Which DELL pc for KeyShot?

[Nick]

Hello,

I am not much of a PC tinkerer and always buy complete PCs from some of the existing big brands, in particular from DELL. Yes it's probably not the best bang for the buck, but that's how I roll

How about Inspiron with either AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700X Processor  or AMD Ryzen™ 5 1400 Processor
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-desktop-computers/inspiron-gaming-desktop/spd/inspiron-5675-gaming-desktop/ddcwrdsk943ph?ref=464_tnt_prodTitle

I don't do hardcore work all the time, but produce decent 3D animations of up to 2-3 minutes in length, and my current 7 year old PC can take in excess of 12 hours just for that, a tad too long.  Since KeyShot uses CPU and not GPU, I obviously need a PC with a strong CPU, and I heard that the AMD Ryzen had a good performance?

Thank you in advance,
Nick

[theAVator]

At work we use the Dell Precision Tower 5810's
Tends to be a pretty good workhorse with Xeon processors.
Ours are running 3GHz Xeons (16 cores), 64GB RAM, Win10 Enterprise

I don't usually have any issues pulling in .bip files that are 9+ GB in size, some even pushing 17GB.  Obviously smaller files work faster in all aspects, but it handles the big ones too.

May depend on how much you want to spend too. I think when I looked it up for me to go buy this computer on my own (no corporate/bulk discounts/leases/whatever) the base model (i7 processors and like 16GB RAM) started around $1800, and to equip it with what I have here was $3000+ not including any software.

[mattjgerard]

Its all a matter of budget. There are just now proper manufacturers coming out with threadripper prebuilt boxes, Alienware being on of the more prominent.

https://goo.gl/d5oipg

These start at about $2300 for a 16 core/32thread build, which is quite thrifty for the core count, hence why the TR builds are getting so much attention these days.

But if you have some little budget to work with then the sky is the limit, there was another chap on here that posted a machine similar to this one that I've speced out to propose at my work (and fully expect to get laughed out of my proposal meeting, then respond with a reasonable machine)

https://goo.gl/wznUjW

Which will get you a XEON dual processor 24core/48thread build for about $7500.

Now, stating that your current computer is about 7 years old is actually more important than one might think, as that pretty much any decent box with 8+ cores is going to feel like you are suddenly torn from your pinto hatchback and dropped into a proper sport car. Which car you get dropped into depends completely on budget, and willingness to putz with the machine. From what you said making a home build is out of the question, so that limits the research you have to do right off the bat.

The Threadripper builds are going to appear to be the best performance for your dollar, but they cap out at 16C32T. If you want/need more than that then you look at quite substantially increasing the price of the machine, since you now have to move to dual processor machines, which can get stupid expensive really quick.

There was a thread on here about someone found a great deal on a last year's lenovo tower that was pretty loaded with impressive specs for a more reasonable cost. FOund it-

https://goo.gl/BRbNaN

MIght look into something like that. Either way, post what you end up getting and the results, it helps to hear what actual numbers other keyshotters are getting with their hardware.

[Nick]

Thanks for your input. My max budget would be around only $1200-$1300 USD, so unfortunately the precision tower and purpose built machines are out of reach.

[mattjgerard]

well, that does limit you, but at least its a starting point. For KS its all about core count and core speed. So the AMD solutions will probably give you more for your money.

[Nick]

Thanks, that confirms what I read about it.

I am not aware of the differences between these two processors, but I assume the "7" is comparable to the Core i7 from Intel and the "5" is aligned with the Core i5.
AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700X Processor  or AMD Ryzen™ 5 1400 Processor

[Will Gibbons]

Thanks, that confirms what I read about it.

I am not aware of the differences between these two processors, but I assume the "7" is comparable to the Core i7 from Intel and the "5" is aligned with the Core i5.
AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700X Processor  or AMD Ryzen™ 5 1400 Processor

I wouldn't assume that. Rather, just look at the core count for each processor and know that usually, as core count increases the clock speed decreases. You trade off max speed of each core for total cores that can do jobs concurrently. For KeyShot, you'll just want to buy the computer that has the processor with the most number of cores. Save money by going with a cheap GPU, Storage, Motherboard, Ram... really, on the budget you mentioned, I'd buy refurbished or used.