Computer system recommendations

[SciGuy]

I've been working on my own game, and have realized my system won't handle the graphics. I'm looking at a few systems and thought it would be smart to ask the people who work with programs like DAZ3D and Unity just how much power I need.
Right now I have a core 2 Duo, 4 Gigs of RAM, an onboard GPU, and 2 X external 1 TB USB HDD's.
The system I'm looking at has an Intel Core i7, 16 Gigs of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060, a 1 TB internal HDD, and a 120 Gig solid state drive. The 2 X 1TB external HHD's will plug into the new system, so I'll have a total of 3 X 1 TB HDD's, 1 internal and 2 external. This system will be on sale soon, and it's a really big investment for me. If I'm going to spend this kind of $$$ I wanna make sure it'll handle everything I throw at it.
Will this do the trick, or do I need something more powerful?

 

[thecardinal]

That should be fine! I have a GTX 1050 card (and a PSU that can handle it), 32GB Ram. My processor is AMD A4-3420 APU with Radeon (no idea what it means, but it's at least 5 years old), and everything I have on computer is the way I bought it. You can check out my post history to see the images I can render with it.

 

[Johnyboy]

First of all there are different kinds of i7 CPU's depending on the generation and the model if you can give the model number (its written next to the CPU like I7 2600 this one is a second gen if the number was 3xxx and somthing it would be third gen and if it has a K next to number it would be better like I7 7700K ) I can give you more detail, but all of them are way better and I mean way way better then your core 2 duo, the graphic card is quite good the 1060 comes with two models a 3gb and a 6gb they are both perfect for gaming at 1080p and decent at 4K gaming the 6gb would be better of course not only for the extra 3gb but there are the same card but they both quite good high en gpu's and 16gb is more then enough ram .
overall yeah this PC unless it has an old first gen I7 which I doubt would be more then able to handle anything you through at it .

 

[SciGuy]

Thanks for the feedback. I used to keep up with this stuff, but got sidetracked for a few years!
It might be easier if I give you the link directly to the computer. It's listed on Best Buy, and it went on sale since I first made this post!

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Processor:
8th Gen Intel Core i7-8700
Graphics:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with 3GB dedicated video memory

This system comes with 16 GB RAM. Is that really enough? Memory's a heck of a lot cheaper per Gig than it was a few years ago, and when Best Buy knocked almost $300 off the price, I can probably upgrade the ram if I really need to.
From what I've read above though, I might be better suited by upgrading the video card to 6 GB. These are ready-to-go systems and I don't know how their upgrading policy works. I've always bought components individually and upgraded at home. It'd cost a LOT MORE to try and build a comparable system myself though.

 

[PMNL]

If it were up to me I'd rather go with a custom build system and swap out that 3GB GTX 1060 for either the 6GB version, or even a 1070 (TI) /1080 (TI) if your budget allows it.

DAZ allows GPU rendering only if the entire scene fits into your cards VRAM, meaning if you your scene ends up taking 3.1 GB of VRAM while you only have 3, the entire thing will be rendered by the CPU. Now both CPU and GPU rendering will eventually produce the exact same image, but a GPU rendered image will be done much faster (e.g. 3 - 5 minutes instead of 30 - 40 depending on what's in the scene).

A couple of months ago I started fiddling around with DAZ myself on my 2GB GTX 965M equipped laptop, and anything more than a single character (not even fully clothed & dressed) will cause DAZ to drop back to CPU rendering.

To illustrate the above, I'm currently rendering what I consider to be a fairly basic scene (on said laptop):

• 1 Character (G3F);
• 2 Pieces of clothing (dress + shoes);
• 1 Type of hair;
• 1 Room:
  • 4 Walls;
  • 1 Floor;
  • 1 Ceiling;
  • 1 Cabinet;
  • 1 Sofa;
  • 1 TV;
• 2 Lights (both point lights);

This scene has been rendering for about 30 minutes and has done 25 iterations (0%) so far...

