3D Animation Workstation Research

[Tiamat]

It all depends on your budget. If you have a lot of money, build what Ribbon has in his sig. If you have like 2500$, build a system with half of Ribbon's specs.

For heavy Maya, animation, etc. if you have the money, going with opterons is necessary. I believe that getting 2GB of ram for 1 cpu might be more beneficial than getting 2 processors and only 1 GB of ram shared. Those programs eat as much ram as you can feed them.

If you have to skim, i would probably skim on the SCSI and go with raptors. SCSI drives that are markedly faster than Raptor are real expensive - somethin like 400-1200$!!!

Otherwise, seems like ribbon has the type of rig that you might want to work towards.

Don't forget cost of monitor. Its really hard to find the Nec 22" CRTs nowadays. You may have to settle for LCDs. I really like my old Samsung 213T. 2 of those would run you about 2200$. 2x Dell 24" screens is tempting and would be cheaper at around 1700$ if you catch the deals - i dont know too much about their quality though...

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: Sentinel

Originally posted by: IanE
I'll prolly just stick with a raid then with the Raptor and a slave?

As for Sentinels comment about college classes.... 2nd and 3rd year work will be intense, especially since I plan to do outside work on my own.

More research!

What college do you attend?

Not starting college until 2006, but currently I've been accepted to the Art Institutes, and I'm applying to Ringling School of Art & Design. AI is closer to home, but Ringling is sooo tempting, but they don't offer any gen ed classes... hard decision. Just wanting a new pc soon to get a head start.

Tiamat - I think the most I wanna put into this PC over a couple years would be $5000... I want to at least get it started for college and then once I'm working (2 years later) get it up to full-blown dual proc.

Maybe I'm planning this too early? I mean would it be bad to start this design now since components change and advance so frequently, by then time I'd be working the pc would be a little over 2 years old.

I do plan to do a lot of heavy technical Maya and Max work as I plan to be a visual effects supervisor or a technical director, still deciding haha.

Monitors will be worried about later, this 19" Sony CRT has been kickin ass since day one.

 

[Sentinel]

Yeah, if you aren't starting for 2 years I would wait until the summer before.

 

[ribbon13]

Yeah, I would say so too. You could start by getting a proper case for the workstation now though, as you could put it to immediate use, unless you already have a EATX case. In two years a duallie with Italy Opterons is still gonna be a kickass rig. Workstations have longer lifespans than desktops.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: IanE
Duvie

Thanks so much for posting, read a lot of your posts on this subject earlier today, really value your insight!

When you say softmod a 6800 to the quadro... do you mean the 128mb 6800, or the current GT? Also, can you explain softmodding, it's advantages and disadvantages compared to just getting a quadro?

Really like to hear more on this subject from you.

Thanks guys.

technically there are no disadvantages to softmodding. The only time it may be an issue is if you planned on running Linux where the softmod will not work. You would need to do a bit more involved bios mod...

You can use a GT model. Basically the same thing with 4 extra pipes but they seem to have little effect in the worl doutside of gaming. The 128mb version is anemic so the 256mb would probably be better and DDR3 could be advantageous....

IN a nutshell Nvidia makes one gpu...the 6800 core is the same as the FX4000 Quadro....Difference?? They locked the professional capabiliities on the card, and unless you drop 7-8 times the cash on the business/workstation class Quadro you wont get them. We are basically unlocking those locks....

the results are real. I have tested them in apps with it and without and the modeling ability is fantastic. 3d orbiting of fullying shaded and material applied models with no degradation. Multiviewports, etc. NOw ofcourse I would love ribbons Wildcat 800 with dual gpus and 512mb of DDR3 ram but 2000 grand is too much for me...The vid card is not going to rendering my final model or my animation. So I would rather see the 1600-1700 dollars I would save on getting the fastest cpus possible.

Here are my spec results...go compare these to the 4000 dollar systems at spec's website....some are running 250 opterons so you can see I dont have any great advantage over them in system speed....the cards performance is real....

Run All Summary

---------- SUM_RESULTS\3DSMAX\SUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 43.67

---------- SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT
catia-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 34.10

---------- SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
ensight-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 21.76

---------- SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
light-07 Weighted Geometric Mean = 29.32

---------- SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT
maya-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 72.23

---------- SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT
proe-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 51.99

---------- SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 28.02

---------- SUM_RESULTS\UGS\SUMMARY.TXT
ugs-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 38.39

 

[IanE]

Well, I'll be starting school summer 2006, and interning in 2009, professionally working in 2010, so I'd like to have the pc ready by the first day of school, july 11 2006, but I still think a year prior ir pretty early haha.

Ribbon - I imaged that a workstation would outlive any desktop by about 3 times... glad to know that in a couple years after constructing the system will still be an asskicker! id imagine were enaring the end of the tech bump 3d animation and productionwise since maya and max just released their brand new versions earlier this year.

