[build] A PC primarily for 3D design,rendering

techguy

Hi There,

I'm currently looking into buidling a PC for a friend who designs/builds kitchens. He is using Planit Fusion (like 3DS max) on a standard dell desktop which takes a while to render works.

I'm thinking of buliding a Core i7 rig.

A couple of questions with regards 3D rendering, Is more RAM better and what effect does the CPU have on render times. Would the likes of a graphics card have something to offer here? If so, a standard gaming card GTX or something along the lines of a Quadra???

Here are my current thoughts on what I would use:

Intel Core i7 920 (possibly 940)
About 12-16 GB DDR3 RAM - Whats this about CLx?? and speed ?
I think these are the main components, and possibly a highend GPU if it would help.

Also, what effect would an SSD have on render times? I think it would be fairly positive, yes?

Would the improvement in render times over his current rig justify building a computer like this.

Has anybody here any experience with render farms? My friend has a few pcs that could be used to build one. I'm guessing that a render farm has to be supported by the design software

Thanks for any insight..

Solitaire

2020 likes keeping its software requirements classified information :mad: If someone here doesn't know what Fusion likes the your friend may have to get in contact with 2020 and see what they have to say about his current version's requirements.

Off the top of my head an i7 build is merry overkill but certain GPUs might help - depends on how PlanIt or its CAD engine are covered by enterprise (ie. FireGL/Quadro) drivers. That would give the biggest bump in render speeds (although he may need to modernise much of the rest of the system if its dated) I doubt the program is intensive enough to bebefit from a render farm approach - we're not quite talking Indusrial Light & Magic here

techguy

Solitaire wrote: »

2020 likes keeping its software requirements classified information :mad: If someone here doesn't know what Fusion likes the your friend may have to get in contact with 2020 and see what they have to say about his current version's requirements.

Off the top of my head an i7 build is merry overkill but certain GPUs might help - depends on how PlanIt or its CAD engine are covered by enterprise (ie. FireGL/Quadro) drivers. That would give the biggest bump in render speeds (although he may need to modernise much of the rest of the system if its dated) I doubt the program is intensive enough to bebefit from a render farm approach - we're not quite talking Indusrial Light & Magic here

Great to hear that somebody has knowledge about 2020, I couldn't find anything and was beginning to get a bit worried.

So, if im correct a GPU will do more than the CPU depending on the software. But for a fast GPU to be effective don't you need a fast CPU to compliment it along with some decent I/O speeds?

I must contact 2020 to find out the requirements. His current machine is a ru of the mill Dell Dimension/Inspiron desktop so I think he will need a new system. I think there will be around €1500-2000 for this build ex. monitors..

Solitaire

€1500-2000 is a fairly massive budget, it all boils down to what 2020 says will help the rendering side of things best but if it even works on an old Dell I doubt you'll be needing a grand just for a top-of-the-range workstation GPU Your mate better wring some info out of them before we proceed but I doubt we'll be needing anything like two grand for this even if he's going for near-realtime renders. Like I said, Fusion's pretty but it ain't ILM

techguy

Solitaire wrote: »

€1500-2000 is a fairly massive budget, it all boils down to what 2020 says will help the rendering side of things best but if it even works on an old Dell I doubt you'll be needing a grand just for a top-of-the-range workstation GPU Your mate better wring some info out of them before we proceed but I doubt we'll be needing anything like two grand for this even if he's going for near-realtime renders. Like I said, Fusion's pretty but it ain't ILM

Thats great to hear it won't cost as much as I thought. The budget has not been set yet but I was just thinking thats what would be required to build a sufficient system.

He will be looking for near realtime renders as he likes to do quick mockups of kitchens in front of clients according to their requirements. ATM it is really slow.

Lets shelve the thread for now until I get some more detailed info.

Thanks for your help so far..

techguy

Ok,

I just got off the phone with a guy from Planit and he just quoted the minimum specs to me again.

He wasn't really that much help to be honest. He just said to build a fairly high end system and Fusion will use it.

He did say however, that I should get a Quadro card as opposed to a GTX/GeForce card.. This is going to be a problem for me as they are seriously priced.

