Workstation vs "Gaming" machine

[Ilija]

Hi guys,

Recently I moved from CG to architectural office. Since I am still going to do fair amount of 3d work, I send them specs for the machine I need. I wanted something similar to what we used in my previous office, although slightly under powered. Here are the specs:
Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3
i7 5820K 3.3GHz (with possibility to change for 5960x)
Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX
G.Skills Ripjaws 32GB DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA 750W
Samsung  850 EVO SSD
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Ultimate 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

However, the IT guy from the new office changed it to, saying that certified graphics and xeon cpu will make professional workstation and better performing machine :
Xeon E5 2630 v3 2.4GHz
Quadro K2200
EVGA 850W PSU

I really have limited knowledge regarding computer hardware, so I would like to hear you opinion guys?
By the way, I am using 3d max 2014 and both Corona 1.00.02 and vray 3.1

P.S. I experience noticeable setback with viewport performance, it dropped roughly 40% compared to GTX 780Ti I used in my previous office. I am not sure if it's because of Quadro or it can be something else...

Thank you,
Ilija

[zdragas]

Hi,
In my experience my GT770 at home works faster than QuadroK4000 at work (3DSMAX 2013 and 2015)

Regarding CPUs, they are almost identical when it comes to using all cores (rendering) but in single core performance 5820 wins by 10%. Max uses only one core when working in viewport (according to my task manager)

[Ilija]

Hi zdragas,

Thank you for your replay. Similar answer I found on other forums as well.

Regards,
Ilija

[Jann]

P.S. I experience noticeable setback with viewport performance, it dropped roughly 40% compared to GTX 780Ti I used in my previous office. I am not sure if it's because of Quadro or it can be something else...

It's mostly the Quadro, as it's nowhere near the performance of 780Ti. And also lower per-core clock speed might add to the slowdown. Both 5820k and that Xeon may be close when rendering, but you can overclock the i7, and it's overall cheaper.
I'd fire that IT guy (unless the company has a contract on buying prebuilt systems, he doesn't seem to know the real performance needs for 3dsmax etc.)

[Juraj]

he doesn't seem to know the real performance needs for 3dsmax etc.)

Just like 90perc. of 3dsMax users themselves :/ Quadro for anything outside of scientific calculations ( due to buffered/registered memory), film/vfx color pipeline ( due to native 14bit LUT hardware support) or niche CAD like Catya (due to specialized OpenGL driver) is wasted money.

But hey, it’s “professional” grade, Autodesk-“approved” and somewhere 7 years ago there was special driver for 3dsMax, so it must have been good=still must be good.

[Ilija]

Thank you guys, your feedback is much appreciated. I share the same opinion. I think he thought if it works for Revit it must work for 3dsMax as well, unfortunately it's not the case.