Should probably consider a build time of Spring2006 for this project?

Duvie - No Linux for me, haven't even seen that in person yet.

How exactly would you unlock the graphics card to profession capabilities, by softmodding it? I'd probably be playing games on this PC, but I could easily enjoy anyything new on 128mb card, right?

There is no way I'm even going to think about purchasing that Wildcat... ribbon = ultra high-end hahaha... or crazy... hrmm...

No clue on as how to read your summary report though, don't know what that means, and I couldn't find a similar report from HP or Dell.

 

[Duvie]

Well if you are waiting then dual core dual opterons will rock!!! i am waiting for these now!!!

I am still not sure on need to go scsi for myself...I may go watercooled case for silent and cool. Plus you guys know me as an ocer so though Ribbon is right on ocing workstations, I will definitely try my hand ion getting more if I can. My system is pretty much a workstation now, crash free, so stability isn't an issue of concern for me an my systems.

 

[ribbon13]

Well, you can try your hand on OCing Opterons on the Tyan if you really want. I have a custom bios I could provide, and you can use nTune. But I'd take zero responsibility for any damages resulting for its use.

 

[IanE]

ribbon, might I ask what you do for a living or what you use that godly piece of computer for?

It's really quite inspirational.

 

[Duvie]

When I get them I will decide....It may be so blazing fast I will wait until I need it....I am hoping for someting in the lines of dual core 1.8's-2.0ghz...then 2 of them.....

I likley will take you up on it. Some dude over at 2cpu.com and doing a whirl on this board....same bios???

By the way I would only be interested in clocking it to levels still using stock vcore....I just want to close that gap...no overvolting...no unneeded heat....hopefully done with multiplier alone and leave ram untouched at stock settings....so say maybe like getting 1.8s to be 2.0s or 2.2's but not much more...

 

[IanE]

If I went with the Thunder AW8E, with the 2 16x PCI-e slots, would I need to use a 16x pci-e card, or any pci-e card? If 16x only, which brand is trustworthy and stable? Checked BFG Tech, but they only have the 6800GT in 16x...also looked at the ATI Radeon X850... any suggestions as far as pci-e cards go, don't wanna overdo it like I did getting this 6800GT and the last time I played half-life2 was a few months ago... don't even ask about doom3... =\

EDIT: Looking at 2x GeForce 6600GT's, seems to be quite good!

 

[ribbon13]

I'd be really pist if that was my BIOS. I've offered my services to Tyan's piss poor BIOS department several times in the past. I personally think it was foolhardy to pass me up. :laugh: I'm sure you're aware of Tyan's history with BIOS updates. Ah well, it'd be my fault for providing Joel with it. Got a link there Duvie?

IanE, I take odd contracts now and again. I've done the gamut from game dev to 3D models and animations for safety videos, to complete assembly line layouts in CAD for defense contractors. Now I mostly just haunt forums and help people with hardware questions.

 

[IanE]

Wow, ribbon, quite the extensive work record. I've been working in AutoCAD for 3 years in architectural and industrial design... won every city, state,a nd regional contest for the last 3 years in Texas! Yea! Glad you're here to help, I'd be lost had it not been for you and Duvie thus far!

 

[silverpig]

Ringling is a great school for that. I was going to go to VFS and they said that while they were probably #2, Ringling was #1.

 

[IanE]

I'm aiming for Ringling, but I haven't seen the pricetag yet... suspense is terrible.

 

[sharkeeper]

Yes Tyan is in a league of its own with their BIOS updates for sure. :roll:

Supermicro's support is top notch.

 

[mechBgon]

<--- *attracted by repeated occurrences of "Opteron" and "SCSI"

IanE, regarding your stability issue, have you disabled the Dynamic Overclocking on your MSI, and set High Performance Mode to "disabled?" Also make sure your Geil RAM is getting adequate voltage, don't hesitate to give it 2.7 volts if needed.

 

[Vee]

I thought you were on a budget?
Forget all that Tyan and dual Opteron and Raptor shit.
Your setup is quite sound for a first budget machine, except for ram and hd size. Up that to 1-2GB. 512MB is useless. 1Gb is at least 10 times better.
I agree with non-OC.
I'd rather want a bigger 7200rpm 8MB cache than a Raptor.
Quadro is IMO vast overkill for many OpenGL uses. Cheap gaming cards work well enough, if they work. Stability can be a bit spotty. It seem to depend both on the app and the card.


Edit: Of course, like the newbie I am, I posted when I were still on page one.
Duvie knows a ton about this, and I see he has posted lot's of stuff.

 

[Vee]

- Duvie, how does one unlock later GeForce cards to enable soft quadro?

Do you have any link to any resource?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Vee
- Duvie, how does one unlock later GeForce cards to enable soft quadro?

Do you have any link to any resource?

Older GF4 cards can be unlocked as well as GF5 cards....However not all of them seem to work so perfect and with those cases the last known det drivers to work with this softmod is 45.23's...That leaves some major issues on other things...especially if someone games a bit...

