which PC should I buy

If your backup solutions are good why are you worried about using an SSD in a single location? Keep in mind we're not advocating replacing every single storage method you have with an SSD. We're simply advocating using an SSD for your immediate development machine.

Since we're bringing anecdotal evidence into this discussion though... I have two solid state drives. One is less than a year old (Samsung 850 EVO) but the other one is currently up to four or five years (ADATA Premium Pro drive). Neither of them have had any data loss whatsoever though granted that's a very small sample size to draw a conclusion from.

On the other hand, over the course of my two decades working with computers, I have purchased approximately two dozen drives and have had about three or four of them cease functioning. One of them failed literally within the first 30 days of purchase but the others died at approximately five or six years of age.

 

The thing is, the HDD (the 3 of them) works great here (again, I never did put in doubt SSD's great speed), and as I mentioned, I have not detected the bottleneck in that component (but very clearly in the CPU and graphic card). So... No reason for an extra purchase. I am not really into any crusade in favor of one or another technology,(at all, of any sort and type of hardware) I only mention (as I did) , that in my case and workflow (and surely other artists working in a similar way) I'd rather purchase many other things hardware/software related. So to say, I need way more badly a new CPU, GPU, more RAM, surely an extra rendering software, etc, the list goes on. The SSD thing was only a slight mention, lol..

 

That said, please excuse me if you don't see more replies in a bunch of hours... is a bit late in the night here...Good night (or whatever the time is it in other places) everyone.

 

Is someone actually questioning the safety of SSDs in 2016?

The SSD I'm running right now in my laptop has outlasted the HDD it shipped with.

These days you can get pretty signficantly sized SSDs for reasonably cheap, especially considering the sizable performance boost you recieve

When I replaced my HDD with my SSD, my computer got so much faster that it felt like I got a new computer. The benchmarks I did claim that I literally gained 4 times the read/write speed. And this was years ago, SSDs have only gotten better (and cheaper) since then.

If you really want to go into efficency of price/performance, an SSD will give you a MUCH bigger boost in percieveable performance gains than more RAM or most other hardware in terms of user experience.

And you don't even have to put your files on it if you do it right, run your OS and programs off of an SSD, save your files on HDD, you'll still see significant benefits, the only thing you stand to lose is your OS and programs, which, if you run even the most basic of backups, should be perfectly safe. (not that the risk is huge anyway)

The ridiculous amount of benefits outweighs the risk. There are even some people (Who, admittedly, even I think are a little crazy) who run their OS on multiple SSDs in RAID 0. Not to mention M.2 and PCIE solutions that aren't bottlenecked by the SATA interface that are so wildly fast that it even makes comparably "traditional" SSDs look slow.

 

That's what my current PC does. The next one will use an SSD for pretty much everything bar long-term storage.

To put the performance benefit into context for gamers... I used to play Battlefield 3/4 a fair bit. Even after my upgrade to a beefy PC loading took a while. Putting an SSD in and installing my OS and Battlefield on that I was loading in a few seconds and consistently one of the first people in the map. The game's frame rate of course didn't change, but anything that requires HDD access is noticeably zippier when it's using the SSD. So anything where you're loading or saving data, either manually or behind the scenes (eg: compiling stuff) will get a speed boost. The computer also boots to a usable state in less than a minute with no special effort, and I know people who've brought that well under 20 seconds.

 

It's about twenty seconds for me on Windows 7. Quite a bit of that time is spent waiting for AHCI to initialize and find my drives. Steam takes another few seconds on top of the actual boot to fully load though so you could say it's thirty seconds.

 

My friend built a computer for her mom recently, because she needed an upgrade. Granted, the machine she was running before was getting a little long in the teeth, but never the less, what her mom used to do was press the power button on her computer, and then walk away to go do other things, go get the mail, make a snack, whatever. She'd get done doing all that, and her machine would JUST be getting to the desktop.

