Which Good PC for KeyShot?

[Nick]

Hi all,

My current PC is nearing 7 years (DELL XPS 9000) and not performing so well with KeyShot anymore, and besides, XPS was a gaming machine, not ideal for 3D/renderings.   I know that officially KS gives very low system requirements, but I want something decent / faster / more reliable.

Total budget: $1000-$1300 USD
Processor?
Graphics?
RAM?
Hard Drive?
OS?  I use Win 7 and absolutely hate anything that came after....  do you think future versions of KS will still be supported for Win 7?

Thank you!

[DriesV]

Hi Nick,

The brand-new AMD Ryzen 7 1800X seems to offer very good bang for the buck.
http://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-1800x

The Cinebench scores you find in almost every CPU review are an accurate indicator of KeyShot performance. This Ryzen CPU is a solid choice for a new rendering workstation.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_ryzen_7_1800x_processor_review,10.html

Dries

[DriesV]

Graphics
We don't use the GPU for rendering, only for OpenGL drawing and some graphics effects.
Any modern GPU will do just fine.
However, if you want to use stereoscopic rendering for 3D glasses or screens, then you need a graphics card that supports quad-buffered OpenGL. These are Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro cards.

RAM
16GB will be able to handle most jobs.
More is always better. RAM isn't that expensive these days.

Hard Drive
Pick an SSD for the OS and programs drive.
You can add a bigger hard drive with more capacity for storage and backup.

OS
What's wrong with Windows 10? I think it is a pretty solid OS.

Dries

[Nick]

Thanks a lot. 

I thought KS uses the GPU, and it turns out it only uses the processor integrated graphics...

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
Motherboard:  I believe this also needs to be swapped together with the processor..?
SSD:  what size is good...  250 GB? 

Thank you

[Will Gibbons]

Thanks a lot. 

I thought KS uses the GPU, and it turns out it only uses the processor integrated graphics...

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
Motherboard:  I believe this also needs to be swapped together with the processor..?
SSD:  what size is good...  250 GB? 

Thank you

Are you building this on your own? You should be able to research to see if the Mobo is compatible with the CPU. As for SSD, how much do you plan on putting on it. I run all my apps on an SSD and then save files out to a separate drive. If you want everything on that SSD, then I'd go for a larger one if you can afford it. Depends on how much space you need.

[Akira]

SSD:  what size is good...  250 GB? 

Thank you

If you're using also Adobe suite along with KS and other 3D programs I would recommend minimum 500GB, but from experience, I would go 1TB even. If you're doing animation renders and other post processing in Premiere pro and After Effects, Adobe loves to keep its temp files in AppData folder which you can't change directories without changing your .dll files which screws with windows 10.

[mattjgerard]

SSD:  what size is good...  250 GB? 

Thank you

Can confirm both on PC and Mac- Adobe apps are pigs when it comes to drive space. I've got a 512 ssd in my macbookpro, and without thinking when I first got it I just did a blanket install of creative cloud apps. Nearly half of my drive was gone between operating system and the adobe apps. I did go back and recover much of that, as I only use PPro AE and Photoshop, but still.... Almost as bad as the last version of Final Cut Pro Studio with DVDSP and Audio loops taking almost 25 GB of the install.

Good things keep coming up with the Ryzen chips, but do your research, and build a box with parts someone else has already troubleshat(shot?)


If you're using also Adobe suite along with KS and other 3D programs I would recommend minimum 500GB, but from experience, I would go 1TB even. If you're doing animation renders and other post processing in Premiere pro and After Effects, Adobe loves to keep its temp files in AppData folder which you can't change directories without changing your .dll files which screws with windows 10.