Buying new computer.

Buying new computer.

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https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic449394.aspx

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By kenmatthews - 6 Years Ago

Hello,
I am considering buying a desktop computer specifically for my iClone 7 and all my assets. As I am currently part way through a feature film project I feel I need to buy a new computer, as I'm using an oldish Pentium i7 computer that I use for all my computer needs. Can anyone advise me on the specs that would be future proof for a few years please,?
Best regards.
Ken

By Slayerazazel - 6 Years Ago

I believe you mean Intel Core i7 (not pentium, unless you do have a Pentium, which would mean you don't have an i7)

How old is your current computer? If it is an i7. Do you know which generation it is? I have an i7-8700 which means it's an 8th Gen core i7. i72600 was a second-generation i7. So whatever the first number after the i7/i5/i3 is the generation. Just wanting to know this to see if you do actually need a new PC or if an upgrade would suffice. Also how much RAM do you have? You could just need an upgrade in RAM and a new Video Card

The majority of iclone 7 and CC3 more so uses RAM and VRAM

Generally for future-proofing. You would just purchase the best computer with the newest parts money can buy right at this moment. So the other thing to consider is, what is your budget?

With unlimited money... the following specs would be the best future proof PC.
Core i7 10th Generation
NVidia RTX 2080TI 11GB VRAM (3000 series will be released soon)
32GB RAM or even 64GB RAM DDR4 (highest speed)

I recently upgraded my PC from an old i7-2600 (2nd Gen) and 16GB Ram and AMD R9-380 Graphics Card,
My current PC specs are
Windows 10
Intel Core i7-8700 @ 3.2GHz (8th Gen)
32 GB DDR4 2400MHz (Which is on the lower side, but a lot cheaper)
NVidia RTX 2070 Super 8GB VRAM
500GB M.2 SSD for main drive + numerous SSHDs for all other drives.

I've previously worked in the IT field for over 5 years and a lot of that was building computers. I built my own computer also. The budget will be the main factor in what PC you will be able to get.
Basically at the end of the day, the only thing that will matter is the more RAM you have the better, and the better NVidia RTX graphics card you can get the better.

By kenmatthews - 6 Years Ago

Hello Slayerazazel,
Thank you for your reply. My specs are:
Intel I7-3770K @3.50ghz
16 Gb RAM
Nvidia GTX 670
Running Windows 10.
2SSD's (C, D)
Several HDD's.
I have an American Megatrends motherboard which has never had the BIOS updated, terrified to do that myself...

I have noticed several brands of computers that have higher end graphics cards than I have, and it appears to be cheaper to buy the whole computer rather than just the graphics cards which appear to be hideously expensive...

Best regards.
Ken

By justaviking - 6 Years Ago

Ken,

My desktop specs are very similar to yours. See my signature.

For 90% of what I do, my ancient CPU is not much of a bottleneck. I also rarely max out my 16GB of RAM. The main thing is the GPU. Keep it Nvidia, and 8GB of VRAM (or more if you can find it).

I have visions of a system upgrade. I'm really looking at an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X. But that means a new motherboard, and I'll get 32GB of new RAM, and probably a nice m.2 SSD.... and the next thing I know I'm spending over $1,000 even though I'm using the same graphics card. So I keep putting it off. (I was getting really close to doing it, and just got hit with a $2,000 air conditioning repair bill, so I my computer upgrade gets deferred again.)

By thebiz.movies - 6 Years Ago

justaviking (7/2/2020)

Maybe you could combine the house repairs to cool off the new system and save some cash? Hehe,
I'm doing the memory/vid card upgrade this month upgrading from a GTX 970 to a GeForce RTX 2070 Super . Interesting to note Windows 7 Premium can only upgrade to 16GB so I might have to move on to Win10. Good times ahead I hope. Something needs to kick ass this year...

By Rampa - 6 Years Ago

Your video card should be updated. The rest of your system is perfectly fine.

