Which CPU and GPU? Building PC (3D Modeling, Rendering, Game Design, Animation)

[Nesh]

Hello guys

I am currenbtly building a PC for my work. See the title. I am trying to choose between CPUs and GPUs that will give me the most value for my bucks.
First lets start with the easy part. The GPU
I am not sure if I should go for:
a)\ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Strix Enthusiast graphics card
or
b) ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ROG-Strix OC Enthusiast graphics card

The OC version is noticeable more expensive but then again I was wondering if the performance difference is worth the money or if its safe and possible to overclock the first option

The hard part is choosing the CPU

I am trying to figure out which is the best in terms of money spent, longevity and performance for my needs
a) Ryzen 1800X Has amazing results in multithreading especially for the price. Probably better than the intel processors I will note below. But in terms of single core performance, the i7 are probably better?
The other problem is that it doesnt have much room for overckolicng. From 4Ghz it can get the most at 4.1Ghz. Anything above that is risky to impossible
b) Ryzen 1700X paired with fast memory I ve read diminishes the performance difference from the 1800X. Regardless I am not sure if I am missing something. Makes the existence of 1800X pointless considering that the 1700X is much cheaper. Also OC diminishes the difference even farther. But I am not sure if that will risk thge longevity of the card. The OC room doesnt go beyond what the 1800X can do either.
c)i7-7700K is a lot cheaper than the first two, and the single core performance is a lot better since it has a 4.2Ghz frequency. Oveclocking I ve heard can reach up to 5Ghz too.Yet I am not sure if this reduces significantly the gap compared to Ryzens or I should go for the multithreading performance of the Ryzens regarding my needs. The 5Ghz OC is probably tempting
d)i7- 6850k a similar case to c) plus more multithreading than 7700k but less single core performance. OC might help things out but not sure if it's enough.

The OC is sonething that bothers me because it could reduce the longevity of my CPU. On the other hand it is a future proof feature where the Ryzens lack.

I am currently using Maya, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Mari will probably add Unreal Engine 4 soon and a few other programs. Physics/simulation is another thing I might start working on in the future.

The rest of my components are the following. If you notice something I d appreciate your advice:
1) Motherboard: [MSI X370 Gaming Plus
2) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LED 16GB DDR4 3200
blaue LED 3200 C16 (2x8GB)
3)CPU Cooling: Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
4Case: )Corsair Carbide Clear 400C Midi Tower
5)HDD: Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000
6)SSD: Samsung 850 EVO Series250GB
7)Powersupplu: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB 80+ Gold 850 Watt

 

[Davros]

I installed solidworks onto a friends pc, he had a much faster cpu than me but his graphics card was an amd pro card while I had a 6950
his card was technically inferior to mine less cu's, less shaders, less everything my gpu score in 3dmark was something like 5 times his
so in the solidworks gpu benchmark I expected to wipe the floor with him but his score was double mine.

ps: does that board have the m2 socket connected via the sata bus or does it use pci-e lanes
if it uses pci-e lanes then the drives are much faster (nvme)

 

[Nesh]

ps: does that board have the m2 socket connected via the sata bus or does it use pci-e lanes
if it uses pci-e lanes then the drives are much faster (nvme)

Well the specs say the following:

SATA-600 -connectors: 6 x 7pin Serial ATA - RAID 0 / RAID 1 / RAID 10
SATA-600 / PCIe 3.0 -connectors: 1 x M.2.

So if it uses pci-e lanes should I go for the second option otherwise it wont make much of a difference?
I guess based on the spec it uses it, right?

 

[Davros]

yes, but be aware the nvme one is more expensive £140 vs £90

 

[Nesh]

Ok thanks

Now the big question is, which CPU?

 

[Davros]

well since youve already decided on an am4 board then the fastest ryzen you can afford
bang for buck i'd say 1700 or 1700x if you want to overclock

ps: since your using a mid tower why are you going for a 2.5" hdd and considering how high end the rest of the pc is why such a small capacity ?

 

[Nesh]

well since youve already decided on an am4 board then the fastest ryzen you can afford
bang for buck i'd say 1700 or 1700x if you want to overclock

ps: since your using a mid tower why are you going for a 2.5" hdd and considering how high end the rest of the pc is why such a small capacity ?

Well if an intel processor is a better option I will go for a different mobo as well.
The overclocking performance is sometimes a hit or miss. Not all chips are the same, and I may either get one that can sustain the OC and give the max performance or get a bad chip.
It might also need to accommodate more temperatures than a 1800X.
Based on reviews I have read OC an intel CPU is safer than OC an AMD. So I am not really sure

 

[Mize]

1700 or 1700X for sure.

