My daughter will be a 3rd year industrial design student this fall. At the end of last semester, she spent an inordinate amount of time in the computer lab waiting for Keyshot renders to complete (7 hours or more at a time). I want to buy her a workstation and install Keyshot so she can complete her renders at home so she can actually get some sleep. Unfortunately, I don’t have many technical details about the systems in the computer lab or the size of the projects but do know they are doing GPU rendering. I suspect the projects aren’t terribly large as they are creating models of fairly straightforward products and then rendering to add textures and other visual effects. I also suspect that the computers in the lab are at least a year or two old.
I’ve spent a lot of time comparing hardware for GPU rendering and was hoping to get some feedback. The idea is to get her a solid machine without spending an inordinate amount of money. Current thinking is:
- Intel I9-13900 24 Core CPU
- 32 GB DDR 5 RAM
- Nvidia GEForce RTX 4070 Ti GPU
- 1TB NVME M.2 SSD
- 2TB SSD Hard Drive
- Windows 11 Pro
A couple of key questions would be:
- Does this type of configuration seem sensible?
- Would any of the components be a bottleneck or overkill?
- What is important in selecting a Motherboard or is there a specific recommendation?
For Solidworks system builds, I have had good luck with Xidax. However, they seem to be lacking in the GPU area for rendering systems. Any recommendations for a good custom builder with reasonably priced systems would also be appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your posting your questions here on Luminaries!
Firstly, what university is your daughter a student at? It seems like the they would benefit greatly from acquiring a Network Rendering license.
Second, here are my answers to your questions:
-Does this type of configuration seem sensible?
We usually recommend NVIDIA RTX 4000 or higher. Therefore, the 4070 should work great.
-Would any of the components be a bottleneck or overkill?
The system configuration that you are inquiring about should be just fine (neither a bottleneck nor an overkill).
-What is important in selecting a Motherboard or is there a specific recommendation?
Although we do not dictate what hardware is needed to purchase, please check out our “System Requirements” page here: (https://www.keyshot.com/system-requirements/)
As long as you have those minimum requirements, you should be good. Anything more is of course going to improve your experience.
Hi there, I felt so moved that a father thinking about all of the computer stuff for his daughter, and here are the suggestions about the question you asked.
- Does this type of configuration seem sensible?
Yes, it is quite good, and if you are OK with the price, the * Nvidia GEForce RTX 4090 Ti GPU with 24G GPU Memory would be better.
- Would any of the components be a bottleneck or overkill?
Absolutely no, the equipment that you chose above is quite good enough, don’t worry
- What is important in selecting a Motherboard or is there a specific recommendation?
As for the motherboard, I have little experience in choosing it, I always take the advice of the seller or other buyers with the same equipment.
Hope everything is OK!
Hi Raymond,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Getting validation on the configuration from someone who has actually used Keyshot allows me to purchase a system with confidence.
Wishing you all the best!
Brian
Hi Brian,
With more and more things which are GPU accelerated I would also go for the fastest GPU. Which is quite an expensive one. But you don’t actually need the 13900K if you render using GPU. The 13900K is really a hot-head which uses a lot of power. Nice CPU but I’m still using my i9-9900K and while the 13900K is twice as fast if you would do a lot of heavy CPU work I would rather put that money in a RTX4090 or 64GB of memory (or even 128).
Especially more memory on the GPU makes it useful to pick a 4090 with 24GB since with GPU renders the entire scene has to fit in the memory of the GPU. The 4070 has 8GB so you will be limited in possibilities with that amount of VRAM. Same if your daughter also likes to dive into some AI on her local computer, that eats up a lot of memory.
It also a matter of budget but with all the GPU usage these days weather it’s video editing, renders or other creative applications like AI, they all lean heavily on a GPU.
edit: Instead of a 4090 you can also look for a second hand 3090(Ti) they have also 24GB and while slower than a 4090 they are also cheaper. Better pick than the 4070Ti.
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Hi Oscar,
Raymond had me leaning towards the 4090. Thanks for confirming this is the way to go. The specs say there is no comparison between the 4070 and 4090. Pretty sure I would be kicking myself if I didn’t get the 4090.
I have been shopping around and have found a really nice Alienware Aurora R15 rig on sale for a really nice price. Just under $3,400 for 4090, i9-13900F, 32MB of RAM, 1TB M.2. At that price, I’ll happily go with this unit and be done with it. Should give my daughter everything she needs. I can always add RAM and storage later if necessary.
I really appreciate you taking the time to look at my message and provide such a thoughtful response. It’s nice to know this is the type of community my daughter will be working with during her college and professional career.
Take care,
Brian
That sounds like a nice deal! And I’m sure she can use it for a lot of years. I still think it’s awesome what you can do today with a ‘normal’ desktop with a nice GPU.
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Your daughter definitely will have a good start at her career of being an industrial designer, hope everything is OK!
Based on @oscar.rottink’s recommendation I have this laptop:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs/sr/laptops/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090?appliedRefinements=41412
Just in case you wanted to explore a laptop too. It’s great, I have no issues at all with KS.
It’s not really a laptop, more of a portable PC, you need it plugged in pretty much all the time, and it must be plugged in for the amount of power needed to run KS, but being able to move it if needed is really handy. But @oscar.rottink knows his stuff with keyshot so I pretty much take anything he has to say as gospel.
Best of luck with your daughters final year at uni
Edit: I also run solidworks on this machine with no issues
Here is a link with me asking similar questions on PC and Laptop builds:
https://community.keyshot.com/forum/t/new-pc-advice/436
Hi Harry,
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Dell laptop. I hadn’t considered going that direction, but it looks like a great machine! Ultimately, we ended up going with the Alienware desktop. The plan is to park it on the desk in her apartment and use it for rendering and a little, hopefully not too much, gaming!
Brian
Great! As an Industrial Design Graduate I know a PC like that would have been a life-saver for many projects, plus it’s always great to have your own machine after uni to create your portfolio. A good investment I’m sure!