Building a Workstation-Grade Computer

[Damaeus]

I've built my own home computer before -- computers good for gaming and
other things. But now I'm developing a keen interest in 3D graphics and
animation production. I've already discovered that my current gaming
system is just going to be totally inadequate once I really develop some
adequate skills with the software I'm using (Alias' Maya 5 PLE).

Athlon 1333, Abit NF7, 768MB SDRAM (DDR400, but running at 266 due to the
limitations of the Athlon 1333 -- NF7 will take an Athlon XP 3200), GeForce
FX 5600XT.

Well, so far the actual modeling part has gone well. Rendering times leave
much to be desired. I can wait on one frame to render. That's not
unbearable. But after I molded a cartoonish "egghead" face and set it into
an "egg holder", I'd estimate the final rendering time to be about six to
eight seconds for just one frame.

Okay, let's call it eight seconds just to be melodramatic about it. If I'd
wanted to animate that simple scene with no backgrounds of any kind -- just
a simple egghead in an eggholder, ten seconds of animation would take 40
minutes to render with my current system. Plus, I don't know how this
thing would perform once I really start adding a lot of objects to my
scenes. I can't imagine what the render time would be if I added a window
with stuff outside, the wall, textures on the wall, a desk with a spider
crawling across it, pencils in a transparent pencil holder, a chair,
paintings on the wall, etc.... This might take the rendering time up to
two minutes for each frame, meaning it would take ten hours to render ten
seconds of animation.

Okay. Simple solution. Build a more powerful computer.

I've heard of workstations that cost about $20,000. While I fantasize
about owning a computer that costs $20,000, it's not realistic right now,
at least not all in one fell swoop. And I'm not in a huge rush right now.
I'm still learning about 3D modeling. I've found it to be much easier than
I thought it would be and I can see now that I will be wanting something
better.

1. What kind of rendering times should I expect on workstation?

2. Is something like an Athlon 64 processor enough, or should I get dual
Opterons?

3. I like to play games as well. I've heard that an nVidia Quadro 4400
graphics card, while it may cost $2,000+, may not offer better game
performance because its purpose is different. That doesn't make sense.
But it is true? Seems like a workstation, being far more powerful than a
home gaming computer, albeit a good one, would still run circles around it.

4. Does a workstation have more longevity than a gamer's computer? Will I
find myself wanting (or needing) to upgrade every six to twelve months?

Any tips, pointers, hints, links, etc... will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Damaeus

 

[socks]

4. Does a workstation have more longevity than a gamer's computer? Will I
find myself wanting (or needing) to upgrade every six to twelve months?

my gut feel is that it takes some number of years for a $20K workstation
to depreciate to $1K, and that the time that takes has been reduced over
the years. same thing with the time it takes for a $1K machine to become
a $500 machine. it's getting shorter.

i mean, think what "64-bit workstations" used to cost, and how fast the
arrival of the Athlon 64 beat that down to a $600-700 base price. sure,
some bits of a pc architecture are slower/weaker than the workstations ...
but at a raw level, a bargain HP 64-bit PC has a faster processor, more
main memory, and a lot more disk, than the $5K DEC AlphaStation i was
using ~5 years ago.

for that reason i don't try to build out my machines to last a super long
time. i'd say get something that will run the software you want, and buy
a little bit up (but not too far up) the price curve.

i wouldn't aim for more than a 2-year life, because 2 years brings too
many changes. of course, YMMV, and "immediate requirements" must be met.

 

[JAD]

rendering video is wholly and solely dependent on what your
rendering and how and what your rendering to. Windows machines will
not render to a file larger than 2 gig.... Memory and CPU are the two
most important things. FSB speed is a factor also. 8 sec per frame is
nothing....remember that video has been produced on machines that were
not even close to what you can have today, yet animation and video
have been produced regardless. If your going to get SERIOUS about
it,,,look at a Mac also, visit any college or tech college that offers
classes in animation or 3d modeling, see what they are using.
I have been using a P4 1.6 and 2.0 for quite some time...........I
don't use Maya, however I do huge macromedia director, illustrator and
premier files along with virtual dub and Bryce . MEMORY is my top
concern....512 gets used up quick, 1 gig is now my minimum requirement
.....who would have thought you would have 1 g of ram in a desktop
looking at it from the 8086 era?

Anyway no audio/video studio is ever without a bank of Macs in their
arsenal.