We had to convince her to get an SSD and set it up for her in her new computer. When she booted up it up for the first time, she pressed the button then looked away to ask us "Now how long should this take?" and we said "It's ready", and she turned around, and it was already on desktop. It was just that fast. And this wasn't even some crazy screamer machine, shes only checking her emails and facebook, we got her an OK, middle of the road Skylake processor, and mostly standard mobo, I THINK we got her 16gb of the most generic ram we could find because it was cheap, we even reused the CD drive and monitor from her old computer, just to make this thing as cheap as humanly possible while still running something that, for her purposes anyway, would be good and futureproof for a long time. And it boots in I'd say around 10 seconds or less pretty reliably.

My laptop is a little older, and it can do a full restart in around 45 seconds, from desktop to desktop on an SSD, sometimes a little more if it's feeling moody, but usually maximum it'll take about a minute. For a cold boot though, it only takes about 20-25 seconds to get to desktop

 

It definitely makes a massive difference for a laptop because so many laptops are using slow drives to begin with. I picked up a MacBook Pro to experiment around with Unity and it was barely usable until I swapped out the HDD for my ADATA SSD.

 

Absolutely, it was like a new computer

And not only that, they just make so much more sense for laptops, being impact resistant compared to HDDs which you could always hear mine clicking to a halt to protect itself if you ever moved the computer even a tiny bit while you were using it. I don't think it really makes sense to use a platter drive in something you intend to carry around like a laptop, which is inevitably gonna get bumped around, no matter what you do.

 

Not to mention that I'm sure they're far more power efficient, since there's not a hunk of metal and a magnet that need to be physically moved around.

 

According to the internet, HDDs draw roughly twice as much

 

You're definitely spot on for the idle power consumption. It's a little more complex for actual usage though. An 850 EVO SSD is roughly tied in terms of power consumption per interval with a WD Blue 5400RPM 2.5-inch drive, but you have to factor in the time the drive has to spend saving data and the SSD will usually finish much sooner than the HDD allowing it to win.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8747/samsung-ssd-850-evo-review/10
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_scorpio_blue_1tb_review_wd10jpvt

 

No.... I think there have been more than enough test that show that moving to FASTER memory brings almost no gains.
One thing to keep in mind: oftentimes faster memory = higher latency. AFAIK that means it takes longer for the memory to start churning, and then it will work faster. Result is that a lower clocked memory with lower latency is almost as fast as higher clocked one with higher latency for most normal use cases.

Now, these test still date back to the DDR3 only era. I went and looked for newer tests, and it seems that DDR4 is consistently faster than DDR3 even though it has way higher latency.

Look for yourself: http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2015/september/ddr3_vs_ddr4_generational

Expect bigger gains. Not bad given your system is held back massively by RAM speed (which is often true nowadays), but is it worth chucking your whole hardware (Mainboard, CPU AND RAM) just because of that? I would say no.
Not unless you expierience massive slowdowns that you are SURE are caused by the memory not being fast enough. Most of the time, if the memory causes slowdowns, there is just not enough of it available and the system starts swapping.

EDIT:

Yeah, now that I re-read the post I am answering to, The AMD Stuff used IS getting extremly long in the tooth. It was already not that fast from the beginning, actually, seeing how little Intel has improved their CPU speeds in the meantime.
So a newer system will give you a massive speed up. Even the newer generations of AMDs Bulldozer architecture are quite faster, though they haven't built a 4 module FX Processor with that, and most probably newer will (its not 8 cores. its 4 modules for your FX chip).

If you want best bang for the bucks though, I would wait another year to see what AMDs Zen CPUs are capable of. You might get a true 8 core processor, with a way more modern architecture AND SMT (Hyperthreading) for a way lower price than what Intel still asks for their ripoff 8 core i7s.

But: you shouldn't upgrade for the DDR4 RAM. You should upgrade mostly for a better CPU, that comes with proper cores, a better instruction set, and a more efficient design. The DDR4 RAM will only be the icing on the cake.


