… and decided to purchase a PC.
Following advice from @DaveR and @liamk887 going with this one. Had to go for a slighter better GPU as well as the standard 2080TI was out of stock until November. Hope this one is ok.
Just need to sell the iMac now.
Mike
Cool! I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it.
I’m both excited and anxious 
Hopefully it’ll be ok. Got to wait 3 weeks for it to be built and delivered.
Actually looking forward to it really. I’ve tried to make it so that I can keep it for a long time now that I’ll have the freedom to upgrade it.
Looking forward to being able to run software that is not available for Macs.
Mike
I would have opted for a longer power cable, maybe 1,5m…so it could rest on top of my desktop, instead beneath 
three weeks…
Nice, does the intel CPU have hyperthreading do you know ?
3 weeks. I know. Stupid Covid! 
It will be on the desk as my desk has power mounted in hidden compartments at the back. It’s a reclaimed commercial office desk.
Mike
Hi Liam
According to this it does apparently. Not entirely sure what it is 
As long as it works ok.
Mike
Would’ve gone for a 3950X on air instead of that 10900X on water but that totally comes down to preference. Everything else looks really solid.
It just means your processor cores double up so if you are rendering in Keyshot or Blender for example the software will see a 20 core CPU rather than a 10 core and it will be a little bit faster.
My work CPU is 32 core but with hyperthreading comes out at 64 core for example when rendering.
I’m not knowegable about computers.
… Michaels’ new system is what one would call “screaming” correct?
The i9 is a monster - correct? 10 cores is getting up there although I’ve seen more.
Looks like he’s going to be doing some high end rendering and fly thru’s… or animated videos?
(… I see nothing about ‘threads’ in his system spec.)
I am now putting together a new PC system as well. I’m a one person architect doing single houses.
I want to be able to VRay render simple interiors and exteriors, with good lighting. I don’t need motion although rendering a scene where the light moves thru the day is something I want to be able to do.
What is the absolute minimum amount of cores I would need in the CPU to handle that without a headache.
Hi @Patt
Yes, I’m hoping that the system will prove to be successful.
The main reason behind the specification is Rendering, hence why I’ve gone for the Geforce RTX 2080ti GPU. I do currently use Twinmotion on my iMac, but I’m not convinced it runs as well as it should. I do think Macs are limited in the Software that can be run on them. I plan to be buying Lumion next year, which only runs on Windows. Also, PCs/Windows allows NVidia GPU Cards to be used, which work with VRay, Thea Render etc. Macs only use AMD GPUs
Also, PCs seem to be far more upgradeable than Macs, so I am tried to go for something that I can expand later. For example, I’ve chosen a 1000W Power Supply which will allow me to add another GPU next year, if I choose.
I too have not had a PC in many years, so this is all rather new territory to me, and I have picked @liamk887 brains on a number of occasions for this. Apparently the i9 does Hyper threading which Liam has explained in the post above yours. I know for Sketchup, the number of Cores does not have an effect, as Sketchup, (and other 3D Software), can only use a Single Core, but for Rendering etc, they can help. Again, see Liam’s comment about his work PC, with 32 Cores.
Similar to you, I am also one person business, but am wanting to expand my Rendering offerings to Clients, especially my Commercial Clients.
Kind regards
Mike
Apologies, as I also need to thank @DaveR for his valuable time that he spent running through Sketchup and Layout on Windows, answering my queries and showing me the various differences in using Sketchup and Layout in Windows compared to Mac, as well as other Technical queries.
One of those days and I should have gone to bed ages ago.
Mike
It depends on the software too not just the hardware. I can render out 1000 4K frames in Blender in about 12 hours but doing the same in Keyshot is more like 3 days and Arnold maybe 1 and a half days on the same computer using the CPU,
Some render engines can make use of the GPU and CPU and some are CPU or GPU only,
On my personal CPU (i7 16 threads) I tend not do do any CPU animation rendering other than still frames as it’s just too slow. My work PC has a much faster AMD CPU with 64 threads and I find this to be quite optimal.
However this all pales in comparison to my GPU that could spit out 7000 frames in around an hour and a half in Blender or Unreal.
In Unreal Engine I can average 2-3 frames per second when animating sometimes at 4K.
For this reason both professionally and personally I am only working with GPU based rendering for animation from now on, everything else is too slow to be competitive really. In the morning I can be sketching with a client and by the evening or next day I can be handing them a full 4K walkthrough.
Very helpful.
So is there a “switch” or setting in the software that designates the rendering work to go to the GPU?
… and SU works ONLY in the CPU - is that correct?
The existence of a setting depends on the software. In V-ray, for instance, you can select whether your rendered image is calculated by your CPU or the CUDA cores of a Nvidia graphics card or the RTX engine of Nvidia RTX cards.
SketchUp uses both the CPU and GPU to draw its screen (Roughly, your CPU calculates the “geometry” while the GPU takes care of textures, shadows and other “raster” features) Today, SketchUp requires an OpenGL compliant graphics card, there is no option to use only your CPU (“software OpenGL”)
Thank you. Very much appreciate everyone’s willingness to share their knowledge here.
I’m putting a system together and really trying to do as much research about this myself. However what I’m finding is that the centrifugal forces in all the literature are severe.
Anybody have a good one source reference which would help me understand how to make sure all of my case components (power supply, microprocessor, fan, RAM, motherboard, GPU, hard drive) get along and play nice together? … optimum inter operating efficiency. Seems like a rather daunting organizational task when all I really want to do is make architecture.
Try to stay with a name brand, Asrock, Asus, Gigabyte, Msi. There are others depending on your location.
Actually it’s not that bad. Once you figure out which motherboard you want (by the features ), you go to the support page for that board. they will provide the listings for the processors and ram they have tested to ensure compatibility.
There are power supply calculators on the web. Don’t cheap out on one. A good way to judge quality is by the length of the warranty, 10 to 12 years.
There are many cases available, determined by the size factor of the motherboard.
Video graphics by Nvidia is the best for Sketchup. The big factor here is if you want to do rendering. I have an RTX 2070.
Keep asking questions is the best way to learn and Google can be a friend also.
I would say: Decide on a rough guideline of components you would like in your system (CPU, amount of RAM, disk, graphics card) and go to your local computer shop that builds custom systems. Doing it all yourself may spare you a couple of $ but it takes a lot of your time spent better making architecture.
I advised @MichaelSiggers to use this website, adds on a few more quid however you get the added benefit of up to three years parts warranty and that’s very helpful, also they will build the machine and make sure it’s working nice before shipping it.