 

[JK]

rendering video is wholly and solely dependent on what your
rendering and how and what your rendering to. Windows machines will
not render to a file larger than 2 gig.... Memory and CPU are the two
most important things. FSB speed is a factor also. 8 sec per frame is
nothing....remember that video has been produced on machines that were
not even close to what you can have today, yet animation and video
have been produced regardless. If your going to get SERIOUS about
it,,,look at a Mac also, visit any college or tech college that offers
classes in animation or 3d modeling, see what they are using.
I have been using a P4 1.6 and 2.0 for quite some time...........I
don't use Maya, however I do huge macromedia director, illustrator and
premier files along with virtual dub and Bryce . MEMORY is my top
concern....512 gets used up quick, 1 gig is now my minimum requirement
....who would have thought you would have 1 g of ram in a desktop
looking at it from the 8086 era?

Anyway no audio/video studio is ever without a bank of Macs in their
arsenal.

That was in the past. Going forward Opteron based machines should become
increasingly popular.

 

[JAD]

That was in the past. Going forward Opteron based machines should
become

increasingly popular.

That 'WAS' 'SHOULD BECOME' your statement is not precise,
There were no 64 bit machines in the lab in which I was instructed,
(except in the cad room), maybe in the future, but then the future is
always present and things always get done in the future, by others,
while you wait.

 

[Damaeus]

rendering video is wholly and solely dependent on what your
rendering and how and what your rendering to. Windows machines
will not render to a file larger than 2 gig.... Memory and CPU
are the two most important things. FSB speed is a factor also.
8 sec per frame is nothing....remember that video has been
produced on machines that were not even close to what you can
have today, yet animation and video have been produced
regardless.

Well, I could go the cheaper route. Just build a totally separate machine
ith an Athlon 64 on it, two gigs of DDR400. Or perhaps I should go the
dual Xeon route and find some solution using some of the less expensive
Xeons that will still outperform the single Athlon 64. And then there's
the video card. I can spend $2,800 on a Realizm graphics card with 700
GFLOPS or just use a GeForce FX. I'm still not 100% clear on the
difference between something like a GeForce FX and a Quadro except that one
is for home users and one is for professionals. I hear the Quadro and
other professional cards really shine in CAD and 3D production. Does that
mean the GeForce FX is going to be unusable when I get into more complex
scenes described in the original post?

I'm not a wealthy person, but I'm not dirt poor, either. I don't have
enough money to waste on hardware I don't need, but I also don't have
enough money to buy hardware that's inadequate only to later find I have to
spend just as much to get something a little better when I could have had
the best if I'd bought it to begin with and spending the same amount of
money I would have already wasted by throwing it away on trial and error
purchases. Did that make sense? :-\

Maybe I should point out that I'm not an artist, first of all. I can't
draw to save my life. However, I've found that modeling in Maya has given
me tools so powerful that I do seem to have some way to express myself
meaningfully. This is why I think this will stick with me like no other
attempt at art ever has. I can actually see something taking shape before
my eyes in a 3D perspective that I can spin and tumble. A drawing has to
be thought about in three dimensions while only working with
two-dimensional tools.

Well, I'm going to definitely be interested in creating human-looking
characters, which means there will be very dense wireframes to work with.
I think that's probably going to be the endeavor that brings my current
system to its knees. Even in the small project I completed last night
modeling a not-so-dense wiremesh of an "egghead" cartoon character, I
noticed the updates to the sphere I was molding were not taking place very
rapidly. It was okay, but if it gets much worse than that, I'll be wishing
for something faster.

If your going to get SERIOUS about it,,,look at a Mac also, visit
any college or tech college that offers classes in animation or
3d modeling, see what they are using. I have been using a P4 1.6
and 2.0 for quite some time...........I don't use Maya, however I
do huge macromedia director, illustrator and premier files along
with virtual dub and Bryce . MEMORY is my top concern....512
gets used up quick, 1 gig is now my minimum requirement ....who
would have thought you would have 1 g of ram in a desktop looking
at it from the 8086 era?

I don't go back quite that far in PC's. I do remember when a TRS-80 Color
Computer (16k RAM) was $299 and a Tandy PC Clone was $5499. I wonder hwo
much memory those had -- probably 512k.

 

[John R Weiss]

Okay. Simple solution. Build a more powerful computer.

I've heard of workstations that cost about $20,000. While I fantasize
about owning a computer that costs $20,000, it's not realistic right now,
at least not all in one fell swoop.