Now even though all and everything has been left at default (e.g. objects carry their default (4K) texture files), this scene just won't fit into 2GB of VRAM, even if I use the scene optimizer and divide all textures by 16. The reason I continue anyway is to kill some time until my 1080TI arrives in a few days and I'll be able to see just how much it matters

Anyway, my point being, if you're spending money I'd put it into a decent GPU over anything else

 

[Johnyboy]

For that price its great deal the CPU is really good from the latest eighth gen it has 6 cores and 12 threads and can run up to 4.6ghz it will destroy anything you thought it with ease. as I said before 16gb of ram is plenty and as you said you can always upgrade it (not sure if the motherboard has 4 ram slots or just 2 I think it has just 2 but you can put a dual 16gb so the total would be 32gb which more ram then you never need for the next 5 years probably ).
and as

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stated if your planing to render at 4K resolution more Vram will do you good. I can see from the link you sent me that Best Buy made it possible to swap the GPU for 1080 for like an extra 650$ and that's quite idiotic or 1050Ti for around 180$ more which is more idiotic.
I say get this rig as it is and if your not satisfied with the GPU you can sell it, the price for 1060 3gb is around 250$ you can at worst sell at 200$ and get your self a 1080 for around 600$ or 1070ti for 500$ and that's a way better deal than what Buy Best offers.

 

[SciGuy]

Thanks for all the feedback once again. I'm going to head over to Best Buy tomorrow and talk to the Geek Squad folks face to face. Sometimes they have open-box stuff that isn't shown online, or will do special upgrades on a case-by-case basis. I'm really glad I got my advice here - it sounds like the best bang for my buck revolves around the video card. It's gonna be awesome to get away from the onboard video I'm using now.
I don't plan on rendering in 4k. My monitor is a 52" HDTV with max resolution of 1920X1080. If I work at a higher resolution than that I can't see the difference anyway.
Right now I'm working in 1280X720 (one of the Ren'Py default sizes). I'm trying to suss out how to play movie files with Ren'Py. I'm HOPING to create animation on my desktop and capture it as something Ren'Py can play. It plays music in a loop, why not video?

 

[thecardinal]

If you have money to throw around (which you might, cause that is a beast of a computer setup) look into getting Octane as well. Iray is good, don't get me wrong. But Iray to Octane is like comparing GIMP to Photoshop. Octane has a free demo on their website

 

[MaxCarna]

I strong recommend you try to change the 1060 3gb to a 6gb model, maybe with a cheap CPU to keep the same price.

Ryzen series are very good too, they usually win from intel in comparison in the workstation aspect. Intel threads are faster, but Ryzen come with more threads.
Look:

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The k on the intel model means that you can apply overclock on this model. The others are locked, only pay the extra price for k if you intend to overclock.

 

[PMNL]

...Ryzen series are very good too, they usually win from intel in comparison in the workstation aspect. Intel threads are faster, but Ryzen come with more threads...

To cut back the costs of a custom system I'd rather go Ryzen 5 or Intel i5, perhaps even less since the main goal of a "DAZ build system" is to make sure the entire scene fits inside the GPU's VRAM and if that's the case the CPU doesn't matter all that much. Not to say that having a more powerful CPU isn't useful for other applications such as running games or doing stuff on the PC while it's rendering, but If you're on a budget and intent to primarily use it as a rendering machine a lower end CPU should be fine.

E.g.: I tried rendering a couple of images on my PC which I use for capturing gameplay (i7-6700K, 32GB RAM, no dedicated GPU) and rendering even the simplest of scenes takes ages since it's CPU bound, while the same images take about 10 - 20 minutes on my 2GB 965M equipped laptop (again, no optimizations to shaders or textures have been applied, just messing around).

 

[SciGuy]

--look into getting Octane as well. Iray is good, don't get me wrong. But Iray to Octane is like comparing GIMP to Photoshop. Octane has a free demo on their website

Wow, a single Ocatane license is $400! While it could very well be something I'll buy in the future, I'm sticking to straight hardware for my 1st step. I can't even run the Octane demo right now. This poor system won't run Photoshop any more. When I try to open a 1920X1080 image I get an 'out of memory' error. I picked up Paintshop Pro which does work, but it sure ain't Photoshop. I've still got my old copy of CS5 in a portable version - something they discontinued when they went strictly online. It may be a little out of date, but it's still pretty awesome and there's no monthly fee.
I don't really have any $$ to throw around, I just happen to FINALLY be getting a nice chunk of funds that's been accruing for the past 5-plus months. I pretty much live in front of my 'puter so spending for this upgrade is practically a necessity.