And that M.2 form factor needs to die a painful death. Teensy, tiny screw on the motherboard when we ditched magnetic screwdrivers decades ago?

 

[Nesh]

1700 or 1700X for sure.

And that M.2 form factor needs to die a painful death. Teensy, tiny screw on the motherboard when we ditched magnetic screwdrivers decades ago?

I suppose you recommend the 1700, 1700X after overclocking since it reduces the gap and also because its cheaper. Right?
Are you comparing the 1700x next to the 1800x only or next to the Intel CPUs I mentioned as well?

 

[Nesh]

ps: since your using a mid tower why are you going for a 2.5" hdd and considering how high end the rest of the pc is why such a small capacity ?

Oh I missed this. I believe you are right. I might go for a 3.5 instead

 

[Deleted member 13524]

First lets start with the easy part. The GPU
I am not sure if I should go for:
a)\ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Strix Enthusiast graphics card
or
b) ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ROG-Strix OC Enthusiast graphics card

GPU is definitely not the easy part here.
For the kind of usage you mentioned, I'm pretty sure you're much better off with a Quadro or Radeon Pro, even if for the same price you'll get much lower gaming and theoretical performance.
You should check SPECviewperf benchmarks, for example. Davros already gave you a heads-up on this. AMD and nvidia aren't simply selling their professional cards for 4x the price if their consumer counterparts just for a different package and better customer support.

Unless you're able to find some way to softmod that geforce GTX into a Quadro, I would seriously consider professional line card instead.

 

[Mize]

I suppose you recommend the 1700, 1700X after overclocking since it reduces the gap and also because its cheaper. Right?
Are you comparing the 1700x next to the 1800x only or next to the Intel CPUs I mentioned as well?

Yes. I'd overclock a 1700/X since it's essentially an 1800x and the 1800x has no comparable headroom. I wasn't comparing to the Intel chips. (Yet)

 

[Mize]

I'm at a computer now so I can type more
Put this in the "if it were me" category and ignore at will.

I'd go AMD over Intel simply out of nostalgia. With that said, however, the Ryzen processors will hold there own just fine against the i7s for most everything - faster in many cases for multi-threaded stuff. You didn't mention a monitor (or I missed it?) or resolution, but if you're current it'll be some version of 4k in which case the Ryzen disadvantages are largely gone because whatever you do is GPU-limited. With that tidbit I'd also change 1080Ti cards to a cheaper one with Samsung memory and then slap a 2x120 closed loop cooler on it. I'd likely do the same on the CPU or just build a loop myself. I'm partial to the hum of water cooling and the ability to overclock without raising temps much. On that point, I'm still running a 2600k @ 4.4 GHz on water along with 2x GTX680s. They're dated but I can slam them with any benchmark and still keep them under 40C.

Did I mention I hate the M.2 tiny screw install? Get a magnetic screwdriver just for this!

 

[Nesh]

I'm at a computer now so I can type more
Put this in the "if it were me" category and ignore at will.

I'd go AMD over Intel simply out of nostalgia. With that said, however, the Ryzen processors will hold there own just fine against the i7s for most everything - faster in many cases for multi-threaded stuff. You didn't mention a monitor (or I missed it?) or resolution, but if you're current it'll be some version of 4k in which case the Ryzen disadvantages are largely gone because whatever you do is GPU-limited. With that tidbit I'd also change 1080Ti cards to a cheaper one with Samsung memory and then slap a 2x120 closed loop cooler on it. I'd likely do the same on the CPU or just build a loop myself. I'm partial to the hum of water cooling and the ability to overclock without raising temps much. On that point, I'm still running a 2600k @ 4.4 GHz on water along with 2x GTX680s. They're dated but I can slam them with any benchmark and still keep them under 40C.

Did I mention I hate the M.2 tiny screw install? Get a magnetic screwdriver just for this!

Monitor I havent decided yet. Samsung memory I guess is referring to RAM right?
I am going for the I700X after all as you guys advised if I choose an AMD.. Do you think the cooler I have chosen will suffice for my CPU if I OC?

GPU is definitely not the easy part here.
For the kind of usage you mentioned, I'm pretty sure you're much better off with a Quadro or Radeon Pro, even if for the same price you'll get much lower gaming and theoretical performance.
You should check SPECviewperf benchmarks, for example. Davros already gave you a heads-up on this. AMD and nvidia aren't simply selling their professional cards for 4x the price if their consumer counterparts just for a different package and better customer support.

