Let's make a gaming PC - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

I’d considered this route getting a 13” Razer stealth. Problem for me is not having a set base at the moment so went for the more powerful but still very portable MSI GS75. Went for the mid range 2070 RTX as didn’t really want to pay another £800 for the 2080!

https://youtu.be/lzAhPhA3JGE

GurtTractor

bad_hair_day wrote:

Very nice rig DS, so much meat. Getting a Matebook Pro X through work and thinking of perhaps a ‘portable’ eGPU to play home and away. Might be a gaming solution to those with a laptop with a thunderbolt type C USB connection?

I haven't that kind of setup yet, but it seems like it could be really practical for many people. I would recommend checking out reviews and benchmarks though, as the USB interface can limit how much performance you get from your chosen GPU, like I wouldn't use a really high end GPU for an external enclosure as you'll probably not get your money's worth of performance from it.

It's all to do with the bandwith of the cable, USB type and connection, and the PCIE connection available on the laptop's motherboard, so you should definitely do your research so you know what to expect.

Pseudoscot

I've gone with the Asus ROG GL703GS. It's not that impressive but it will run the type of games that I play without stretching itself. Some of its components are better spec than my desktop.

b0r1s

That's a nice machine and great screen, and if it's the GTX 1070 way more powerful than my desktop. It will run most modern games at 1080p easily over 60fps at high, I'd have thought.

That was around my initial budget. It was only because I decided to put it on credit that I went with something more portable, which is what eventually adds to the cost!

Dark Soldier

Settled on 1440p everything else maxed on Metro, Ray Tracing on Ultra. Fuck me it looks astonishing.

Dark Soldier

game is fkin legit lads

GurtTractor

What's yer Cinebench R20 score DS?

acemuzzy

Looks nice aye

bad_hair_day

DS, treat yersell to a Sea of Thieves sunset matey.

b0r1s

Dark Soldier wrote:

Settled on 1440p everything else maxed on Metro, Ray Tracing on Ultra. Fuck me it looks astonishing.

Have found my sweet spot. Settings on high, Ray Tracing on High, DLSS off and getting generally 60fps. On a laptop not much thicker than my MacBook. And yes it looks great, though not as great as your beast of a rig.

bad_hair_day

@Gurt. Good advice around the choke points and compatibility. The trading of an acceptable performance dip for portability and easy graphic card upgrades is attractive though.

GurtTractor

I think with new, faster USB standards that kind of thing is only going to get better and more prevalent in time. I could see the external-GPU market getting pretty big in the future, as laptops seem to be much popular generally due to their convenience.

Dark Soldier

Final lot of pics I swear (still giddy lads). A selection of pics for @bad_hair_day

Spoilered due to size. 4k absolute max settings, 60fps. You owe your beautiful self something like this BHD.

Spoiler:

Dark Soldier

GurtTractor wrote:

What's yer Cinebench R20 score DS?

3452, but this machine won't be rendering shit.

bad_hair_day

Dark Soldier wrote:

4k absolute max settings, 60fps.

hunk

The perfect screen to go with that 2080Ti DS!

n0face

Any pc recommendations for rendering 3d designs? Ideally under £800 all in.

LivDiv

GPU: 980ti (£250ish)
Ram: 32gb (£100ish)
CPU: i7 8700 3.2ghz (£320ish)
Then whatever power supply, case and motherboard support them.

Of course if you want prebuilt then use those as a guide, I imagine you would have to do a ram upgrade yourself on a prebuilt with that GPU.

That should be about the right price and will do fine.
Definitely get a Geforce card for the GPU as it is the most broadly supported by 3D software.

GurtTractor

n0face wrote:

Any pc recommendations for rendering 3d designs? Ideally under £800 all in.

Here you are -

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor (£141.98 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI - B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (£89.50 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£154.38 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£53.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - Radeon RX VEGA 56 8 GB Air Boost 8G OC Video Card (£249.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design - Focus G (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£45.94 @ More Computers)
Power Supply: Cooler Master - MasterWatt 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£54.43 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £790.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-04-09 17:59 BST+0100

I'm going on the assumption that you might be using Blender, other software may behave differently. The CPU is specced a little lower than the GPU, as it's much faster to render a scene on the GPU than the CPU.