 

[PMNL]

If money is that tight I'd either go with @Johnyboy's suggestion and see where a 3 GB 1060 will get you (which you could end up selling later if it turns out to not be enough), or dig into some custom builds to see if you can squeeze in a 6 GB version by lowering the CPU a tad. Reuse your old case and peripherals, perhaps you PSU if it's adequate and still in decent shape. You could even go for used components if you're not afraid of buying them to lower the pricing a bit.

Now as far as custom builds go I can't really help you price-wise, since I live in Europe and prices here are ridiculously inflated compared to US prices (your Best Buy build is around $1,200 if I were to configure it here),. However, taking some time to configure an Intel i5 or Ryzen 5 system with US pricing might lead to just that added headroom for a 6 GB model.

 

[SciGuy]

I just got back from Best Buy and looked at a few systems up close.
Because of the feedback here I think I'm going to go with a different system now.

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What I'm looking at comes with:
AMD Ryzen 5 model 1600 CPU @3.2GHz
8GB DDR4 SDRAM expandable to 64GB
1TB HDD
AMD Radeon RX 580 discrete graphics w 4GB VRAM
What I like best about this system is how upgradeable it is. there are open slots all over the main board. The other system is pretty much maxed out. This one's also $200 less. I can use that to upgrade to 32GB RAM, or turn the system into something even better than the first one I was looking at for the same money. There was something about this video card having a dedicated chipset - I didn't catch it all. The GeForce begins bogging down at around 70% capacity while the Radeon runs full bore right up to nearly 100%.
With any luck I'll have this thing by Saturday.

 

[NandabaCanti]

You could probably save a fair bit by shopping around on NewEgg and Amazon for individual parts and just put a system together yourself. It is pretty simple and you will almost certainly get way better parts for the same price you're looking to spend. In particular, pre-built systems love to skimp on power supplies (PSU) and that is one of the few areas where it's a real bad idea to cut corners. Mother boards too for that matter.

It's been ages since I last built a system, so I can't offer any current recommendations, but it is easy enough to stick to the stuff with hundreds or even thousands of high ratings and google for things like - best PSU brand model - and limit results to the last year. If you go with NewEgg it is also a good idea to limit search results to only stuff sold directly from NewEgg, as they allow 3rd party sellers on their site and some can be rather dishonest, though NewEgg themselves have always been pretty reliable for me.

If you're concerned about putting a system together, just check out youtube, there are tons of videos on building your own system, it's pretty easy and well worth the effort. I've been building all of mine (and many of those for my local friends and family) for probably around 16-18 years now.

 

[PMNL]

I just got back from Best Buy and looked at a few systems up close.
Because of the feedback here I think I'm going to go with a different system now.

You must be registered to see the links

What I'm looking at comes with:
AMD Ryzen 5 model 1600 CPU @3.2GHz
8GB DDR4 SDRAM expandable to 64GB
1TB HDD
AMD Radeon RX 580 discrete graphics w 4GB VRAM

8 GB of system RAM might be on the short side of things, but since it's expandable if you so desire you should be fine there. However, this system is not going to be able to render using your GPU since it uses an AMD branded card.

The reason for this is that Iray requires a CUDA based GPU (= NVIDIA), whereas AMD uses stream processing. While the cards might perform equally in let's say videogames, AMD based cards won't work in DAZ.