Unless you're able to find some way to softmod that geforce GTX into a Quadro, I would seriously consider professional line card instead.

Certainly I am going with NVIDIA. Based on what I was told by people working in the field, they have experienced better compatibility between programs and NVIDIA cards.
Now regarding a professional card you are right for pointing this out.
Looking at the options a Quadro P4000 is more than a thousand €. Any quadro below that price appears to theoretically take significant performance and memory hit which troubles me as I cant find comparisons between a Quadro priced as much as a 1080ti in terms of performance for the work I ll be doing.
Opinions are mixed regarding which is better (1080ti vs P4000) in certain situations. Quadros appear to be the super stable, super reliant choice, works better with OpenGL and with certain highly advanced features (question is how often will I be touching those?). At the same time I have to consider that I wont be only rendering CG but also working with actual game assets and game engines. Which is where the 1080ti might probably be the more rounded option but not sure. I havent found a clear comparison between 1080ti vs a Quadro for the performance/$ value. Now I am very troubled.

I am looking for recent SPECviewperf benchmarks but I cant find anything recent.

 

[Nesh]

I wasn't comparing to the Intel chips. (Yet)

Ok. Hopefully I d like to hear opinions on this as well. Someone told me there is a lot more headroom for OC in Intel chips that reduce the gap and having a mobo that supports Intel processors may be more future proof.

Thoughts?

 

[Davros]

I think these were the 2 gfx cards involved

 

[Mize]

Wrt Intel, those chips will undoubtedly overclock well. In the case of Kaby, however, they'll run hot hot hot unless you're willing to delid and replace the TIM under the heat spreader. There are foolproof tools for delidding online for about $40USD. If you're wanting to avoid this then stick to Broadwell [corrected from Skylake] or AMD.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

a) Ryzen 1800X Has amazing results in multithreading especially for the price. Probably better than the intel processors I will note below. But in terms of single core performance, the i7 are probably better?
The other problem is that it doesnt have much room for overckolicng. From 4Ghz it can get the most at 4.1Ghz. Anything above that is risky to impossible
b) Ryzen 1700X paired with fast memory I ve read diminishes the performance difference from the 1800X. Regardless I am not sure if I am missing something. Makes the existence of 1800X pointless considering that the 1700X is much cheaper. Also OC diminishes the difference even farther. But I am not sure if that will risk thge longevity of the card. The OC room doesnt go beyond what the 1800X can do either.

Basically, it comes down to more power consumption for the 1700x when overclocked compared to the 1800x. Unlike the 1600x vs. 1600 situation, however, the price differential is large enough that it's unlikely the 1700x would become a worse value proposition (when overclocked) over time unless electricity in your area is extremely high.

Regards,
SB

 

[Mize]

Basically, it comes down to more power consumption for the 1700x when overclocked compared to the 1800x. Unlike the 1600x vs. 1600 situation, however, the price differential is large enough that it's unlikely the 1700x would become a worse value proposition (when overclocked) over time unless electricity in your area is extremely high.

Regards,
SB

Keep in mind the duty cycle at high clock vs. idle too. During gaming the power differential is significant, but doing work is typically a high % idle for the cpu and I'm assuming Ryzen idles will even when oc'd.

 

[Nesh]

I think these were the 2 gfx cards involved

Yes indeed the 6950 seems to obliterate theoretically. Professional practically obliterate consumer cards in certain programs such as Solidworks.
I think though I ll have to go for the consumer card as I will be mostly dealing with game design and the price is more attractive.
Thanks for the heads up though

Wrt Intel, those chips will undoubtedly overclock well. In the case of Kaby, however, they'll run hot hot hot unless you're willing to delid and replace the TIM under the heat spreader. There are foolproof tools for delidding online for about $40USD. If you're wanting to avoid this then stick to Broadwell [corrected from Skylake] or AMD.

7700k is out of the question then. I dont want to risk and surely I want to avoid as much fuss as possible. Thanks

Basically, it comes down to more power consumption for the 1700x when overclocked compared to the 1800x. Unlike the 1600x vs. 1600 situation, however, the price differential is large enough that it's unlikely the 1700x would become a worse value proposition (when overclocked) over time unless electricity in your area is extremely high.

Regards,
SB

Keep in mind the duty cycle at high clock vs. idle too. During gaming the power differential is significant, but doing work is typically a high % idle for the cpu and I'm assuming Ryzen idles will even when oc'd.

I am not planning to use it much for gaming. Most time will be taken by modeling and rendering. So yes, I expect lots of time where the CPU will be idle. But oh boy during renders thats going to keep it busy a lot