My Options:
Could I settle for a cheapish Quadro with ~ 256MB RAM ??
Get a highend game card like a GTX 295 or probably a 4870X2 ?
Use a second hand 9800GT 512MB..?

I'm just wondering how a GPU will effect render times for a rig that has an i7 cpu? I'm pretty sure a Quadro is the way to go but probably too expensive. I am aware that gaming cards are for rendering graphics with prerendered textures and the quadro does everything on the fly.

Will a gaming card provide sufficient processing??

Also: The tech support guy didn't provide much in the way of benchmark details. My friend who wants to use the system has render times of about 30-60 secs for a fairly basic design and this steadily increases as design get more complex. I'm aiming to bring this as close to realtime as possible. Is this a realistic aim?

His current specs are:

Windows XP Pro 32Bit
Core2Duo E6800 2.13Ghz
3GB RAM
Integrated graphics as far as I know..

Golden Question:
will upgrading to the system I am talking about give a drastic increase in performance thats worth the money?

Also note that Fusion will release a new version in the end of June that will fully utilise 64Bit memory addressing..

I am also thinking of putting to VelociRaptors into RAID0 for OS/Apps and then another 2 drives in RAID1 for storage.(Whatever size is required)

Thanks..

Solitaire

Great. Google thinks both these topics (here and HardOCP) are the only places where rendering PlanIt Fusion has ever been discussed :rolleyes:

If anything I'd like to see how fast a cheap Quadro (really a rebadged 8600GT with industrial drivers and software) can actually render in Fusion vs. a "conventional" card (e.g. 9800GT)... No info on what would be better, gaming card or weak workstation card... If you could "borrow" a mate's gaming card then try to compare renders with and without it and see if a GeForce will give any render benefit against the i7 alone...

And +1 on the RAID5 but bear in mind that if used heavily those conventinal drives will go "pop" fairly often, so with a RAID adaptor added in it'd quickly approach the price of the Raptors

Do you know anywhere you could "borrow" a mid-range Quadro from?

techguy

Solitaire wrote: »

Great. Google thinks both these topics (here and HardOCP) are the only places where rendering PlanIt Fusion has ever been discussed :rolleyes:

Caught!! TBH I never really double post but I wasn't sure if there was going to such a good response here since the topic is fairly specialised!! I got good responses on both so I said I may aswell keep them both going..:o

Anyway, I actually have a spare 8600GTS at the moment. I could try that for rendering as is then softmod it to a Quadro and see what performance increase we get.

I can do that now for kicks and order the new pc minus a graphics card. And then we could use either my card (modded or not) or a 9800GT that I may be able to get (also mod or unmodded).

Do you know anything about the softmodding process, can you undo you changes I wonder??

With regards RAID 5, are you suggesting that I stick to the raptor (RAID0) conventionals(RAID1) setup?

leninbenjamin

Solitaire wrote: »

Do you know anywhere you could "borrow" a mid-range Quadro from?

the quadros are built from the same chip as the retail right? i know i've used low to mid end quadro's before and not seen much of a difference over a conventional graphics card, (that was for just general use though, nothing specific like CAD) and with the modern Nvidia's shippping out with all this GPGPU capability and unified shader, the only differences seem to be in drivers and increased memory.

I'd say take the memory as the lead personally for a limited budget, I'd imagine a 1GB 200 series would beat a FX with 512 for the large scenes....

the_syco

What version is he using? If it's version 14, look at this: http://www.maximasoftware.co.za/support/?p=31

And have a gander at this: http://www.maximasoftware.co.za/support/

Dabs.ie and Elara.ie both have Quadro cards. The 1Gb cards cost around €2,000 and up.

techguy wrote: »

Integrated graphics as far as I know..

***Shudder***

Not sure of how much an increase, but he will see an increase if here to use an external card. What card is it, do you know? No point in getting a €90 card if the one in his machine turns out to be a newer one...