I'll scoop around some websites here in The Netherlands and try to come up with a build which I think would work while still being affordable, but keep in mind that since I am based in Europe prices might not convert 1:1. Nonetheless I'll see what I can do and will try to include some US websites if I can

--

Edit: This quick scoop turns out to become a rather large spreadsheet in which I'm including brand new CPU's, GPU's, cases and what not, as well as some older generations so it might take a couple of hours to finish up but once it's done you should be able to pretty much point and click to what you'd like

 

[SciGuy]

You could probably save a fair bit by shopping around on NewEgg and Amazon for individual parts and just put a system together yourself....

Back in 'the day' I did the same thing. I was making a KILLING in the late 80's by building custom systems and selling them. Once the Chinese got involved with computers they crushed me though. I haven't looked into that route for decades! Building the system is pretty easy, loading up the OS and other software that come standard with a new system can get pretty expensive though. It's been worth the small extra expense to have that already done for me. I'm definitely gonna check New Egg and Amazon though. A bare bones system might be the way to go for this machine.

Edit: This quick scoop turns out to become a rather large spreadsheet in which I'm including brand new CPU's, GPU's, cases and what not, as well as some older generations so it might take a couple of hours to finish up but once it's done you should be able to pretty much point and click to what you'd like

Thanks for the hard work PMNL. Thank GOD I didn't put that system on lawaway yesterday! I KNEW there was a reason I was being so adamant about staying with NVIDIA cards! That's all I've used since they first hit the market. The system I have now is the 1st one I've ever had with an onboard video chip that shares memory with the CPU. NEVER again!

MUST HAVES:
The CPU can be either AMD or intel - Probably an AMD to save some $.

The video card is going to be a 6 GB (minimum) NVIDIA . Top of the line = $$$, My budget = $!
I'll probably go with the 1050 or 1060, we'll see!

16 Gigs of RAM. Going from 8 to 16 is only like a $100 difference. I'll get a main board with 64GB capacity. RAM is relatively cheap, and easy to upgrade.

A 1 TB HDD is pretty standard any more.

A DVD/CD drive. I've got this pet peeve about keeping backup INSTALLABLE copies of stuff. My copy of Photoshop CS5 is a prime example. Adobe doesn't support it any longer.

HDMI out port. The 52" TV/monitor has totally spoiled me.

Want:

SS HDD. Bootup speed is awesome, but I can live without it.

Everything else is window dressing. Bluetooth, wireless, available USB ports and locations - I don't need much there. As long as there's 1 USB port on the front for the wireless kbd/mouse combo I'm GTG.

In the mean time I'm still working on the game script and GUI. I've stopped making new images though. The game was conceptualized using HoneySelect, but I've got DAZ and a TON of DLC on those USB drives ready to install on the new system.
My new avatar is the main female (1 of 5 so far) NPC for my game, made with HS. The MC 'creates' her at his new job. SYNTHia is a quasi-Westworld synthetic human. She may change drastically, depending on what I can do with DAZ. As the game progresses, I foresee others being created at work as well.

 

[PMNL]

Not a problem at all, that's what we're here for

Now as far as my point-and-click thingy goes, it spiraled a "little" out of control and now contains the following:

• General info about CPU chipsets (AMD & Intel);
• General PSU info;
• General GPU info;
• General RAM, CPU cooler and pc case tips;
• CPU specific warnings;
• 28 of the latest Intel core processors (i3-6100 and up);
• 15 of the latest AMD processors (a couple of recent APU's and all of their Ryzen processors);
• 30 most popular NVIDIA Cuda based GPU's;
  
• 20 most popular PSU's ranging from 450W all the way up to 1200W;
• 22 Intel based motherboards (Intel B150 and up);
• 13 AMD based motherboards (AMD B350 and up);

All of the items are listed with their most important specs, as well as their EU and US prices to make comparing them a little easier.

The only downside of my little adventure, is that I wasn't able to follow up with my point-and-click part. I had something like a "PC configurator" in my head, but building all of that into a spreadsheet wouldn't make any sense and take a lot of fiddling with this antique VBA. However, like I said I've added a ton of info so you should be able to start messing around with components, and we can always add/remove/adjust things from there.

Since XLS files can't be uploaded I had to put it on Google Drive, so here's the link to it:

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Viewing the file through your browser should work just fine, but I'd suggest you download it so that all the filtering and sorting options work as intended.

