Please critique my PC build, am I potentially building a bomb?
the5amkebab
Posts: 103
I've been using a 3 year old gaming laptop with a 1050ti and while the rest of my laptop has been fine for Daz (i7 7700HQ, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD) the GPU is a major pain for the kind of renders I do, I definitely need more VRAM and the extra speed will be welcome too. I've attached a screenshot of my proposed build put together at pcpartpicker. I want to build one based around an RTX 2070 Super with the capability of adding another 2070 Super by NVlink in the future for a combined 16GB VRAM, if I even decide to go that way after to 30XX cards are released.
It will only be used for Daz rendering, I'm keeping my laptop for all other use. Therefore, I assume since my laptop has been perfectly fine for Daz, apart from the GPU, I won't need to splash out on expensive or the latest parts (although I am still upgrading from my current specs in almost every way) as long as they will not hold the GPU back from doing its thing. If this is incorrect assumption then I'd like to know so I can change the build. I am trying to make this happen on a budget so I have to keep a cap on what I spend though.
The thing I'm most unsure of is the motherboard, I've checked this has a PCIe x16 lane, supports the RAM amount and speed, the ram is 3200mhz as I've read AMD CPU's prefer that, however I have a feeling I'm missing something else important I need to check? The CPU is a slight upgrade or maybe even equal to my current CPU, it has built in graphics and a cooler/fan so I'm hoping that I can use the GPU in that for all other non-Daz/iray GPU requirements and monitor so I can save as much of the 2070 S VRAM as possible for just rendering. I've read that you want to overshoot with your power supply but not by too much, power draw is approx 400w so I've gone for a 600w PS. Once again, if I'm risking damaging or throttling any other parts by buying the wrong part then please let me know, any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated as this is my first time building rather than buying a pre-built set up.
Thanks you.
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Comments
Looks fine to me. It's similar to mine I just built except I used an 8GB MSI AMD GPU and a 2nd Gen (Zen+) AMD Ryzen 7 2700 instead of your Zen+ Ryzen 5 3400G with integrated Vega GPU. Yes, despite the Ryzen 5 3400G name that APU is 2nd gen Zen+ and not 3rd gen Zen 2 architechture.
While I understand why you'd want an integrated backup GPU to run your monitor or in case the discrete one failed I remember when I was designing my desktop initially I almost bought a Ryzen 5 3400G until I started doing processing power comparisons of AMD CPUs that were in my price range and settled for an 8 core 16 thread AMD Ryzen 7 2700 for $150 (on sale at Amazon as a Christmas special and about the same price as a Ryzen 5 3400G anyway).
The 2700 is much faster CPU rendering than the 3400G is and since the integrated GPU is not nVidia that gets you no iRay rendering speed increases. If you create scenes that exceed the size of you discrete nVidia's GPU VRAM the 2700 with 32GB and more is much better at CPU rendering than the 3400G with 32GB & more.
Of course if you can afford the 2nd gen Zen 2 8 core/16 thread or now even 16 core/32 thread AMD Ryzen CPUs then go for those but those aren't really economically sound yet for home hobbyists like you or me. If you wait you can probably upgrade the 3400G or 2700 you buy now during this year's Cyber Mondays sales period cheap, well the 2nd gen Zen 2 8 core/16 thread at least, the 2nd gen Zen 2 16 core/32 thread is still likely to cost about $400 and that would be half price from retail.
Here's my 2 cents:
Since you are getting a mid tower, I go for a larger motherboard so that you have the upgradability in the future (More PCI-e and M.2 slots).
I would get a X570 chipset based motherboard for the PCI-e 4.0 capability for when you upgrade your CPU in the future.
Swap out that single 2TB SATA SSD for either 2x 1TB NVME drives (if you switch to a bigger motherboard) or 1x 1TB NVME (for the OS) and 1x 1TB SATA SSD
NVME drives are much faster than the old SATA standard
Other than that your build looks solid
One thing to always keep in mind is the motherboard life cycle. AMD does not change sockets very often. If you buy a nice high end AM4 board now, you will probably still be using the same board in our computer for your next 2 or 3 CPU upgrades.
My motherboard is only a $70 Gigabytez B450 with wifi and I had to upgrade the BIOS before it could even do Zen 2 architecture AMD CPU/APUs (although I don't have one yet). It has only one PCIe nvme slot so I had to go with a 2TB PCIe nvme SSD for the system disk and 1 2TB sata III SSD for the DAZ 3D, pictures, videos & all 'document data'. Finally, 2 more 2TB sata III SSDs serve as weekly backup devices for the 2 2TB devices already mentioned.
