What should i pay attention to if i plan to build a pc for rendering?

[cnwolf]

Hello f95 community,

i'm planning to build my own pc for (mostly) rendering, but i honestly have no idea what i should pay attention for. I'm not that unfamiliar with pc's but every youtube video i watch or thread i read in the internet, the one i understood, gets confused by another. I also had the thought of buying a mac book pro just for that, but i dont know if it would be a waste of money (like most of the people say). Are here any people that work with a macbook and can give me review?

Since i want to do renderings like the games that are on this platform, i thought the best would be to ask experts here for help.
The games with good renders i had in mind are: (I dont know if it goes to advertising, please delete it, if it does)

Spoiler: Rendering like the pictures in these games:

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Are all of these games made with just Daz?

I saved money for a long time to finally buy a pc i can start work with. Budget would be around 2000€, i wouldn't mind to save a little bit more if it would be worth it. Giving a little extra money for around 30% more effectivity would be understandable, but i dont want to spend hundreds of €'s just to get something you wouldn't even notice.

I would also be thankful if anyone knows links to good sites that offers tutorials or guides of how to start working on Daz (if the renders of the games above were done in Daz)

 

[Volta]

I'm not totally caught up on all of those games but from the ones i know and your signature i can say that they are all Daz with a decent level of confidence.

Amusing your building what amounts to a mid level render rig for Daz there area a few things you need to be aware of before we start talking specs:

The graphics card(s) need to be Nvidia if (like most Daz users) you intend to use the Iray render engine that is included as standard with Daz, there are other options like Octane (talk to @carnalcardinal she's your best source of octane info that i know of on F95, just FYI Octane is, i believe, a CPU only render engine that IMO is slightly less competitive than Iray but also less hardware intensive.)

You're going to need lots of hard drive space, i mean set aside a good amount of space, 500GB+ would be fair and likely in time even more than that, I've been doing hobby stuff in Daz for a couple of years and i'm at 1.1TB of Daz right now, though it is quite badly organised on my old HDD.

you don't need high specs to use Daz, you need high specs to render at decent levels of speed and quality, there are loads of tricks to get around this, like high resolution + lower render quality then downsizing the image in PS, in this way you can reduce render time at the expense of post work time, there is no "one size fits all" approach, i personally like doing minimal postwork due to using Gimp rather than PS and as such use higher quality render settings, but i'm only doing a handful of renders a month, game devs can expect to be putting out many times this volume in a week, so finding a work flow/method that works for you is more important than taking any individuals ideas and following them to the letter, the same goes for most aspects of Daz in fact.

Ok, on to the more specific stuff, in order of importance (IMO):

Spoiler

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TL: DR

Cuda Cores(GPU) - give a better render speed, never too many
Vram (GPU) - lets you render bigger and more complex scenes, if you don't have enough you are prevented from using your GPU to render, massively increasing render times, too much is a waste however.
Ram - lets you manipulate larger scenes in Daz, there is a point where any more is a waste
Hard drive - need lots of Room since Daz can get big fast, again too much is a waste but can you ever have too much hard drive space?
CPU - needs to keep pace with the rest but doesn't have to be as cutting edge
Keep the rig cool, water cooler not necessary but worth considering in the long term.

Suggested specs:
6GB Vram Nvidia GPU or better minimum, 8 or 10 would be better but going for a pair of 6's may be more effective, though the happy medium would likely be 8 now and 8 more latter, a pair of RTX 2070's for near 1K (GBP) would see you right for a good while.
16GB DDR4 Ram absolute minimum, 32 at your budget is a good idea, more is welcome but likely not regularly used, 48 or more is likely overkill
Modern competitive mid range processor or better, brand is not important as far as i can see, exact specs will make a difference but not as much as GPU or Ram IMO, at your budget feel free to go better but if you need to save money for GPU reasons top level CPU's are not needed for rendering in Iray to the same degree as a GPU(GPU speed matters more).
A decent screen, since your working on visuals neglecting your screen is a bad idea and since you have a decent budget, consider it.
A cooler capable of keeping all your gear cool at high work loads for extended periods, some renders take a while, animations can take days, quite literally, you don't want the hardware cooking, larger cases can give better cooling due to more space to organise things, worth considering.

