Got about 4k€ to build a new workstation. some help would be nice

[PsychoBoyJack]

Hi,

Hi, I haven't built a workstation for quite a few years now (8-9 i think) and things seem to have changed quite a lot.
I recently moved from vray to corona, and I need to build a workstation (for working with 3ds max and rendering with corona mainly),  with ~4k€ budget .
The only imperative is 128 GB RAM, (and of course a correct graphic card for working on 3ds max mainly).
I am looking for advices on parts to go in this build.

I started to look at xeons builds, but they seem really expensive. so i started to llok at I9 and amd.
Apparently threadrippers are the cpus to go for if i read the forum. So i guess a 2950/2970/2990 is what i have to go for (?)


I'm a bit lost when I browse the forum and stumble on so many things I dont know like "QVL b die samsung" "2933" "noctua" "dual\quad channel" . And I'm also totally lost about power supply, case, HDD (SSD, rpm,...).
5-6To hdd sounds enough(500Go SSD and rest normal ?, or are there certain other things to respect in that regard ?)
About the motherboard,I read a lot of asus prime, and others seem to prefer msi meg... I strictly have no idea why, so I dont think I m able to make an informed choice.
My main fear is to opt for parts not meant or ideal for working together in the same build.

Any advice would be welcome. If you know a company who could advise me on precise components, even if i have to pay a fee, I m also happy.

thank you.

[nerfherder]

Hi.
I was in a similar situation a few months ago, with a similar budget, and ended up going down the threadripper 2990wx route, as that seemed best to me in terms of price to performance.
I've had some issues with my motherboards - first MSI MEG was faulty with a slow bootup time, which has now been repaired apparently, and a replacement Zenith Extreme literally blew up in my face, but 3rd time lucky with another Zenith.
Although I love the machine, even despite my MB issues which I think I've just been unlucky, it is a bit of a fiddley system to spec out.
Memory needs to be fast as it directly affects the speed of the processor(or, at least, its rendering times in Corona, which is all that matters to me), and you need to check its been tested with your motherboard (Check the manufacturers QVL lists for tested ram and pick from there, should be found on their websites and lists ram that they have actually tested with the motherboard).
Another issue is (or was when I was speccing out) cooling. The most commonly available AIO when I was shopping was the Enermax Liqtech TR4 but it has serious reliability issues. Couldn't find stock of any other AIO (I think Corsair now do one). There are air coolers from Noctua, Coller Master available, and Thermaltake I think, but not many and they may struggle if overclocking. Also make sure the contact plate for whatever cooler you choose is full size for the Threadripper. In the end I went with a custom loop with kit from EK water blocks. At the time it was the best option for me, probably still is but it was expensive. Others who have a more off the shelf cooler may be able to help more.
In the end, my parts lost was this : 2990wx/ROG Zenith Extreme (or MSI MEG)/64 gb Corsair Vengence Pro/ Seasonic 1300w Prime PSU/ Samsung EVO 480gb & 500gb ADATA NVMe SSDs/ EVGA 1070 ti (seems to work for me in MAX just fine, but if your budget will stretch go for a 1080 TI for extra VRAM) / EKWB Loop/ Phantexs Evolv X. I don't have a lot of storage on the machine as I work off a server
Anyway, just my 2 cents on my recent build - in the end an intel system may be best for you. One good resource to test out build configs is PCPartPicker, if you haven't been there already. I've spent hours on that website.....

[PsychoBoyJack]

thanks a lot for your answer.

I am going to browse PCPartPicker right now

[Vuk]

I am not sure you will be able to fit the 2990wx in your budget with 128gb ram since that is an imperative as you stated. You can go for the 2970wx though there still aren't any banchmarks of it on the corona benchmark page dunno why since its out for 2 weeks already. I myself would prefer going for the highest end cpu always and if you go with 64 gb ram you could get it and upgrade the ram later but since its an imperative then the next best option is the 24 core cpu. Good luck with you purchase!

[PsychoBoyJack]

thanks, depending on the price at the end i could eventually switch for a 2970 we'll see. Also the budget is not "fixed" if its worth.