Get a recent Nvidia GTX or RTX card with 8 Gig VRAM, or more, and you're good to go!

By kenmatthews - 6 Years Ago

Thanks Justaviking, Rampa and Thebiz.movies,
Your comments have convinced me the best move for me is probably upgrading my graphics card and increasing my Ram. The thought of a new dedicated computer specifically for iClone, video and sound editing is very appealing though...
Best regards.
Ken

By Slayerazazel - 6 Years Ago

kenmatthews (7/2/2020)

As the others said, upgrading your Graphics card should do the trick. Depending on what you do the RAM should be fine. I have 32GB and I get close to maxing out, but it's generally fine. But I usually have iClone, CC3, 3D XChange, ZBrush, Substance Painter, 3D Coat open at the same time, and even more sometimes.

If upgrading to future proof the graphics card at least. Don't go lower than a 2070 Super. So you have 2 options for your budget. 2070 Super or 2080 TI.

Also if you do end up going for a new dedicated PC for iclone, video, and sound editing. Be very careful with retail stores. They usually add low-quality parts to keep the cost down. Motherboard, RAM, Power Supply, and also use the older generation CPUs because of leftover stock. The salesperson would try and sell you an old 7th/8th generation before trying to sell you a newer 9th or 10th generation CPU to get rid of the stock. And they often don't list the specific details. They just say i7 or i5 (without stating the generation). So either build yourself if you know how to. Or ask for the full specs of the PC, generation of the CPU, Frequency of the RAM, Brand, and Power of the PSU.

By kenmatthews - 6 Years Ago

Hello all,
I have been wrestling with a lot of problems with iClone 7 recently and have posted about them, Face Key etc in other posts, ending up with this post about buying a new computer... All these problems have now been sorted for me, albeit with a lot of grief and many, many hours spent at the computer.
As I tried to resolve all my problems I managed to ruin my computer registry... after many hours, lots of advice and sheer frustration, I realised I had no option other than doing a complete Windows 10 reset. This gave me an added set of problems entirely unrelated to iClone, Office 365 (now called Microsoft 365) for instance, although the support from Microsoft was absolutely brilliant...
Because (limited space on my C drive) I had put everything iClone on another drive I am happy to say that my projects have all been unaffected by these issues and I am now (just) back up and running with my Project. I'd like to thank everybody who offered me advice, it was all brilliant and I am very grateful to you all. Thank you all very much.

Bes regards.
Ken

By kenmatthews - 6 Years Ago

Hello Slayerazazel,
Thank you for your advice it will prove to be very useful in my quest for an upgrade.
Best regards.
Ken

By ultimativity - 6 Years Ago

Nvidia is due to release some outstanding GPUs in the next few months. They are reputedly much faster and more powerful than existing RTX 2000 series. If you can hold out, these cards (Ampere series) will be the best you can get.

By Slayerazazel - 6 Years Ago

ultimativity (7/5/2020)

Yeah.. And an extra $1000 price tag on top of the 2000 series also i would assume.. LOL. Without direct competition, their prices for their high-end cards have just rocketed over the years.

By cinemyscope - 6 Years Ago

Since years I've been building my own machines and right now I'd recommend the AMD Ryzen Threadrippers for a CPU.
Here is a link:
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3960x/p/N82E16819113619
They are not cheap but they are the way to go if you want a machine for the next years to come.
As to GPU - Nvidia is supposed to release the new RTX 3080 cards within the next couple months. That also means the price of the 2080's is about to drop. Benchmarks and price would determine which one to choose, just don't go bellow a 2080 Super I'd say.
Hope this helps:)

By Slayerazazel - 6 Years Ago

cinemyscope (7/15/2020)

Don't expect the prices of the 2000 series to drop. As I said before. Without direct competition from AMD, they rule the market on pricing. When the 2000 series came out, I kept trying to find some 1080TIs as I thought the price would decrease also. But that was not the case. They made the prices of the 2000 series more than the 1000 series and just kept the 1000 series basically the same price until they stopped making them. I would love to be wrong about this. But when you control the pricing because of no competition. You can then do whatever you want and people will pay those prices.