For me it works quite well and even with the sata III SSDs for the DAZ 3D data, it's so fast compared to magnetic disks as to not be a problem at all: but as JamesJAB says if you can afford it 2 nvme slots is preferable (they are more the $100 for sure but can be had for less than $200 for sure as well), one for system & one for data like DAZ models & such. Then you use 2 sata III SSDs for backup devices. Sure you can go more and even get those expensive gaming motherboards but if I thought you had money to burn you wouldn't be on these forums asking for advice and saying you are going to be using an AMD Ryzen 5 3400G.
By the way, my new AMD desktop was regularly bluescreening in Windows 10 until I removed all AMD supplied StorMI drivers and software: now it hasn't bluescreened in a month and a half. It's only the StorMI drivers & software that was a problem not the other AMD supplied SW & drivers. It may partially be a problem with Gigabytez implementation of the StoreMI tech on the motherboard itself though; actually I'm pretty sure it must be but I have no interest in investigating unless I was interested in using the StoreMI technology. As storage is fast enough, for now, I'll wait.
Sorry to bring you the bad news, but nvlink on Geforce cards doesn't work that way. You WILL NOT get a 16GB combined VRAM. Nvlink creates a shared vram only with the Titan and Quadro series. You will still have 8 GB despite having 2 GPU's, the only difference is your renders will go almost 2x faster.
Second thing is, if you really plan on adding a second GPU, a Blower-style might be a better choice. 2 "regular" GPU's will likely cause an overheating problem to some degree. The advantage with blower-style cards is they suck the air from the side, and blow it directly through the back of your PC case, instead of cooking everything inside the case.
Third thing - if you plan on adding multiple GPU's, remember that the PSU's wattage is one thing, but the amperage on the +12V rail is other thing. Be sure to choose a PSU that can actually support enought current on the +12V rail. I'm not an expert on PSU's, but for a reliable PC I would avoid thermaltake, instead go with a high-end Corsair series or Seasonic.
Thank you for the replies everyone, all have been very helpful. I've made a couple of changes based on James and nonesuch's advice, I've upgraded the CPU and MB, this will bump the total cost up about $200-$300 as I need to buy a small GPU if I still want to leave the 2070 Super for Daz alone, I assume I can just buy a cheap 2GB AMD GPU as my monitor/everything else GPU with this MB and CPU?
mwasielewski - I read in this thread and others that the latest Daz beta supports VRAM pooling by NVlink for 2070 Supers and above, so this information is incorrect? https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/384006/rtx-2080ti-or-x2-2070
I'll still go with the 2070 S regardless as it represents the best value for me right now, for some reason 2060 S prices have increased 40-50% in my country since all this covid stuff but 2070 S prices have only increased 10-20%. I wouldn't be buying another GPU for at least 6 - 12 months so hopefully 2070 S VRAM pooling is incorporated in Daz by then if current information about it being already incorporated in the latest beta is false.
Thanks for the heads up on the PSU's and amperage, I didn't know about that.
New build is attached (minus the 2nd monitor GPU, pcpartpicker only allows one GPU in the table at a time), as well as the components working well together, am I going to run into any troubles in physically connecting and positioning them in the case? I've read some MB's have odd configurations where if you use a card on a certain slot it then blocks other slots for RAM or storage, which seems odd.
Thanks.
On the updated build.
You can safely get the 3600 rather than the 3600X that will save some money.
You don't need the X570 board. an ATX B450, or wait for the B550's, will be fine for your needs.
I wouldn't sink all that cash into a 2Tb SSD. That may seem like a lot of storage but I have nearly 6Tb of assets, not including all the Vicky 4 stuff I archived. I'd recommend getting a 1Tb SSD, or even a 512Gb if you will really only use this for DS, and get a big HDD.
If your goal is to get a second GPU you want a better PSU. Based on a quick spec of your system I'd think you'd need at least an 800W PSU for two and probably more like 900 to 1000w.
Also the update to DS that is due very soon does add NVLink support for VRAM pooling.
I wouldn't fill up a 2TB HD for quite a long time, I'm more concerned with speed not only of rendering but loading times and general navigation, do you think I would see any noticeable difference or slowdown in any part of running Daz and loading items/scenes etc if I were to get a HDD and a smaller boot SDD instead?
Great news about the VRAM pooling! Hopefully it is fully functional by the time I am ready to get a 2nd GPU.