Just as a point of reference: I had to switch CPU, Motherboard AND RAM this spring because my old Motherboard failed on me. I was on a Sandybridge based platform from 2012 before. DDR3 1600 RAM, i7 2600k. I now switched to the fastest i5 from the skylake generation (Because desktop i5 are just as fast as i7s for most usecases), and DDR4 2400 RAM.

I see almost zero gain in System speed. I didn't do a massive comparison, but I would say if the system is faster, its in the single digit percentage range. Intel based hardware has made very, very little to improve speed for its mainstream desktop platforms in the last 4-5 years. Not since Sandy Bridge. DDR4 does not change that at all it seems.
The thing that struck me most is how silent my machine has suddenly become. Same GPU, same Fans, different Motherboard and CPU (the RAM most probably makes no difference here).
Better energy conservation features and vastly improved fan control is the biggest gain I got from moving to skylake.

 

Yeah, SSDs aren't going to make yor battery last any noticeably longer. HDDs use power while reading and writing, idling at lower and lower consumption with each new model. An SSD is fully powered on all the time, just like your RAM. The difference in power between idle and active is less curvy on the charts.

 

I'm blaming Intel's focus on everything but performance on a real lack of competition.

 

Back here!
Ok...You've convinced me in certain aspect: Next time I have some extra bucks, and after purchasing what is really a dire need right now (cpu+board...later, with a new extra bucks chunk...card...and so on...That or the lotto option.), I will be more interested (that I already was, just low priority, due to my very specific computer usage) in giving it a go. Since my very first post here (I think few people read that line, but no issues ) I had no doubt on the major speed, of several times factor, of an SSD. Of course this difference is WAY higher comparing on of those with whatever the average computer brand (or user built, per parts) puts in the laptops. In my experience, not every brand is/was the same, neither any spec is. For example those in the laptops, till recently, rarely would have a 7.200rpm one, mostly 5400. And there must be more differences (in bus or whatever), as I rarely see a laptop with a 7200rpm behaving as fast as mine. The difference is quite noticeable. Couple it with the fact that... the huge majority of people does not know how to really optimize an OS for performance, disable indexing( if not needed), etc. Optimize the OS to a very deep level. Plus some of those machines do need to rely way more on disk as the other components are sadly under powered.

All I was (past, not trying to discuss it anymore) saying is that not every specific usage (professional or whatever) sees the same upgrade with every component update. Compiling, operating with lots of reads and writes of small files, I know it does, of course, a major upgrade in user experience. Video editing does, certainly. Specially with older video editing software(today's ones use much better cpu card and ram). I am not a developer (I think some might have thought so, reading the posts) . I am an artist. Meaning, I don't compile, neither use Unity. I make graphics for whatever the game engine or custom gig. Although is not my main activity, either. If an user (me) experience is that sees no waits at all, or not critical ones as to give the disk part priority, other than when loading the 2D package at start of the day, and the boot time, and later on, any ctrl+s, any operation takes no time, is instant, (for whatever the OS design or app design reason, of the software I use) , then, I hope you understand that I save every single dollar for very costly other upgrades that should come first. I totally understand the logic behind your reasons, as I see every day -or did so till recently, being asked me to fix stuff, clean virus, reinstall, etc, in a paid way or for free- many home computers super slow in the way they maintain them, have them configured , and the parts quality used. Even equivalent computers in specs to mine, they are freaking slow. I might have had a lot of luck, or, what I believe, is besides how I optimize stuff, is the particular usage needs that late years have not demanded excessive disk throttle in my activity. In the company I worked for till not too long, had to video edit a lot, and, believe it or not, I ASKED FOR AN SSD to speed up my video editing. True that I also asked for more cores, as that is what really makes a difference in video edit. In the past, when one considered video editing, it was all about SCSI disks, or hardware dedicated solutions, quite more expensive. Right now I dunno. Even my late years as an employee, I was doing that only as video promo material, not high end stuff.

