Looking to Build a very stable work PC for 3D

*EDITED*
While this computer doesn't need to be ultra fast since the program I'm using isn't for video game / movie rendering. The main concern I have for this setup is stability above all else. The budget for the PC is around $1000-1200

The program in question is a variation of Solid Works. CPU, ram, GPU and Hard-drive speed will all be needed, though non need to be crazy fast.

Because of time constraints, being in Canada, and this company having amazing service, all parts I'm using will be from
http://www.memoryexpress.com/
So some of my choices reflect this because of availability of brands, and current stock.

CPU
$250 - Intel Core™ i5-4690 Processor 3.5GHz [Link]


Motherboard
$120 - ASUS H97-PLUS [Link]



RAM
$100 - Corsair XMS3 8GB DDR3 - 1600MHz [Link]

OR

$100 - Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB DDR3 -1600MHz [Link]

Video Card
$120 - ASUS GT640 Geforce GT 640 2GB [Link]


Hard Drives
$155 - Intel SSD 530 Series SATA III - 180 GB [Link]
$90 - Western Digital 1 TB Black SATA III w/ 64MB cache [Link]

Power Supply

$89 - Corsair CX Series CX600M Modular [Link]

____________________________________

$924 - Base Price (Without Case or Win7)

I've sort have stuck with an ASUS / Intel theme with this, as I'm trying to achieve stability above all else. Instead of a part from every name brand sort of thing.
For the motherboards I'm not to sure if I need the upgraded motherboard... but it sounds as though it would work faster with an SSD, as well as be more friendly to upgrades in the future. But the cheaper one would leave some extra funding to be used elsewhere if they need to be buffed up a bit.

I have the regular Harddrive in there to put all of the browser cache, windows cache, etc to reduce writing being done to the SSD, as well as a place for storing some extra files.


If anyone knows of any of these parts being notoriously unstable or high failure rate.. please let me know.
Otherwise any input is welcome. Thanks in advance!

Get a 4690 (non K. It's a new part just out) and a cheap H97 board. Doesn't really matter which one, just pick one with the features you want. No need to spend more than $90 on your board if you aren't overclocking.

Ya i wasn't too sure on CPU so i sorta started out with a base one. But I think this 4690 should help a lot more when I actually need to render / nest things. I've edited the OP

Also I might be building a very similar computer like this for someone else I work with. Except he doesn't need the video card as much... The built in graphics for this chip should be just fine for simple 3D stuff right? (mostly just navigating the program / editing objects, not rendering)

Something else I just realized is that you can get a GTX750Ti for about $130 on sale. Much more powerful than the GPU you have listed there.

Whether or not you need a GPU depends on whether the particular part of the program you are using has CUDA support or not, and how much the CUDA accelerates the speed of the operation(s) in question.

You know more about your program than I do. I don't know anything about these kinds of programs. Find out whether what you're doing can be accelerated or taken over by the GPU and to what extent, and then decide whether you need a GPU and what level of GPU you need based on that.

Also if you're going to be pinning the cpu at or near 100% with the work you plan to do, wouldn't hurt to grab a cheap aftermarket heatsink like a Hyper 212. The stock cooler runs very very toasty under full load.

If you want to take that a step further, for $140-150 you can pick up an overclocking board like an ASUS Z97-A and for only $30 more than the current CPU you can get a 4690K and be able to overclock. It'll increase your performance in the tasks you'll be doing. I don't know how much though.

An overclocked CPU can be just as stable as a non overclocked CPU. HTH

Graphics wise, the only thing I know is that the program utilizes OpenGL for its graphics. I'm asking on the programs tech support forum right now, to see if anyone knows if it has CUDA support. But for me that is an unknown at the moment. What I do know though, is that the program is very heavy on ray tracing.

The computer for my workmate needs to be built yesterday, and he wont be rendering out scenes, so I probably wont fiddle with any OCing on his box. But for the one I'm building myself I might go the route you suggest since I render out a lot of 3D scenes. And I've also been told this program prefers large CPU numbers, rather than lots of cores.


*EDIT* From what I've been able to gather, most video cards don't seem to help out our program much, and instead utilizes the CPU a lot for its rendering since its ray-trace heavy. The only thing it tends to use the video card is for live view, which is heavily OpenGL based.

Are you going to be using live view? If the program prefers high CPU clocks, an overclocked CPU is definitely the way to go. I say get that i5 4690K and overclock it. You'll enjoy the results. Might want to look into a more significant cooler like an NHD14 to squeeze every last drop out of it.

Ya, I'll be using the live view more then the rendering, but a simple 2gig vid card that's good with openGL would be best. I don't think it makes use of the CUDA cores, nor Direct X capabilities.

I cant help at wonder about the choice in GPU. If you are running Solidworks, or a variation of it, then you will need render at times.

When i sat with Inventor, and Solidworks, i have to say, that the cards made for it, do shine above the cards not made for it.

I have an entry level nvidia quardo, i think it was the top level in the entry. It rendered faster than an HD6950, which is a card that was miles ahead when it came to gaming.

Basically, i'd be looking to stick a Quardo or a Firepro GPU in it.

Ya I guess if the card was designed around high quality directX style graphics instead of OpenGL, then it wouldn't provide much good (as I've heard of some reports of people getting better performance from onboard over a decent video card).

I'll have to ask around some more of the other users of this program to see how the Quadro or FirePro is performing for them

xDiehardx said:

Ya I guess if the card was designed around high quality directX style graphics instead of OpenGL, then it wouldn't provide much good (as I've heard of some reports of people getting better performance from onboard over a decent video card).

I'll have to ask around some more of the other users of this program to see how the Quadro or FirePro is performing for them

Click to expand...

I don tknow much about DirectX or OpenGL workings. As i said, i use to work work Inventor and Solidworks, as a technical designer. So that was all out maths lesson for the GPU, which is where the Firepro and Quadro shine.

Since I'm building almost 2 PC's quite similar to each other that will both be running the same program. I'm going to test the one's performance with a decent quadro or firepro in it, vs one with just the CPU based graphics. While the rendering of a scene probably wont change much, I'm sure the live preview/editing mode should feel a nice increase.