PC Spec for Realtime and Simulations

[dj_buckley]

Disclaimer: I'm not technical at all so respond to me like I'm 5.

I want to spec a PC build that will used solely for realtime stuff i.e. Unreal Engine, and simulations i.e. Phoenix, Tyflow, Marvelous Designer.  And then rendering when not in use for anything else.

So far this is what I've spec'd but I love someone to sanity check this for me.

- ASUS TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI D4 - PCIe 5.0, 4x M.2, 2.5GbE/WiFi 6E
- Intel Core i9 13900KS, Raptor Lake, 24 Cores, 32 Threads, 3.2GHz Base, 6.0GHz Turbo
- Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Black - Quiet Performance Air Cooler
- 128GB (4x32GB) Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz
- 24GB ASUS GeForce RTX 4090 TUF GAMING OC, 16384 Cores, 2565MHz Boost, GDDR6X - GeForce RTX VR Ready
- Corsair HX1000i, Modular, Silent, 80PLUS PLATINUM
- 1TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe PCIe 4.0, 7000MB/s Read, 5000MB/s Write, 1000K IOPS
- 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe PCIe 4.0, 7450MB/s Read, 6900MB/s Write, 1400K IOPS

Obviously budget is at the back of my mind, so I've opted for TUF over ROG where any Asus parts are involved.

The 1TB SSD is for Operating Systems and Software, the 2TB SSD is for cache files and the like.

The RAM is because the machine will also be used for rendering and my scenes often exceed 64GB on my other PC's (which all have 128GB in them).  However, can I run 4x 32GB sticks with this processor because I read - "The CPU supports up to 128 GB of memory in 2 memory channels."

The things I'm not sure on - the processor, the PSU, the cooling.  I've gone for the i9 as a compromise between cost/speed when compared to the Threadrippers.  Also because I read Speeds are more useful than Cores for this sort of thing.  The PSU I have no idea if this is enough wattage, the cooling again I have no idea.

Any help anyone can give would be much appreciated.

[Juraj]

The PSU is just enough, as 1000W is minimum recommended by nVidia itself for FE version, but it won't hurt to step up to 1200W.

You can use 4x32GB ram, actually even 4x48GB that recently came to market, but you need DDR5 for Z790 motherboard, so around 4800 MT/s. I have no particular brand or model to recommended, I don't use any non ECC at the moment.
(if you choose older platform, the 13900KS supports DDR4 as well, but it's one or other only).

Samsung 980 Pro are great, but they had lot of firmware issues, so the very first moment you will turn your PC on and log-into Windows, right away install Samsung Magician software and update the firmware.
Otherwise they stop working at any time. Specially the 2TB model is the one that came with bad firmware from factory.

13900 and NH-D15 work great. You can always also choose some popular robust AIO like Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360. Just as easy to install and same reliability.

[dj_buckley]

Thanks Juraj, so to confirm, because of the Motherboard I've spec'd I need to use DDR5.  Or was the DDR5 just if I wanted to use 4x48GB sticks?

I'll go with the 1200W PSU.

Thanks for the headsup on the SSD firmware.

[Juraj]

No it depends purely on motherboard, the socket is slightly different. All 7xx boards are DDR5 only. 48GB modules are also DDR5 only.
DDR5 currently go as high as 7200 MTS but the CPUs are not able to utilize it in 128-192GB configurations, it's too stressful and unstable.

It's good solution to buy older motheboard and use DDR4 if you have existing DDR4 memory laying around and want to save money.
But this will be absolutely state of art powerful workstation, much faster than any Threadripper so DDR5 does make sense and will help the GPU as well.

[dj_buckley]

Interesting

I've just checked the webpage for the motherboard and it suggest DDR4 compatibility.  For context, the issue I'm having is that I build PC's through Scan (business account), and DDR5 isn't an option with the build option I've chosen.  However, they are allowing me to spec this motherboard and DDR4 together.  They normally flag it if there's an issue.

Here's the webpage for the mobo - https://www.asus.com/uk/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-z790-plus-wifi-d4/

And screenshot attached.

There are two options I can start with on the Scan site - screenshot attached.  There is a build option with DDR5 but only up to a maximum 96GB it seems.

What would the noticeable benefits be to me as the user if I went with DDR5 over DDR4?

[Juraj]

HAH ! My apology. Looks like Asus actually made two versions of the boards. TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI and TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI D4, so there is version for both DDR5 only, and DDR4 Only.

Looks like this is Asus's initiative, as Intel didn't want DDR4 on the newest platform, for obvious market segmentation reason (buy the latest, greatest).

Benefits of faster memory is mostly in increased bandwidth, memory doesn't itself increase performance but can become bottleneck for very fast CPU and GPUs in lot of particular tasks.
Not in rendering, rather single-threaded processes.

[dj_buckley]

Ok great, thanks Juraj.  Appreciate the help

[dj_buckley]

But this will be absolutely state of art powerful workstation, much faster than any Threadripper so DDR5 does make sense and will help the GPU as well.

Just been testing this.  It isn't.  The 3990x is a lot faster when rendering than the i9.  Destroys it in the latest Corona Benchmark too.

Two screenshots attached.  The screenshots are from both PC's rendering the same HEAVY scene locally.  In much less time, the threaripper delivered, more passes, lower noise, twice as many rays etc etc etc

The text documents are from Corona benchmark.

[Juraj]

I meant single-threaded performance, the thread focus was on real-time, interconnection with GPU performance, etc..
You wrote in first post: " PC build that will used solely for realtime stuff i.e. Unreal Engine, and simulations i.e. Phoenix, Tyflow, Marvelous Designer."

In terms of raw multi-threaded power for computation tasks like rendering, the amount of cores can't compete of course.
It's 24 Cores (32 Threads) vs 64 cores (128 Threads). It's 3x Cores difference.
But that info was always available in benchmark database, although that can get skewed a lot by people submitting a lot of overlocked machines.

For single universal PC machine that does it all, latest Threadripper (upcoming 7xxx) and Xeon machines will always offer the best solution.
That will never change.

[dj_buckley]

Of course it was, ignore me :)  I was testing for a completely different reason yesterday and the 'faster than any threadripper' popped into my head last night.  It's been a long weekend of troubleshooting

[Juraj]

I am surprised I used such hyperbolic language though. Probably because by now the 3990x is bit outdated for single-core performance (and that's very noticeable when I use my 13850HX laptop), although it's still one of my two primary workstations because you just can't beat the performance when doing lot of interactive previews.