I am currently trying to choose a mother board. I heard asus was good so i picked Asus ROG ZENITH EXTREME to see if i can build something with it, but it seems when i look at the QVL for this motherboard, there is no 2933 RAM.   the higher the better, right ?

edit:  started to read about ram choice and got lost in all this b-die stuff. this looks complicated to the novice eye.
whats the optimal memory clock for threadripper, or the minimum one ?
i read everywhere dimm choice is really important whith them. Is there a tiny list with motherboard/macthing b-die ram  somewhere ?


Anyway,
Sill a long way to go, i have all week end to do this haha

thanks

[PsychoBoyJack]

Ok,
so i used this tool : https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/     to find a 128GB b die kit with correct latency.  The "best one" i found was this one : https://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-2933c14q2-128gtzrx
Now in the last link in qvl section, it is written that its ok with x399 (2990) cards, like for example    Asus ROG ZENITH EXTREME.

The problem :
in pc parts picker, when i pick this motherboard (   Asus ROG ZENITH EXTREME), i cant choose this memory (its not in the list).
did i make a mistake ?

any hint ?

thanks

[Vuk]

Go to the Asus Zenith motherboard official page and under compatability you can find the memory QVL list.

[PsychoBoyJack]

ok thanks.

RAM qvl is ok whith motherboards, but motherboards qvl do not list rams.

On the GSKILL page  https://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-2933c14q2-128gtzrx   , the QVL says its ok whith ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME, and MSI MEG X399 CREATION, but on the pages of the motherboards (https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socketTR4/ROG_ZENITH_EXTREME/ROG_Zenith_Extreme_memory_QVL2133-....pdf?_ga=2.91445914.1451843716.1541767273-46892080.1541767273  and  https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MEG-X399-CREATION#support-mem-17), the F4-2933C14Q2-128GTZRX does not appear.

any idea why ?

[janci]

Memory needs to be fast as it directly affects the speed of the processor(or, at least, its rendering times in Corona, which is all that matters to me), and you need to check its been tested with your motherboard (Check the manufacturers QVL lists for tested ram and pick from there, should be found on their websites and lists ram that they have actually tested with the motherboard).

Hi, are there any benchmarks or test/comparisons to support this? When you say speed of  memory is it timings or the actual frequency? A friend of mine tested cinebench scores of 2990wx at different memory frequencies and the results were completely negligible

I am also about to build a 2990wx rig for rendering so don't want to waste money on expensive RAM modules unnecessarily

Thanks for the info.

[Juraj]

Memory needs to be fast as it directly affects the speed of the processor(or, at least, its rendering times in Corona, which is all that matters to me), and you need to check its been tested with your motherboard (Check the manufacturers QVL lists for tested ram and pick from there, should be found on their websites and lists ram that they have actually tested with the motherboard).

Hi, are there any benchmarks or test/comparisons to support this? When you say speed of  memory is it timings or the actual frequency? A friend of mine tested cinebench scores of 2990wx at different memory frequencies and the results were completely negligible

I am also about to build a 2990wx rig for rendering so don't want to waste money on expensive RAM modules unnecessarily

Thanks for the info.

I've posted some in the big thread. At stock settings of @250W, auto voltage, circa 3.3Ghz all-core, the difference was 39 seconds at 2933MHz CL15, and 46 seconds at 2133MHz CL15. (Corona Benchmark)

As you wrote correctly, the difference is almost none in Cinebench R15 (5100 +/- in both settings). But Cinebench scales even the performance better than Corona. Corona seems to be memory bandwidth/latency dependant, moreso than other multithreaded applications.


So yeah, absolutely don't waste money on more expensive memory, capacity is always more important, but with Threadripper, it's good to aim for the 2933 (the highest stable). The timings are less relevant. It's true total speed of memory is influenced by both timing and frequency, but infinity fabric is more dependant on the frequency itself it seems, but I didn't see much benchmarks that would test different timings themselves, and I can't be bothered anymore.