If your assets are on a HDD you might see slightly slower loading times. I've never benchmarked the process but there seems to be a lot of processing going on besides just loading the files so I don't think it will make that much of a difference. But if you really only have a 1Tb or so of assets get the SSD, prices are good right now.
Keep in mind that NVLink requires identical cards. My experience with it is in Quadros where there aren't multiple manufacturers. I'd check around and see if there is any clear statement about how closely they need to match. It would suck to buy a second card and the $100 NVLink bridge and then not have it work.
I still stand by my motherboard recomendation, but you do not need to go for a $200 gaming board. The $150 regular X570 boards will still support the latest and greatest CPUs and PCI-e 4.0 devices for may years to come.
And once again... Stop looking at SATA solid state drives. The read and write speeds on those top out at about 550MB p/s, While NVME M.2 drives can hit 4000MB p/s on PCI-e 3.0 drives and over 5000MB p/s on PCI-e 4.0 drives. I recomend splitting your stograge space across 2 drives. One for Windows and your installed programs and a second one for storage (ex: Daz library folder). This way if the unthinkable happens, you can reinstall windows and your programs without needing to re-download your entire libraary.
OMG, i didn't know about that! If this is true, this can be a game changer. 16GB would be a sweet spot for me, but sadly Titan or Quadro cards are too expensive.
Does anyone from DAZ dev team can confirm that this is working, or is it just in early stage of development?
Kenshaw - Yes I've heard they need identical cards (unsure if that means identical brand too though) and I also read on a reddit Daz thread that currently, for those that have NVlink working in the beta, they even need identical PCIe slots, which is why I went for this motherboard as it has 2 x16 slots whereas most others in this price range or lower only have 1 x16 and the rest are x8 or lower.
James - a 250GB M.2 will add another $100 to the build, happy to do it if its going to mean added speed and security in case of "the unthinkable" as the unthinkable has happened to me before on an SSD, I do back up to external HDD's though. Where am I going to see the added speed benefit of M.2 vs SDD apart from booting up the PC and programs? Will it also significantly effect Daz character/scene/prop loading times?
Thanks again everyone.
You will need full length PCIE slots, video cards don't fit in the short ones at all. However MSI is being deceptive. It isn't possible to have to x16 slots from X570. The second full length slot is wired x4. You'd have to go to Threadripper or to Intel HEDT systems to get multiple wired x16 slots.
While those bandwidth numbers look impressive they are impossible to achieve IRL. They are only slightly faster than a SATA SSD in actual use. I have an M.2 boot drive, because i could afford one, but there is no reason or need to sink lots into an SSD just for a rig for DS.
It's in the release candidate they announced over the weekend. I just wish I could find details of use from someone trustworthy.
Just to clarify, if I want an x16 slot, I can't get it on X570 boards or cheaper boards (ie:B450) even though they are advertised as having them? I've attached a screenshot from MSI's website of the X570 in question, I was under the impression these would be the 2 x16 slots, but that's not the case? I need the x16 slot to get the full speed of the GPU don't I? I read elsewhere that using x8 then only allows 80% GPU performance? MB's are so confusing lol.
The top PCI-e slot is a 16x that is electricaly wired as 16x
Any other ones on the motherboard are wired at a lower number because of ow many lanes are avalible from the CPU.
If you want to run more than one video card at 16x, you will need an HEDT processor.
Intel HEDT CPUs use LGA 20xx sockets and have between 40 and 48 lanes depending on the generation.
AMD HEDT CPUs are Threadripper and Epyc. Threadrippers have 64 lanes (TR 3000 series are PCI-e 4.0), and Epyc CPUs have 128 lanes.
Also, I wasn't suggesting adding more storage. I was thinking more like getting 2x 1TB NVME drives instead of 1x 2TB SATA.
Generally speaking, the way it works with multiple physical x16 slots on a consumer-level (non-HEDT/server chipset based) motherboard - like the one you've linked to - is that the first x16 physical slot (closest to the CPU) has a true x16 data connection to the CPU. But only if the 2nd slot is unoccupied. In cases where the second slot is used, 8 lanes from slot one get redirected to slot two. Giving an arrangement of two physical x16 slots, but each with only an identical x8 data connection to CPU. So even on most consumer boards, having uneven PCI-E bandwidth to a pair of GPUs in slots one and two shouldn't be an issue.
