Thanks for the input. It has confirmed my intuition to stay away from the Quadro and Xeon for this build. Looking at either 2x 2080's or 1x 2080ti now. Don't have funds for 2 of those. :-( 

okay I'm seeing a lot of mixed advice. The problem here is that there is a major real-world consequence of getting the wrong type of processor these days, and it is REALLY important to buy the right system for YOUR workflow

 

The big points - 

 

- Unless you NEED 10 bit color output (unlikely) do not get a quadro. They are intended for industrial CAD / CAM workflows and are 1/10th as fast for rendering CUDA Redshift. They are intended for use cases where you need extreme floating point precision, like designing critical infrastructure. Nobody is using Quadros for Redshift / Octane. 

- The same goes for Xeons. Do not get a xeon system. Many builders try to sell you on xeons because they can make more markup on it. They are extremely expensive and offer little to no performance benefits vs. i7 or i9. This is basically due to A) lack of overclocking ability and B) way more expensive ECC RAM required (not necessary). The large number of cores means each core is slower than the equivalent i7/i9. AE and most tasks in Cinema are still single-threaded. The exception is if you plan on doing a lot of CPU rendering in Arnold (which is going GPU soon anyway), or high end simulation work in houdini etc. 

- Basically - the more cores you have, the slower each core is, this is based on thermal and manufacturing limitations. AMD TR chips are good but the same applies - only necessary for pure multithreaded CPU tasks. 

- Currently, for future-proofing, the only GPU I'd look at right now is the GTX 2080ti - but try to find the "blower" models and not the "open fan" designs, as those tend to just push hot air around inside your case. 

 

I'm not going into a specific parts list but from what you're saying I'd be looking at a system with an i9 chip with 8-12 cores, high megahertz boost / OC abvility (4.2-5 Ghz) very good all in one liquid cooling (a 360mm radiator is essential), and one or two GTX 2080ti's. And yes, RAM prices have blown up and stayed there due to manufacturing shortages, supposedly. 

 

I am currently rocking a machine I built with the core i7 7900X, 4x 1080ti, 128 GB RAM for similar workflows and it does great. I will say avoid Asus motherboards for now, they can have issues

-Teddy 

 

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 10:45 AM Robert & Jenny <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

I tend to make my own systems but one that seems to be getting a lot of attention recently due to GreyscaleGorilla's upgrade is AMD's Threadripper.

    - Robert H

On 2/7/2019 7:34 AM, Byron Nash wrote:

Just trying to get the best we can afford! I need to spend closer to $5k for this to work. 

 

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 9:31 AM Elliot Steele <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

Do you need the best of the best? The newest, cutting edge machine?

I decided a while ago to accept a slightly lower/slower spec in exchange for ridiculous savings and went the refurb route.

If I wanted to buy a new workstation now, I'd go for a HP Z820 or Z840 with dual Xeons, at least 128 GB of RAM and a good Quadro card. As a refurb it runs around €1400.

Compared to a brand new top-end beast at around €10k it makes more sense for me.

Cheers

Elliot

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On 2/7/19 3:25 PM, Byron Nash wrote:

I'm buying another workstation for a new hire. The prices on some of the components have either exploded or new options have come out. Our current machines have i7 3 ghZ CPU's, 1080 ti GPU's, and 128GB RAM. The 1080's are no longer available at reasonable prices. I have one vendor quoting a XEON CPU and a Quadro. But I'm also looking at RTX 20 series GPU's and i9's. I don't have unlimited budget. These boxes will get used for mostly AE and some C4D/Redshift. 

 

My question is, given similar price points, would you take a XEON over a i7/9 and a Quadro over a RTX? 

 

 

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