The Ryzen 2600 will be similar to the 8700, except you can overclock the 2600 (will need a beefier cooler though), and you will have the option of upgrading to a very meaty 8/12/16 core Ryzen gen 3 once they are released this year if you so wish. Also the PCIE situation on AMD systems is better than with Intel currently, basically you have more PCIE lanes and room for additional storage and graphics cards.

The Vega 56 is not normally something I would recommend, but for 3D work the Vega chips are actually pretty damn alright, and for £250 it's a stonker tbh. Not sure you can do better than that for that money, surprised to see how much the price on those has fallen. It's a single fan blower design, so it will get noisy when rendering, do bear that in mind. If noise is a real issue let me know and I can find another option perhaps, but that is a good choice for 3D work.

No OS priced there, but assuming you primarily want to just do rendering with it, then just go for Linux, Blender works a treat on that.

GurtTractor

Dark Soldier wrote:

What's yer Cinebench R20 score DS?

3452, but this machine won't be rendering shit.

Pah, I get 4056 m8

But I do do rendering and other shit on mine tbf, and yours will smash mine for single-core performance.

LivDiv

Listen to Gurt, he knows more than me on builds.
Just if you have specific software, particularly renderers in mind double check what GPUs are supported. Likewise with operating system.

n0face

Thanks guys, I'll take a look at those.

GooberTheHat

What are the benifits of quadro graphics cards over "gaming" cards? I'm looking at machine learning, data analysis/visualisation machine and wondered if I'd be better off with one.

LivDiv

Again Gurt will likely know more but this is my understanding.

Quadro are better optimised for certain tasks, so if doing those tasks and those only then a Quadro is best. However that optimization, testing and official support and approval from software manufacturers adds a premium.

In terms of value for money you will always get more clockspeed for your money with a GTX. A Quadro just uses it's clockspeed more efficiently for the tasks it is designed for.

I have always stuck with GTX as my day work day involves 3D viewport, 3D rendering, raster in photoshop, vector in illustrator, video, particles, vector and raster in after effects, Netflix, plex, YouTube and whatever ads the internet throws at me.

For your needs it may be different if it is just a machine running tasks, best to ask the egg heads writing the software.

Edit: added the second half of that post because Son scored during the first half.

GurtTractor

Quadro and workstation type cards and requirements are not something I'm too knowledgeable about I'm afraid. I have seen the odd thing about them though. I think quite often the consumer and pro cards are actually the same, but the chips the consumers get often just have particular features or math capability artificially locked out. I recall something about one of the recent Titan cards having it's performance hobbled by an update, so that it would perform worse than a Quadro. Rather annoying.

AMD is known for not really doing that so much though, and often the much cheaper consumer cards they sell can perform way above what you would expect. It does depend on the software though, and you have to compare your worklow against benchmarks for the software used. I think some of the pro cards might have additional VRAM or other features too, you just have to dig through stuff a bit, just beware the marketing...

I've seen this in the past which might be relevant -

And this may be of use - https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3399-best-workstation-gpus-2018-for-adobe-premiere-autocad-vray-and-more

Also it's well worth looking at Linux benchmarks if that's something you are considering, possibly a good idea as the performance can be a fair bit better on Linux depending on hardware and software used. Phoronix is a very useful site with and absolute ton of information regarding performance of various configurations.

GooberTheHat

Cheers guys.

GurtTractor

Dark Soldier

So after a week of absolutely pushing the system with game after game and being blown away by the hour I doubt I could ever go back to console. The detail, the consistent 60+ fps, the mods, the scale of the whole thing. Yes its cost me a fucking bomb but I've never been so happy and impressed with a purchase. Metro Exodus, and not Sekiro as expected, has been the most impressive. Fuck me 4A are Gods.

Why I didn't head this way 5-10 years earlier I don't know (read: I was unemployed lolololol).

GurtTractor

Yeah, it kinda renders a lot of the console experience somewhat pointless, apart from the odd unique experience and some community stuff (e.g. Dreams) that you can't get on an open platform.

Have you played Total Warhammer II yet? Wondering if it would be your thing, definitely my most played series now I think, with Warhammer at the top of playtime. The historical ones are worth checking out too, a very different feel.

Dark Soldier

I will be on it at some point as my cousin is mad on it and wants to MP, but Metro has its hooks in deep and then its Sekiro time.

Did a benchmark and its lol.

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