You can build a very nice workstation for $4000-5000. Go to www.ntsi.com
and check their "configurator" for examples. Then if you're interested,
give them a call or e-mail and ask for a quote for a machine to your specs.
Not all their hardware is in the configurator, and they will discount a
system from the sum of parts cost.

1. What kind of rendering times should I expect on workstation?

All depends on the workstation... Look up some reviews of machines
comaprable to what you think you want to build, and see what the benchmarks
are.

The short answer is that if the new machine is more capable than the current
one, rendering times will be shorter than current.

2. Is something like an Athlon 64 processor enough, or should I get dual
Opterons?

Especially if you have apps that are SMP aware, a dual Opteron machine will
be faster than a similarly-equipped FX machine. Even if the apps are not
SMP aware, you will be able to play a game in the foreground while the
rendering is going on behind the scenes. Make sure you have enough RAM (2-4
GB).

3. I like to play games as well. I've heard that an nVidia Quadro 4400
graphics card, while it may cost $2,000+, may not offer better game
performance because its purpose is different. That doesn't make sense.
But it is true? Seems like a workstation, being far more powerful than a
home gaming computer, albeit a good one, would still run circles around

it.

If the card costs $2000 because of Open GL hardware, and the game and
rendering app don't use Open GL, the $$ is wasted.

4. Does a workstation have more longevity than a gamer's computer? Will I
find myself wanting (or needing) to upgrade every six to twelve months?

There's no difference. You can go for the cutting edge now, and have a
viable computer 5 years down the line, or go a bit cheaper and
upgrade/replace in 1 or 3 years. It doesn't matter if it's a "game machine"
or "workstation" -- the definitions are too muddy, and often overlap.

You can buy dual Opteron 250s now, or spend half the $$ on the CPUs for 244s
or 246s. A good compromise today would be to find the
low-voltage/high-efficiency 246s.

Figure out what you NEED in a motherboard, and research those that satisfy
those needs.

 

[John R Weiss]

Well, I could go the cheaper route. Just build a totally separate machine
ith an Athlon 64 on it, two gigs of DDR400. Or perhaps I should go the
dual Xeon route and find some solution using some of the less expensive
Xeons that will still outperform the single Athlon 64.

The Xeon vs Opteron debate can go on forever. Choose whichever you like;
they will both perform well. The Athlon FX series has the same core as the
Opteron; other Athlons will not perform as well.

Xeons have a reputation for rendering video a bit quicker; Opterons have a
reputation for doing almost everything else a bit quicker. The memory
bandwidth you get with dual Opterons and Hypertransport is a significant
factor in that performance. Also, with Opterons you'll have the option to
go to a 64-bit OS when the time comes...

 

[Dave]

I'm still not 100% clear on the

difference between something like a GeForce FX and a Quadro except that one
is for home users and one is for professionals. I hear the Quadro and
other professional cards really shine in CAD and 3D production. Does that
mean the GeForce FX is going to be unusable when I get into more complex
scenes described in the original post?

Can anyone answer his question? What is the difference between the two
GeForce cards except for the large difference in price?

Dave

 

[maurice]

Can anyone answer his question? What is the difference between the two

GeForce cards except for the large difference in price?

Basically opengl support, which will significantly speed up on screen
renders but as I understand it have little impact on render to file times
which is determined almost solely by the cpu. Nearly all pro level 3d apps
including maya, lightwave 3dsmax etc support and greatly benefit from smp.

I use 3dsmax and it certainly prefers and fully supports opengl mode. Other
multimedia apps such as premiere and aftereffects will also benefit from hw
opengl support. Another variable is the level of opengl support, as I recall
some of the cheaper "workstation" cards only support a subset of
instructions. Check out some of the 3d newsgroups for more detailed info,
its been a while since I last researched this.

Your 3dgames wont benefit from the ws card, we have nvidia quadro fx 500
cards in our lab which were around $700 new and they benchmark in games
about the same as a nv5200 which was under $100

Unless you're time is valued at $100 per hour or more and you have a
constant flow of jobs waiting to be done I wouldnt consider spending 5
figures on a system which will be worth 10% of this in a couple of years.
You may want to consider getting a couple of pcs each with 2gig of ram, 3.2
processors 200gb hds and $500 worksation cards. That way when one box is
rendering out one file you can work on the next scene on the other pc, you
also have redundancy against breakdowns etc. You can also enable network
rendering if supported by your app. Use a KVM switch if space is tight and
dual 19" screens would be essential for most 3d and video work with their
myriad of windows and submenus.