Upgrading PC next week. Any suggestions
I am going to upgrade my PC next week. The store I am going to buy from is https://www.pccasegear.com/ The site was recomended by gamers at my work place several years ago and re-confirmed recently by a new team member (and avid gamer). This particular one meets the currect requirements https://www.pccasegear.com/products/59626/pccg-matrexx-3060-gaming-pc but I am concerned going forward with the 9th generation of characters being released this month and hints of Daz version 5 at the great reveal recently. I want to ensure a PC I buy will do what's needed now and into the forseeable future.
My requirements are fast (relative) renders in Iray (at the moment I can't render in Iray as my Nvidia card is too old) I need to be able to use Dforce, currently I can't same issue with graphics card. I will need to be able to render V9 without waiting ages as I have pre-ordered the HD bundle. Now as I have not been able to render in Iray, I don't know render times burt I would expect not very long.
Comments
PS Australian web site so Australian Dollars.
I am in a similar situation, as I have a 10yo Win7 machine & a 6gb GTX 1060.
It's obvious that with 8k textures for Gen 9, lots & lots of RAM is going to be needed on the graphics card and on the main PC. At the moment the recommendation appears to be that the RAM is at least 3x Vram. So my suggestion would be to go for rather more RAM than the 16Gb default in that machine. 3x 12Gb = 36Gb and is a difficult number to achieve, so maybe go 48/64Gb. I have 24Gb in my current machine and it crashes fewer times than happened when it only had 16Gb in it. I'm going to try for 64Gb in my next machine.
The graphics card you're looking at is the one I'm going to go for.
Now the processor. Hmm. I don't really know. The slow parts of DS are usually single threaded, so a processor with fewer fast cores might be better for DS even if it's not so good for gaming. I really don't know, is an i5 12th gen faster in single core work than an i7 10th gen? I'm looking at an i5 12 gen/10 core machine but it's 10 cores because the clock speed is a bit higher than the 6 core CPU's. It may something for you to consider. If you want to do gaming too then more cores would be useful.
DS seems to need a fairly unbalanced machine, with RAM & Vram being more important than almost anything else. Gamers tend to need a better balanced machine with more emphasis on brute total CPU power, and it seems they can't yet take advantage of the capability of the top end GPU's that DS does. It's a conundrum.
Regards,
Richard.
Thanks Richard, Always a pleasure when I see you have answered.
Daz recommended system requirements are:
64 Bit
WHQL-64 certified
Intel Xeon/Core 2 Duo or Quad /Core i7 or AMD Opteron/Phenom processor(s)
Windows 10, 8, 7 & Vista (Windows 10, 8, or 7 is recommended)
2 GB RAM min (3GB+ RAM recommended)
1GB free hard drive space for installation
Hardware accelerated OpenGL 1.6 compatible graphics card with at least 512 MB RAM (OpenGL 2.2, or higher, compatible recommended)
DirectX 9 (used for audio processing only)
**Additional Details:
NVIDIA Iray Render Engine: 64-bit only. NVIDIA video card with 4GB+ VRAM recommended. CUDA Compute Capability 2.0 or greater required.
The web site also gives the option of building a PC. I chose the cheapest option that meets the minimum Daz recommended system. I would be happy with suggestions to build a PC (from the options from this web site)
I am not a tech guy so most of this goes over my head.
I would make these changes;
Update the RAM to 32GB's, change the PSU to 750W or 850W for future expandability, change the Seagate HD to 1TB SSD and add an external 4TB USB drive for the DAZ Content
Well, to be honest the only part of what you have said you are thinking of that I feel is rather under specced is the RAM. That can be added to later. I just have a concern that you won't be able to make full use of the graphics card if you don't increase the RAM.
I won't claim I'm a PC guru, quite the opposite. I am just trying to relate the thoughts I've been having with the same issue. DS 4.21 must be coming out in a few days for G9 to work on, and DS 5.x will come one day. Will a minimum spec machine work with these very well? Probably not. I'm hoping to get 10 years minimum out of my next machine, and the main differences between it and yours are that I'm looking at an i5 not i7, and 64 Gb RAM ,ot 16Gb. I may be the one under speccing the processor...
Regards,
Richard
Yeah, I don't understand where have they come up with those 'recommendations'... They were probably valid some 8 years ago.
I agree, but I'm a big spender. I would get a 1000W power supply. Now that may not be enough for the newer graphics card.
Thank you all for your input. I greatly appreciate it. Taking your suggestions into consideration (and like Richard I would like this PC to last about 10 years)
- Intel Core i7 12700 Processor
- Phanteks Glacier One 240MP D-RGB AIO CPU Cooler OEM PCCG Edition
- ASUS Prime B660M-K DDR4 Motherboard
- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Vision OC LHR 12GB
- Team T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz CL18 DDR4 Black
- Corsair Force Series MP510B M.2 NVME SSD 960GB
- Phanteks Revolt Pro Full Modular Gold 1000W Power Supply
- Phanteks Eclipse P360A Airflow D-RGB Tempered Glass Black
- Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM DVD
- Standard Assembly
- 2 Year Warranty
Total price $2700 delivered (Aust dollars)
Additional, I already use external drives for content.
I would suggest you add to that a secondary HDD drive at least 4GB for your personal files, pictures, music, documents etc. The SSD should only be used for programs and not personal files. You will run out of room very quick on the SSD. Do get the external for your content though. Not a necessity but it may be easier and cheaper to upgrade RAM later down the road if you found another motherboard that has at least 4 DIMM slots. This MB only has 2. You can get another ASUS around the same price range that do have 4.
Thanks Frank0314
- Intel Core i7 12700 Processor
- Phanteks Glacier One 240MP D-RGB AIO CPU Cooler OEM PCCG Edition
- ASUS Prime B660-Plus DDR4 Motherboard
- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Vision OC LHR 12GB
- Team T-Force Delta RGB 32GB (2x16GB) 3600MHz CL18 DDR4 Black
- Crucial P5 Plus M.2 NVMe Gen4 SSD 1TB
- Seagate Barracuda 4TB ST4000DM004 3.5in Hard Drive
- Phanteks Revolt Pro Full Modular Gold 1000W Power Supply
- Phanteks Eclipse P360A Airflow D-RGB Tempered Glass Black
- Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM DVD
- Standard Assembly
- 2 Year Warranty
AUS$2875
Change the W10 Home to W10 Pro
Wait for the new AMD CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs to become available, then make your decision.
Thanks for the suggestions. I am not convinced W10 pro would be of benefit. I have used 10 home for years with no issues. Waiting for the latest and best may not be an option. I am on a budget. I still have to get this approved by my partner who has agreed to me getting a new pc but the current price of the box detailed above hasn't been discussed.
With W10 Home one is at the mercy of Microsoft, with the Pro version, one can have some control over ones own computer.
Thanks for the comment PerttiA. Can you explain what you mean or give an example? I am all for control over my own machine.
This was the best one I found;
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/choose-windows-10-home-pro-right-edition/
Thanks PerttiA. I checked out the web address above. Most went over my head with the exception of updates being able to be scheduled. I have lost so many hours having renders deleted before completion because of Windows updates.
Order placed, now eagerly awaiting build, test , express post and most important receipt of above described box with a change from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro. Total cost Aus$2905 including express post.
A BIG thank you for everyone who contributed.