By ultimativity - 6 Years Ago

@Slayerrazazel, AMD is actually releasing their new line, which includes raytracing this year. It appears that both companies are trying to time their release to outmaneuver the other. So, there will be competition. Also, Nvidia did stop production of the 2000 series recently. If price is the main criteria for you, I can see your argument. However, if the OP is looking for future-proofing and functionality (for all his computer needs), these next gen cards are unbeatable.

By ultimativity - 6 Years Ago

@ cinemyscope, what is the advantage of a Threadripper over a Ryzen 9 series, assuming an X570 mobo and 128 Gb of ram?

By Slayerazazel - 6 Years Ago

ultimativity (7/15/2020)

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But NVidia owning the market has nothing to do with raytracing. For example in iclone there is global illumination which is NVidia only software (I believe). Sure an AMD card can still use the feature, but no where near as well as an NVidia card can handle it.
Also the reallusion programs are accelerated with NVIDIA. My previous AMD card would not be recognised and all my renders ran through my CPU until I upgraded to a NVidia card. Now my standard renders run through the GPU and then there's iray which is supported by reallusion, another NVidia software that is only supported on NVidia cards.

So when I say that NVidia are king. I'm stating that based on this thread. About what would be best for iclone and character creator. In regards to a new PC.

AMD own the midrange market for gaming. That's it. They cannot compete with what NVidia offers and is supported by reallusion. And also cannot really compete overall in the video/gaming/editing/rendering side of things.

I used to be an AMD exclusive user. Until I started 3D modelling and animating. AMD just can't come close in that aspect imo.

If you want good bang for your buck for gaming, then AMD is the card you want and they definitely own the market thete.. If you want raw power and for use in the 3D World then NVidia is the card you want and they clearly own the market in that aspect.

By cinemyscope - 6 Years Ago

Hi Nathan,
I should specify that I am referring to the 3rd generation Threadrippers. Since there are 1st generation Threadrippers out there that would be outperformed by a Ryzen 9. 3rd generation are the somewhat expensive 3960X, the more expensive 3970X, and the IMO too expensive 3990X. The main difference would be in the cores. I think the top of the line Ryzen 9 has 16 cores at 3.5Ghz. The lowest spec (new generation) Threadripper has 24 cores at 3.8Ghz. It costs about double too but more cores at a higher clock speed will be faster. It then also depends on the programs you use and your workflow. For example I use one 3D application that doesn't access the GPU at all - unfortunately. That software would see an impressive boost in render performance between the 8 core i7 I'm using right now and a 24 core Threadripper. With iClone online comments are all over the place, but I'd guess render speed is probably more CPU based whereas FPS performance for things like live link transfers are primarily dependent on the GPU. In other words if you balance CPU vs. GPU vs. budget you need to factor in the individual workflow and other software besides iClone you may be using. That said since the initial question was for a machine for a feature length film I'm guessing performance is more important than cost, so I'd wait for the 3080 and go with one of the three 3rd generation Threadrippers. At least right now, in a year from now this may all be different, but it would still be a very good machine for some time to come.
Hope this helps:)