The GF6 series was the first series of quadro cards to be able to use the latest dets and still have the softmod work....Ofcourse when you do this consult you manufacturer to see what was the last det they officially support. I think there is still only max extreme drivers 6, but I get a significant boost in 3dsmax 7 still on the desktop. That s playing around cause my software of choice is ADT2004 with viz renderer (which feels and looks like 3dsmax)...

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Well, the video card is going to slow you down while you are in the process of rendering, compared to getting an actual rendering card. Yet it is still cheaper, and it will be functional. You will definitely want atleast a gig of RAM. I went from a Quadro 4 900 XGL to a BFG 6800 GT OC, and the process of setting up the animation (3DS Max R5) was noticeably slower. But the games played a heck of a lot faster. As far as processors, 3DS Max 7 supports multi-threading, and having dual Xeons w/ HT (4 effective processors) is very nice for that. This also allows you to do other things while you are rendering. On a single core proc, rendering will put the machine on it's knees. It might be faster, but using other programs is a pain. As far as hard drives, go for storage instead of speed. There isn't going to be a noticeable increase in performance while you are rendering with your hard drive, unless you are loading gigantic files, which is actually rather rare. So go with fast, large hard drives. That's my input.. Hope you can use some of it...
Tas.

 

[IanE]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
<--- *attracted by repeated occurrences of "Opteron" and "SCSI"

IanE, regarding your stability issue, have you disabled the Dynamic Overclocking on your MSI, and set High Performance Mode to "disabled?" Also make sure your Geil RAM is getting adequate voltage, don't hesitate to give it 2.7 volts if needed.

Both are disabled, but according to the Core Center everything is about .03 volts low... the lowest I've seen is 11.94 on the 12v... I'll see if I can put some more voltage into the RAM and see how that works. Thanks for the post!

Vee - I am sort of on a budget... I have a personal limit (5k) and the budget is really more of a stretched out purchasing plan... Half of the workstation for school, other half will be bought later on for work.

Still having a tough time deciding between the Opteron and Xeon. Decided no Raptor, just 7,200 drives. Still really looking into the vid card, pci-e or agp 8xpro, and which models. I'll definitely be getting 2x1gb sticks for each processor at the least, though, so that's settled! I doubt I'll be gaming much, maybe a few hours a week at the most so going towards a more production type card than a gaming performance card is what I'm gonna do. Probably end up softmodding a card since I hear getting an official pro workstation card is expensive as hell haha.

So "3DS Max 7 supports multi-threading, and having dual Xeons w/ HT (4 effective processors) is very nice" but aren't the Opterons dual core, which would be virtually the same thing, right?

Is Tyan the only dual-cpu AMD board? I've checked around and haven't found any other options.

 

[ribbon13]

You'll want PCIe if you plan on keep it for a while. That way if you get a real rendering card, you can keep it for your next workstation. AGP is dying. Dual-core Opterons aren't out yet, but when they are (I think they've upped the release to later in the summer instead of autumn) they will devastate Xeons.

Only dual cpu board? No... heres a couple links

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dualduel&page=1
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=thunderk8we&page=1
http://tyan.com/products/html/opteron.html
http://www.iwill.net/product_adns.asp

 

[IanE]

PCI-e it is!

No dual-core yet?! MAN!!! Haha, gives me a good reason to wait. Do you anticipate them being highly expensive? I don't want to go over $400 per processor. Got something to look forward to, thanks for the links and help, ribbon. You rule.

Would you recommend the Tyan Thunder over these alternate boards, though?

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: IanE
PCI-e it is!

No dual-core yet?! MAN!!! Haha, gives me a good reason to wait. Do you anticipate them being highly expensive? I don't want to go over $400 per processor. Got something to look forward to, thanks for the links and help, ribbon. You rule.

Would you recommend the Tyan Thunder over these alternate boards, though?

I would wait....Xeons wont be out before dual core opterons. They have a serious issue with memory bus sharing, and I am sure INtel is realy looking into a fix for this with an updated chipset. The prescott core (dual core P4's) are a rush to market to fill a void left by their lacluster prescott processor, and cancelling earlier of their Tejas plans. They didn't want to go dual core yet, and they were not ready for it. As it shows...

Dual core Xeons with HT is a real possibility as well. So dual dual-core Xeons with HT could be nice...We will have to see. Intels systems right now are memory starved, so they need some better DDR and memory buses to fill the power of these chips. I think HT will morph into somehting new anyways as I think they will eventually lose their effectiveness in this type of architecture...PLus as we see some apps are multithreaded o a point. Some can handle 2 threads with no gain with 4 threads now. Some can handle seemingly as much as you can give them. Some apps like video encoding and editing (linear by nature) may have some problems handling more available threads as well....So it may be more about multi-apps then one app running 4-8 threads effectively...