Animation build advice

[Ritsugamesh]

Hi guys,

My sister is a 3D VFX artist and whilst she's not working at her company's machines she has been using an aging Applle Mac desktop to handle any home workloads. I think she's now requiring the use of programs that can't be ran on Mac OS and the Mac itself is getting long in the teeth.

What specs would you guys recommend to run these programs efficiently?

http://usa.autodesk.com/maya/system-requirements/
https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/nuke/system-requirements/
https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/system-requirements/

I'm going to assume an nVidia gpu with CUDA is a good idea? Would a piledriver actually outperform an ivybridge in these kind of tasks? What sort of budget am I looking at spending? (She's asking how much a build might be, I would expect between £700-1000 is her limit)

Cheers for any help guys!

 

[snips86x]

Is just the base unit needed? OS?

This is what I've come up with:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £259.99
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £71.99
2 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £59.99 (£119.98)
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £54.95
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.98
Total : £920.92 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Not sure if another cooler is needed, but this seems to be a good choice...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-021-NC&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2346

EDIT: Also added nVidia GPU, but both are on the list of tested g/cards according to the links you have posted

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £259.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Superclocked 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £189.95
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £71.99
2 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £59.99 (£119.98)
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £54.95
1 x NZXT Source 210 Elite Midi Tower Case - Black £39.98
Total : £940.87 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 

[zakblood]

cuda cards tbh wouldn't help over any amd one for your apps either, in the links you have given, recommended or certified cards are top end ones like NVIDIA Quadro and ATI FirePro (FireGL) so if you went with any gaming card either Nvidia with cuda support or ati.amd with (openGL or fireGL or other type used)

Integrated graphics systems are not Recommended or Certified either.

saying that, none of the above cards have even been tested or ever will be tested to work with those apps listed, with only NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 and 295 being the only ones to date that have been, so any of the latest card will work, but to what degree is another matter, as she is doing it for a job, budget for a better card so support is at least certified etc

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=1914&subid=2410&sortby=priceAsc

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=708

 

[snips86x]

cuda cards tbh wouldn't help over any amd one for your apps either, in the links you have given, recommended or certified cards are top end ones like NVIDIA Quadro and ATI FirePro (FireGL) so if you went with any gaming card either Nvidia with cuda support or ati.amd with (openGL or fireGL or other type used)

Integrated graphics systems are not Recommended or Certified either.

saying that, none of the above cards have even been tested or ever will be tested to work with those apps listed, with only NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 and 295 being the only ones to date that have been, so any of the latest card will work, but to what degree is another matter, as she is doing it for a job, budget for a better card so support is at least certified etc

I think you should read the details on the link before you post!! The cards above have been tested and are complient with the software in question.

 

[zakblood]

i did,

you need OpenGL 2.0 with support for floating point textures and GLSL.

so any card would fit the bill, compliant yes, i was trying to say Recommended or Certified or even tested with them, any results with cards above as there's plenty of links online for Recommended or Certified cards to post if users wants to see them.

budget is tight for those cards yes agree, with gaming cards most of the power may not be used with the drivers of these apps, and ever time i seen or heard a cad pc the cards are next to silent, can't say that with gaming card tbh, your build spec for the price is great, was just pointing out that if you use the first link given, the cards aren't in there and never will be, the only ones listed was the ones i posted above

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?siteID=123112&id=18844534

there's the link snips m8, i don't make it up as i go along, and don't post just for the sake of it, i looked first, posted second, sorry if i'm wrong, but i couldn't find the cards

won't keep spamming the thread with links either,

http://cadspeed.wordpress.com/tag/video-cards/

why gaming cards aren't as good for cad work as cad cards, first bit is all you need to read, it's not about speed, its accuracy

so another company saying the same thing, don't go down the route of thinking a gaming card will be as good as a cad only one, yes for the budget as it's low, id still put in a cad only one for same price, get less speed yes, but a lot more accuracy,less noise and heat, less power use etc etc, and better software support for me is the winner

so for me snips build is spot on, but i'd change to a Quadro or FirePro card to what ever you can afford to stay in budget

 

[dacads]

A professional card will be better than a gaming one for the required build

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-011-AM&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=708

 

[Ritsugamesh]

Thanks for all the posts guys, appreciate the time taken to help sort this all out.

I'll double check there's no gaming requirement in there and if not then I'll look to getting a FirePro solution for the build. The rest looks really solid, especially with the SSD and HDD in there. Is the 3770k the best chip in this budget for the job? I know Piledriver scales terribly for gaming, but does it fare better in these more optimized programs? (This is just a thought, I would much prefer to have an Intel cpu in her machine)

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[spoffle]

Don't bother getting a firepro, it'll just be a waste of money. Get a radeon, a 7850 would be a good choice for the budget.

These pro cards don't offer the advantage they used to years ago.