This isn't cheap, if your worried by this level of expenditure then play smart, use a motherboard with plenty of expansion room, multiple GPU slots and "future-proof" your rig while you slowly tech it up by adding more Ram and a better/duplicate GPU.

With 2000 you can make a good render rig, no doubt about it, not state of the art but definitely good enough to dev on. Don't skimp on Ram, consider multiple GPU's rather than a single A++ one, even on your budget GPU's are the main expenditure, just remember Nvidia is mandatory, consider using SLI on a pair of good cards than one amazing 1000 dollar card.

Hope this helped a little, oh and don't use Mac, not worth it IMO.

 

[polywog]

 

[cnwolf]

@Volta thank you really much for your detailed reply. With your list i can finally start looking for parts.

I wasn't aware of that Daz files would take so much space. Would be a samsung 1tb ssd for around 220€ okey or should i buy a smaller 250gb ssd and a second storage with 2tb hdd?
What exactly would be the advantages of using two pairs of Nvidias? I'm not sure if i could take the advantages of that, if i'm just at the beginning of rendering, but also you're right, that i should think about the future so i can modify the pc over time.
I also need to buy a desk and chair so i can even work in a quite decent workspace

Im gonna make a list of components i think would be good, that would probably be a good start.

@polywog would this be a good alternative to work with instead of buying two pairs of Nvidias for SLI? I dont even know if i need a render server atm, because like i said, i would be just at the beginning of my "rendering career"

 

[OldMoonSong]

Would be a samsung 1tb ssd for around 220€ okey or should i buy a smaller 250gb ssd and a second storage with 2tb hdd?

I recommend 1TB. Depending on how many assets you acquire, you'd be surprised how fast you can fill up 200GB. Besides, whatever you don't use for DAZ can be used for anything else.

But I'd say it's an absolute must to have your DAZ assets on a good SSD--it's just so much faster at reading data and so you don't have to wait as long when you're looking through your asset folders in DAZ.

What exactly would be the advantages of using two pairs of Nvidias?

The benefit of having multiple GPUs is essentially the added CUDA cores that the 2nd card brings, which makes rendering faster. Reason is, it's a lot cheaper to get more CUDA cores just by getting another identical card, than it is to get a single GPU with more CUDA cores.

However, VRAM is not "pooled", so having 2 cards with 8GB VRAM doesn't mean you can render a scene that takes 16GB, you're still limited by the 8GB. But, more CUDA cores = faster rendering.

would this be a good alternative to work with instead of buying two pairs of Nvidias for SLI?

Rendering yourself or having a network do it is a decision that depends on the fees and your usage. Rendering only a little bit, it would be cheaper to just have a server do it as opposed to building a PC on your own. But I imagine that if you were rendering a LOT (or if you'd benefit in other activities from a very good PC) then it makes more sense to have your own PC.

Personally, I do a lot of gaming, programming, and some machine learning, so I prefer to have my own high-powered PC.

 

[MrBree]

Instead of just dismissing your Macbook question, I'd like to explain and address it. There are reasons why people here have concerns over them. Primarily to do with Nvidia, and the lack of them on the Mac.

The most important tool for decent rendering is a good graphics card. For Daz, the primary rendering engine is Iray. Which is Nvidia only. Given that the Macbooks don't have Nvidia cards, and aren't even compatible with them in the current OS, that's a problem.

That's on top of the fact that a desktop is a way better fit for a decent graphics card than a laptop. You need that big hulking beast of a card which simply doesn't fit under a keyboard.

Now there are ways around this. I actually raised up the question of eGPUs here, and it is a viable solution. Not remotely comparable to building a desktop, but viable. There are also hacks to get eGPU Nvidia card solutions working with Macbooks as well. (discussed briefly in that thread.) But these are all compromises. I was willing to live with these compromises.

Quite a few people here are uncompromising for their rendering needs. Which does make perfect sense. But do what makes sense for you.

 

[Volta]

@MrBree makes a good point about Mac, however IMO the compatibility issues in terms of hardware and software make it a tough sell, video editing, PS and similar image manipulation programs work well in Mac, Daz style GPU rendering is not something that i would seriously entertain on a Mac though, better to build a windows PC with the parts you want/need.

