific, depending on level of quality could be a game changer for certain projects.  I'll inquire about this tech, Thanks for the tip.