=-=

Try asking in http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=318 for any of the CAD students there, or maybe any college students you know, to check what graphic cards they are using...

techguy

the_syco wrote: »

If it's version 14, look at this: http://www.maximasoftware.co.za/support/?p=31

And have a gander at this: http://www.maximasoftware.co.za/support/

Thanks for that.. I really do wonder how you find these pages.. Obviously sombody is better at using google than me !!

Oh and yes he is currently using V14.

I called up tech support again today and this guy was really helpful..

He basically said that the GPU is used in realtime rendering during design mode. This is just so you get a rough idea of what you are designing.. He said a GeForce card should be adequate.. I'll aim for a 8800GTX Ultra if they are still available..since they can be modded in the future to a Quadro.

Then once you click "render" or whatever it is to render a high quality representation, Fusion only uses the CPU. So the GPU isn't being used here.

Also, Version 14 doesn't support multicore so atm my guy isn't even utilising his current rig fully.

So the Fusion guy basically said Core i7,GeForce card, Ample RAM and Version 15 will get you pretty good render times.

Version 16 will be coming out at the end of June and will fully utilise 64Bit memory addressing. I wonder will that add much more of a boost.

I'm going to contact somebody through the maximasoftware blog and look for some kind of bench test results/charts..

Solitaire

Look for a card that has a Quadro equivalent! You can go back and forth between both driver sets with sufficient RivaTuner abuse but you need a Quadro-compatible card first!

Off the top of my head I don't think you can hack a 8600GTS - its a heavily overclocked 8600GT but it uses GDDR3. Aside from clock discrepancies the G84 Quadros all use DDR2

And I'm not all that happy with using hacked drivers in business. Education and personal use is fine but this may upset people. Badly. Try using a cheap graphics card (preferably better than a manky old 8600GTS!) and compare the results for the same render operation to the old card. Does Fusion have any benching tools?

the_syco

techguy wrote: »

Version 16 will be coming out at the end of June and will fully utilise 64Bit memory addressing. I wonder will that add much more of a boost.

32bit = max of 3.4GB's of RAM. 64bit = more. More is good :cool:

Pub07

Solitaire wrote: »

Great. Google thinks both these topics (here and HardOCP) are the only places where rendering PlanIt Fusion has ever been discussed :rolleyes:

If anything I'd like to see how fast a cheap Quadro (really a rebadged 8600GT with industrial drivers and software) can actually render in Fusion vs. a "conventional" card (e.g. 9800GT)... No info on what would be better, gaming card or weak workstation card... If you could "borrow" a mate's gaming card then try to compare renders with and without it and see if a GeForce will give any render benefit against the i7 alone...

Do you GPU's contribute to rendering speed these days? I'm not talking about real-time rendering for editing, I'm talking about raytracing for precise final images.

nooodlez

hi im trying to figure out if the computer at work will be able to handle the planit fusion software, cant find any info on their website.

computer is a Dell windows vista.
model is dimension DIME521
processor is AMD Athlon (tm) 64 x2 Dual core processor 3600+ 1.90GHz
3GB RAM
32-bit Operating System

cant find info online, any ideas much appreciated!

Skylinehead

nooodlez wrote: »

hi im trying to figure out if the computer at work will be able to handle the planit fusion software, cant find any info on their website.

computer is a Dell windows vista.
model is dimension DIME521
processor is AMD Athlon (tm) 64 x2 Dual core processor 3600+ 1.90GHz
3GB RAM
32-bit Operating System

cant find info online, any ideas much appreciated!

http://support.2020-fusion.com/newsletter/20070201Source/SystemHardware/System&Hardware.htm

Looks like it, not a heavy program.

techguy

nooodlez wrote: »

hi im trying to figure out if the computer at work will be able to handle the planit fusion software, cant find any info on their website.

computer is a Dell windows vista.
model is dimension DIME521
processor is AMD Athlon (tm) 64 x2 Dual core processor 3600+ 1.90GHz
3GB RAM
32-bit Operating System

cant find info online, any ideas much appreciated!

Hi,

I didn't end up building that computer. I think your best bet is to contact the software vendor and see what the official line is.

For what it's worth I think that computer is pretty basic and won't perform too well for the job.

nooodlez

great thanks, ill contact them now