----
Edit: As far as installing and buying software, Microsoft lets you use non activated versions of Windows 10 (or at least they used to), however you'll get a little watermark on your desktop saying it's not activated so that shouldn't really be an issue. If they no longer allow you to run non-activated versions you should be able to pick up a Windows 10 Professional licenses legally online for less than $ 30 though.

Other paid products one might need could always be pirated, but that's for you to decide, nor am I sure whether or not discussing that is allowed on here...

 

[SciGuy]

Your Excel Sheet is - freakin' awesome. I've been poring over it for the past couple of hours and here's what I've picked out so far (All on NewEgg):
CPU Intel Core i5-7600K__________________________229.99
GPU Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 6G_____ 369.99
Pwr Corsair VS550 PSU____________________________53.47
MB Asus Republic Of Gamers Z170
MAXIMUS VIII HERO__________________________149.00

Mem Patriot Viper Elite 16GB DD4 RAM (2 X 8GB)_______154.99
ATX Mid twr case, 4X pre-installed LED ring fans__________49.49 45% off!!!
Kbd/mouse combo's are $20 and up. Win10 license - $30 (est). I can open up one of my spare external 1TB HDD's and mount it inside the case. I'll keep the tiny Passport 1TB drive for external use. That'll weigh in right around $1075 with shipping and everything. This system will absolutely SMOKE what all my friends have right now too.
Did I leave anything important out?
I'm not looking forward to the headaches of formatting the HDD and installing the OS though. That's the ONLY drawback to going the DIY route.

I found this system ready-to-go while browsing NewEgg.

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ABS Battlebox Essential Meteor-X
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB
AMD Ryzen 1700 (3.00 GHz) 64 bit 8-Core Processor
16 MB L3 Cache
AMD B350 chipset
8 GB DDR4
1 TB HDD
120 GB SSD
500w power supply
Wired keyboard and mouse
Windows 10 Home 64-Bit ALA075
$1,074.99!
According to the web page, the motherboard maxes out at 8 MB. I'm assuming that's wrong, but I plan to contact the retailer just to be sure.
My funds COULD be here as soon as tomorrow, but NLT next Tuesday.
If the memory is upgradeable, I'll go with the ready-to-go Battlebox. If not, I'll order all the components, pick up a case of wheat beer, and spend a day throwing parts together and installing software.
Either of these rigs will push my graphics off the charts.
I'm just going to keep my current system as the dedicated TV unit. I've got 2 HDMI ports on the TV, I may as well use em!

 

[NandabaCanti]

My only concern would be the PSU, it isn't all that uncommon for GPUs and CPUs to use a lot more power than they are listed for, especially when you have them under load with heavy tasks like rendering. A lot of mobos these days play a bit fast and loose with their interpretations of specs and overclock some stuff a bit by default which is part of the problem. In most cases 500w is just fine for a desktop system, but you'll want to double check and make sure it's enough for the hardware when used for more than browsing and light gaming.

Hopefully it is also a decent reliable PSU as well, which in my experience is rarely the case with pre-built systems, which has always been one of my biggest problems with them. I've seen entirely too many system with crap PSUs that have fried various components to trust my hardware to anything that isn't typically at least gold rated and from a reliable company with a good track record, such as Corsair like you went with in that first build (though again 550w may not be enough).

 

[MovieMike]

Have you thought of ordering parts and putting it together yourself? Might save a bit of cash that way. I did that with my system and built a pretty powerful machine. I skimmed Newegg and Amazon and the prices seem a bit ridiculous to me. Over 1k and it only has a 1050/1060 in it? A brand new 1070ti is like $450 bucks. If you went that way you could order all the parts yourself a build a pretty good comp.

The issue with the card is, it's a bit harder to upgrade as opposed to ram and stuff. Sure, you can add a second card to the system later, but you'll need to make sure your power supply is good enough and then a Daz scene must fit totally on a single cards VRAM, so if you get say a 1080 later with 8gb VRAM, you'll still be limited to the 6 gb of the 1060 if you want to use both for rendering.