New PC build. Need advices.

Hello Unity Community,

It's my 1st post here and sorry if this topic has already been discussed on the forum. Also sorry for any grammar mistake as English is not my native language.

I'm going to assemble a PC to produce game assets in Maya and Mudbox (and probably 3D Coat and Zbrush) and use it in Unity 5, since my technical knowledge is limited and couldn't find precise answers to my questions on the internet I'd be very thankful if someone of you could help me shine a light on by doubts. The parts configuration I'm going for as of now would be:

CPU: Intel i7 6700K 4.2GHz 8MB Cache
MB: Asus H170 Pro Gaming
RAM: Kingston Fury X 2133MHz 16GB
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980ti 6GB 2816 Cuda Cores
Storage: SSD San Disk Ultra II 480GB
CPU FAN: Cooler Master Evo212
Windows 7 or 10
plus 2-3 more case fans, 650W psu and of course an adequate ATX case.

My doubts are:

1- I read a lot about Quadros being the best of the best for 3D modeling, but also read a lot about NOT beig the right ones for the kind of modeling that goes into 3D game assets so is the Quadro a must or will the GTX 980ti do fine?
I also read a lot about Quadros not going well with game engines that prefers gaming-oriented GPUs.
Is the 980ti an overkill and a 980 (non ti) will be enough?

2- Is 2133 16GB RAM enough? Better go with 32GB? Better go with an higher clock RAM (3000-3600MHz)?

3- Is the i7 6700K enough to not experience slowdowns (specially in high division levels in Mudbox or when building very mesh-populated scenes in the editor) or should I look at 6 cores CPUs?

4- I've read about issues with Win10 so I'd buy a Win7 license, is it a good idea or better stay on the newest OS?

Thanks again for your help, I'm just willing to make sure I'll be spending this (quite a lot of) money on the right equipment.

 

The GTX 1080 8GB card will be releasing on May 27th. It's a much better card than the 980 Ti.

http://www.pcgamer.com/gtx-1080-review/

 

If you do that, a Microsoft agent will break into your house and hold you at gunpoint while they force upgrade your machine to Windows 10. So you might as well go with 10 from the get go. My Unity works just fine on it, and I can't recall having problems with anything else.

 

I know but as of now the GTX 1080 will be sold solely in its Founder edition at a 799 EURO ($906) price point in Italy. At least I hope in a price drop on the 980ti due to the new model hitting the market.

 

Yep, I'm well aware of Microsoft "strong-handed" approach to get their users switch to the newest OS but conscious of my ignorance about the Windows universe of the last 7 years I seek for all possible infos... For all I know there's already a Microsoft agent cloaked to look invisible into my studio waiting for me to make my decision and then jump out and yell "GOTCHA!"

 

I've been using Windows 10 since the beta. The start was a tad rough(as betas are), but I've had absolutely no issues since the official release.

Might as well use 10. There really isn't a good reason to put 7 on a new computer since 10 has become fully stable.

 

Well, thats why my computer is surrounded by weapons, I'm always looking out for those sneaky Microsoft agents, and the day they come, I'll have my longsword ready for them. Especially considering that my laptop runs Win7, and my desktop runs Ubuntu 12.04 dualbooted with Win7. I think at this point they've given up on converting me.

My friend's art computer runs a 980ti Hybrid, and that thing is a monster for all of her art needs. She doesn't have any 3D software yet though, so I don't know exactly how it performs with that, but I'm betting it would probably smash it like the monster it is. But yeah, like Ryiah said, depending on the urgency of your need for your computer, perhaps in a few months there will be a GTX 1080 dirivitive that might be up to your needs once the partners get their hands on it and make their versions.

Also, if you don't mind not flashy looking ram, Crucial makes a 32gb kit of 2133 DDR4 for not TOO much more than the kit you have. If you like to multi task, it could come in handy. As far as those ridiculously high clocks go, that stuff only really matters with hardcore overclocking and such. You probably wouldn't really notice that big of a difference between 2133 and some of those more extravagant numbers right now.

The CPU....I'm not sure. My friend runs a 5930k, which is hexacore, and T-Pain said it ain't hardcore until it's Hexacore, but he's a rapper, so what does he know? Anyway, for me it's hard to tell which would be better. The one you've got ain't no slouch, but are more cores better than clockspeed? I'm not sure how Mudbox works with those kinds of things, whether it benefits more from clockspeed or more threads. That might be something you should research.

Since you are an artist, are you looking at monitors?

 

If price is a concern do you really need that high end a card? I've got a GTX970 and it rocks, and while I haven't checked I believe they're quite significantly cheaper. Playing games at 1080p nothing really pushes it hard yet, so unless you've got a much higher resolution monitor you could easily save some cash there with little practical impact.

 

My understanding is that the Quadro cards are designed for CAD, where the GeForce cards are designed for games and similar rendering. There's a pretty good explanation here of how they're optimised for their relevant use cases. Unless you specifically need what a Quadro does well, I'd stick to the GeForce.

 

Yeah, that is important, if you are going to buy a super high end graphics card and hook a bunch of crappy monitors to it, you're pretty much wasting money.

Especially if you want to do artwork, you are gonna want to keep a monitor budget in mind, and get some good art monitors if you're gonna go with a hardcore graphics card

 

Get a mobo based on Z170 instead of H170.

 

Because..? Is it more reliable? Faster? Cheaper? Brand loyalty?

 

The Z170's primary feature is that it best supports overclocking but it has more features overall.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...-B170-Q150-Q170---What-is-the-Difference-635/

 

If your not a complete Nvidia fan boy and even if you are you should hold off a couple of weeks for AMD to release their New Polaris GPU's.

1 June Computex Polaris GPU release event.

 

Your setup looks good to me. My advice, which it looks like you're already doing, is: have a graphics card that's good but not ridiculously over-powerful. You'd want the kind of card that people buying your game might have, so that when you're developing you are seeing what they'll be seeing. Second, definitely get a fast SSD drive, because it will speed up your compile time and asset import time. Once your project reaches a certain size, compile times can be a real productivity killer. A dev machine spends way more time moving/reading/writing files than a typical gaming PC, so having a good SSD is important.

 

Why 3 different sculpting tools? That's quite a lot of money to drop on software with quite a lot of overlap in functionality imho.

I don't want to make any wrong assumptions here. What exactly is your plan and what's your 3D art experience level? I'm asking because even with strong skills I don't see anyone making more from 3D assets on the assetstore than with regular freelance work. But maybe you want to make the assets for a contract project or private project?

 

This feels like a massive falacy to me

If you are testing on the machine you are developing on, you are already making a mistake. You should be doing your testing on someone elses machine, thats where you do your performance testing. Don't nerf yourself and make yourself less productive just so you can test it on a single machine, because testing on a single machine is stupid anyway.

 

I tend to agree. I do plenty of testing on my dev PC, but I wouldn't consider it a good performance target.