As to whether the drop from x16 to x8 PCI-E data rates to each individual card matters for Iray use, the short answer is no. Apart from the first few seconds of the rendering process, scene asset data is not sent or received between the CPU and any connected Nvidia GPU over the PCI-E lanes during an Iray render (unless, as soemtiems happens with DS/Iray, there is hidden memory swapping between system ram and vram going on at the Nvidia driver level due to multiple apps collectively overloading vram - more on this at a later date...) Meaning that the worst case scenario would be around 2-6 seconds longer initial loading time. But considering this would be in exchange for a nearly 200% increase in pure rendering time with a two identical GPU setup, rendering overall ends up being dramatically faster. Making the x8 bandwidth limitation almost a complete non-issue. The only use case where it could become a noticeable would be in doing many short renders (eg. animations) in very quick succession, where the time spent on each frame is <60 seconds.
It's good you are almost there in your desktop design.
I disagree with ignoring sata iii solid state drives(SSDs). Sure, use 2 2TB nvme SSDs for your windows system & data storage drives but use sata iii SSDs for backup unless you have a MB that supports 4 nvme SSD drives then go for it but then if you have that much money why ain't you building a threadripper desktop with 256GB RAM and 2 or more nVidia RTX 2070 TI GPU cards?
If you need to go for bargain 2TB sata iii SSDs and bide your time until 2TB nvme SSDs are more affordably priced (as they surely will be eventually). Also you can likely start out with having your system and data drives on the same 2TB SSD and the 2nd 2TB SSD as backup until you can afford more and prices get cheaper too in the meantime.
Use M2 drives, they are as cheap as SSD now.
Get 32GB ram, you will see a difference
Get a 2080 if doable, probably could save getting a normal 2080.
Upgrade the cpu to 3600x.
Otherwise, you will end up needing a upgrade sooner than later.
As I wrote the manufacturers are using shorthand to be deceptive. The slots are full length and will accept GPU's but they're not wired to have 16 PCIE lanes. There just aren't enough PCIE lanes available for that.
Why would anyone ever vbuy a 3600X over a 3600? You're paying a price premium, at MSRP, of $50 for 200Mhz higher clock speed on a CPU with a base clock of 3.6Ghz.
Thanks everyone, I'm up to speed on the PCIe slots info now, its making more sense.
hobhobuk - thank you for the input and if money wasn't a factor I'd agree with you on most parts, but unfortunately even the worst M.2 are still $150 more expensive than a decent SSD where I am so I can't justify the cost considering SSD's have always worked perfectly fine for me and what I use them for. 32 GB RAM was always the plan, that hasn't changed. Although I'm building the rig around the GPU as I want the best rendering performance/dollar, I can't justify spending an extra $400-$500+ on a 2080 S (I wouldn't even consider a standard 2080 or any 6GB VRAM card, I want 8GB minimum) to get an extra 0.3 interations per second, 2070 S still presents best bang for buck for me, the only reason I'd consider a more expensive card would be for more VRAM, but then that's another $1000 minimum for a 2080ti 11GB where I am.
I'm just about ready to order but looking at toning down the MB to a B450 to save another $200 give or take as most seem to be saying the X570 is overkill, so I just need to make sure it supports my RAM size and speed, my GPU with at least 1 PCIe x16 slot, supports the CPU, they need a BIOS update too it appears? Anything else I'm missing?
EDIT: Would the MSI B450M Pro M2 Max mATX AM4 Tomahawk do the job?
The Tomohawk is one of the best regarded B450 motherboards. It will suppoert everything you want andit will support a second GPU. Just not in SLI, and perhaps not in NVLink. I couldn't find anything definite about NVLink on boards not SLI certified.
In theory it shouldn't matter since NVLink is a completely separate physical data interconnect to PCI. In fact, it is very likely that even SLI via NVLink (as Turing cards implement it: SLI data sent via the NVLink interconnect) works on motherboards specifically lacking official SLI compatibility because of this. However 'should' rather than 'does' does not a sound purchase strategy make. So be suitably wary.
I'm happy to upgrade the MB at a much later date with the 2nd GPU purchase, if that even happens, that plan isn't set in stone and its more important I get a decent PC ready to go now but also within my current budget. Thanks again for all the help, folks. Looks like I'm ready to order after the weekend.
Mission accomplished! I'm stunned how much faster the rendering time is and how much more I can fit into a scene, I won't even need a 2nd card, this is insanely good. For anyone with an older PC or GPU and wondering if the RTX cards are worth it, I say get one, its a massive game changer for me!