 

[recreation]

Since the most important stuff has been said already I just want to adress a few things:

More cards mean more cores, which means faster rendering, but the advantage lowers with every card you use. For example, if you have 2 Nvidia cards you get a boost of 50-60% on rendering times, but if you have 3 cards, the third card will only add 30-40% and a fourth card even less 15-20%, so the advantage of a 4th cards is actually not really worth the money.
This might be just me, but I would not grab RTX cards. They are too pricey and the advantage is too little to really make up for the heavy price + they are not fully supported yet in Daz. I'd look for some cheaper 1080Ti's

If you render with GPU, the CPU is (more or less) only used to prepair the scene for the GPU for rendering when you hit the render button, the better the CPU, the less time it will take to start the actual render process.

A 1TB SSD would be a good choice, I have one part of my Daz stuff on a SSD and one part on a standard HDD, the difference in loading times is HUGE! But you don't need to buy a samsung for 200 bucks, there a many other brands that are good as well and are a lot cheaper.

 

[Boogie]

When building your PC you want to be using this site:

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On the top right corner of the home page you can use the drop down to select a country. There are 9 different options for Europe so hopefully yours is there.

Volta did a great job breaking down the individual parts by priority and I agree with him 100%.

One thing to keep in mind is expandability, you want to buy the correct motherboard to allow you to upgrade as you progress with DAZ. For instance, I agree that lots of ram is useful but you don't need to go with 32GB to start, you can get 16GB and when you have learned more and want to do new stuff then you can get another 16GB. Similarly, just start with a single video card (many of us only have one) but make sure the motherboard you buy from the beginning is capable of adding a second video card.

I won't contradict anyone else about the correct size of the SSD card, the important thing in this day and age is that you definitely should have one for the OS at a bare minimum.

 

[Walg]

The benefit of having multiple GPUs is essentially the added CUDA cores that the 2nd card brings, which makes rendering faster. Reason is, it's a lot cheaper to get more CUDA cores just by getting another identical card, than it is to get a single GPU with more CUDA cores.

However, VRAM is not "pooled", so having 2 cards with 8GB VRAM doesn't mean you can render a scene that takes 16GB, you're still limited by the 8GB. But, more CUDA cores = faster rendering.

More cards mean more cores, which means faster rendering, but the advantage lowers with every card you use. For example, if you have 2 Nvidia cards you get a boost of 50-60% on rendering times, but if you have 3 cards, the third card will only add 30-40% and a fourth card even less 15-20%, so the advantage of a 4th cards is actually not really worth the money.
This might be just me, but I would not grab RTX cards. They are too pricey and the advantage is too little to really make up for the heavy price + they are not fully supported yet in Daz. I'd look for some cheaper 1080Ti's

If you render with GPU, the CPU is (more or less) only used to prepair the scene for the GPU for rendering when you hit the render button, the better the CPU, the less time it will take to start the actual render process.

So just to add to this point - If you decide to go down and get multiple GPU's two things are often forgotten - Cooling and PSU. More cards means less space to ventilate so you need to think about how you'd cool your whole machine and more cards means more power draw. Cooling your machine properly makes a performance difference and power's obviously important. So something to think about.

Absolutely agree with @Boogie about "future proofing" your machine by picking the right motherboard. It's important.

Also @recreation, RTX's are coming into play now from the information I have. The upcoming 2019 update of Octane has ray-tracing compatibility so I wouldn't be surprised to see Daz get the same compatibility hopefully soon.

 

[cnwolf]

Thank you all for your answers. About the SLI option, i'm not sure if i should start my first pc with two video cards. i would be too worried about the cooling situation

@recreation i think you're right, if i would consider SLI, two 1080 ti's would be a better and cheaper option for me

about that: what would be the best option with one videocard and two? and whats the meaning of the different names for the 1080 ti's? (Founders Edition, Phoenix, Jet Stream etc..)

@Boogie thats a really great site, but since i'm not an expert, i just choosed the ones that are on top of the list, that doesn't seemed that expensive, but i probably choosed pricely things that i don't actually need

any opinions? (the power supply is may a little bit too expensive ) :

Spoiler: i tried

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[recreation]

Thank you all for your answers. About the SLI option, i'm not sure if i should start my first pc with two video cards. i would be too worried about the cooling situation

@recreation i think you're right, if i would consider SLI, two 1080 ti's would be a better and cheaper option for me

about that: what would be the best option with one videocard and two? and whats the meaning of the different names for the 1080 ti's? (Founders Edition, Phoenix, Jet Stream etc..)