By rgreenidge - 6 Years Ago

Ken, I haven't been on here in a while. I've been working on a movie since IC-3. I see a few people I know on here are still here, Just a Viking and Rampa. I'm not a spring chicken, I'll be 70 in August, and I have built everything from vacuum tube stuff, to the stuff they have today. I designed Cat scans in the 70, and fiber optics, using Xmas trees from Radio Shack. I don't keep up with Computers everyday, because before you can get a new one put together, something new is released. Last July I just was curious to see what the top processor was, and it was the new AMD Ryzen 9-3900X for $399. It was sold out the first day, I was lucky to get it a week later, because it takes 3 months, to build one of these CPU's. I was using a i7-6800k, I'm not a fan boy for any. I used even Cyrix, CPU's, whoever gave me the most bang for the buck. My biggest beef when I bought Intel based CPU's, almost 100% of the time, anytime they came out with a new CPU, you had to get a new motherboard. To go to a faster CPU than the 6800K, I had to get a new MB. That MB series was obsolete after 1 or 2 years. But, the motherboard, had 8 Ram slots, and I was able to have 128 GB of RAM. They had people on here that would say, 16 GB of RAM was enough. Yes, that may be enough, if you had 2-4 avatars. And most of the videos I've seen on here has 1-4 avatars. I'm trying to get at least 80 different people on a Jet plane, and 100 different people in a disco with rotating lights, with real lights in them, 30-40 different people on a beach. Because when have that many things moving, the CPU has to instruct each thing to perform it's instruction, and if you have 1000 things that have to change, a slow CPU needs more time to move everything in the scene, not the video card. Back in the days, when there became more than one main color TV manufacturers, you could see the difference in some by a mile. You have all these people swearing by these overpriced video cards, but can you look at any of these final videos and say this video was made with 2080 11GB card? Yes it will render faster to your drive, but look better? It's like audio, some people swear by MAC, but can you tell if a song was made by a MAC, or Windows Digital Audio Workstation? No you can't, so why do they spend the extra money? If I spend more money, I want to see or hear the results, by that much more money. Go to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and compare High end CPU's, you will see that the Ryzen 9-3900X, is the best CPU for your buck, and it works with the old 400 series and new 500 series motherboards. You can also compare video cards there also, with prices and links. As far as memory, I usually buy the second slowest, there is not that much difference in buying the fastest, I never compared memory by speed, but look at You Tube, I'm not paying $200 more for memory, just to get 10 seconds of faster rendering time. With the i7-6880; some movies I use to render took 10-12 hours, now with the 3900X, everything is under 2 hours. I can add much more avatars in my scenes, without iClone creeping on me, skipping frames while running my scene. I would love to get the Threadripper for $3000, and those motherboards are around $500, and I could have up to 256 RAM. The naysayers on here have said, you don't need that much, RAM, but do they have +60 avatars in their scenes? They are lucky to have 6. If you don't have a lot of Avatars, you don't need the power. When I first bought iClone 3, I couldn't get 6 people on my plane, because it wasn't enough RAM. Buying a better video card did never increase my use of avatars, only the size of the RAM, and the faster CPU's made my iClone playback work normal. If you build your own computers, I would recommend you get the 3900X bundle with the 570 motherboard, from Microcenter or New Egg. Get two sticks of 32 GB of Ram, incase one day you want to go all the way to 128 GB if you will use a lot of avatars. Try this before you get a new video card, you may not need to buy one. Go to my movie teaser on YouTube. So far I though guys on here have great looking videos, I have never seen anyone coming close to the number of live avatars, non-duplicate I use in my scenes. There are two disco scenes, and the reason there are less avatars, in the first one, because I only had 32, than 64 GB of RAM for the next one, when I was able to go to 128 GB of RAM, I could almost double, the amount in the final one, not shown on here. The jungle scene in Rio Dreams, probably used the most of my 11 GB of RAM of my 1080Ti card, only around 5 GB. Getting the 9-3900X, and a 570 Motherboard, will set you back around $600. I had the fastest processor for 4 months. If you have DDR4 memory in your old motherboard just use that. I never overclock, but I have watercooler on it. Good luck with your new computer. Since I had iC3, I must have upgraded my computer every year. And I'm thinking about the $3000 Threadripper, to put in there, and use the 3900X for the new coming out in August, MS Flight Simulator only computer. Here is my movie scene teaser, and some other under rioleo8 on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0xsSvtgqCs If anyone knows, anyone who uses more Avatars in their iClone projects than myself, please point me to the videos please. Thank you.