@Boogie thats a really great site, but since i'm not an expert, i just choosed the ones that are on top of the list, that doesn't seemed that expensive, but i probably choosed pricely things that i don't actually need

any opinions? (the power supply is may a little bit too expensive ) :

Spoiler: i tried

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A side note: SLI is contraproductive for rendering. Use the two cards without SLI and Daz will use both independently which results in better performance for iray. @Rich can explain this better than me tho.

I wouldn't use one videocard, the performance difference with two cards is so massive, I wouldn't want to miss it anymore.
The different names are just brand names with only few minor technical differences. Some brands do work better then others though.

Spoiler: OT

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[polywog]

The benefit of having multiple GPUs is essentially the added CUDA cores that the 2nd card brings, which makes rendering faster.

more cores

 

[cnwolf]

I just realized that @Volta proposed the SLI with two RTX 2070, i somehow thought that the 1080 Ti would be cheaper then the RTX 2070.

I think i have three options for now:

1) SLI with two RTX 2070's
2) RTX 2080 Ti
3) RTX 1080 Ti (with the option of SLI in the future)

or maybe the option of SLI with the RTX 2080 Ti in the far far future?

I read some other forums for the SLI option and somehow everyone is against it. Is the SLI option really worth it?

Spoiler: OT

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[recreation]

I read some other forums for the SLI option and somehow everyone is against it. Is the SLI option really worth it?

A side note: SLI is contraproductive for rendering. Use the two cards without SLI and Daz will use both independently which results in better performance for iray. @Rich can explain this better than me tho.

2 Karten sind besser, aber ohne SLI. Die Karten werden (mal extrem vereinfacht) bei SLI nacheinander angesteuert, das macht beim rendern keinen Sinn, es ist besser wenn die beim rendern gleichzeitig angesteuert werden, deshalb fürs Rendern kein SLI, sondern einfach nur beide Karten einbauen/anschließen. Daz erkennt und nutzt beide Karten auch ohne SLI.

Edit: Btw the GTX 1080 Ti has one big advantage over the RTX 2070, the VRAM is bigger, and this is really helpfull for complex/bigger scenes, or if you have many characters in a scene.
The 1080 also has more cuda cores and the price is not much higher than for the 2070.

 

[Volta]

The RTX's where only a suggestion, they are pricey, of course they are due to being relatively new, older generation GPU's will be more cost effective but in the long term the newer cards may be a sound investment, it really is down to your choice, a single RTX now and another later may be a good compromise, especially since the cost will drop over time.

SLI is something i have no personal experience with in Daz, i personally hadn't heard that it gives no benefits to rendering, i will look into this because logic says that it should help, but then when has that ever meant much with Daz?

 

[Rich]

The upcoming 2019 update of Octane has ray-tracing compatibility so I wouldn't be surprised to see Daz get the same compatibility hopefully soon.

Daz is obviously dependent on NVidea updating iRay to add ray-tracing capability. The 4.11 beta does have a new version of iRay in it, but I haven't heard that that capability was added. (Caveat: I haven't been following the NVidia iRay tech boards and blog lately, so my info may be out of date.) But, yes, if the RTX features actually can help iRay, it'd be nice for those who paid a premium for the RTX cards to get the benefit of that.

 

[recreation]

Daz is obviously dependent on NVidea updating iRay to add ray-tracing capability. The 4.11 beta does have a new version of iRay in it, but I haven't heard that that capability was added. (Caveat: I haven't been following the NVidia iRay tech boards and blog lately, so my info may be out of date.) But, yes, if the RTX features actually can help iRay, it'd be nice for those who paid a premium for the RTX cards to get the benefit of that.

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[Boogie]

Spoiler: i tried

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Just checked the Deutschland site and you really only have one option for a new 1080 Ti, and I've never heard of Gainward before. You would probably be better off just getting that EVA 2080 Ti for an additional 200€. It would be worth it for that price difference.

Don't scrimp on the PSU, you want one that will allow you to expand in the future, and the Gold certification will save you on your electricity bill. That one looks like a good choice.

I would also want to add a regular HDD for more storage.

 

[cnwolf]

@recreation Ok jetzt hab ichs verstanden^^Fehlt nur noch die Entscheidung der Grafikkarte

Someone suggested me this:

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, is that better then what i tried? And would that motherboard be capable of two videocards?