So, my only point is, I need waay more a new GPU to be able to do rendering in the card, as is a ton faster(in Blender Cycles and other renderers). The gtx 275 is not even considered by blender(surely as the little cuda functionality in it is too poor and old.). I do quite some renders, not my main work, but is becoming too often a need, THAT is a royal bottleneck, as I need to do print resolution renders, often, and it delays me a bazillion times more than any hdd "terrible" low speed that you would mention here.. .Mostly as in my kind of usage, I only see waits when installing (almost never), booting, or starting the several apps at he start of the morning. I use one or two for each project, and often one day is all 3D, and the like. So, if I had the money to throw away, YEAH, I'd buy a new machine with 2 SDDs even, and an huge hdd for storage, new cpu, new gpu, and a ton of software. Not the case... So I need to select what comes first.. I hope now I'm understood... Not a prob if not, though. . I suppose all people does it differently and upgrade to the best hardware always, just when a new thing is released, and have no problems with that...Lucky you! But I can't, have quite some bills, some people depend on me, that's mainly why... (long time since the money was only for my own bills and my hardware, etc )

About boot times, I see that a lot of people worries about it... I understand it more in the case of mobile hardware, but for a work pc... I do like that friend's mom, I make a delicious coffee, and when I'm back it's loaded even the monitor complex profile settings and software. That's the only real "wait" I experiment. Would I prefer not to have it? Yep. But is gonna have to "wait"...

CPU, even more important... together with the card, it clearly is a show stopper for new generation of software, of the kind I use. Never speaking about games, as obviously, I could never play AAA games (not that am really fan of those, tho) "properly" with these circumstances. But again, is all about priorities: I don't care at all if I cannot trigger whatever newest gen graphic feature in a game..I care a lot more that I can sculpt faster or with more dense meshes. That's why I want to get better CPU, GPU and more/better RAM for that reason, more than any other. Also, a bit contradictory, but for actual playing, I don't need so much to see amazing graphics, despite being an artist. Even more, looking at super high end graphics, bazillion of polies, great PBR rendering, and then a rig badly done, weights badly set, unnatural poses, TERRIBLE animations, or badly treated mocap... And I say...man, all that money and effort, to fail in basic anatomy concept , and basic skills... Instead, I play an UT latest generation game, or whatever the game, less feature-rich, but properly done by the artists, and I strongly believe that one is BETTER, even if having no PBR or no whatever new shader you want to think of.

So, maybe is just two type of users. Those having less bills, or no people to maintain, having more cash around, or just focusing all their money priorities in hardware so that they can have the best hardware possible in every moment, and users like me, with 3 HDD(2 external, backup) since 2009, and the machine from that year too, first core i7 generation, and progressively purchasing stuff as I can... And a graphic designer/3D guy/illustrator has some extra amazing costs... Besides the ones derived from the freelancing activities (a lot from taxes), it is software costs (huge, even while I use free or cheap(but great) tools in all I can) , it is in professional monitors to get the highest possible accuracy, hardware monitor calibrator, CMYK samples book, Wacom XL, the laptop to be able to keep a bit of the work up to date if travelling/moving... All that purchased as has been possible, not all at a time. But will I have an SSD (when possible and no other priority is before it) ? Yep, no doubts (clear to me way long before this thread started.)

And all those hardware/software needs, and bills of higher priority not counting of that wet dream that is (or should be) for any artist like it is The Pencil + iPad Pro... Have been able to see it in action... It's a wonder. (and maybe with a similar to SSD disk inside? lol...) .This one would come before an SSD...also. This would be a caprice. Surely will never buy it, sadly...

 

Wanted to change one of my statements about CPU, for the (probably very few) users around interested in blender cycles rendering. Also, of course, this is just an opinion. I said I thought for this task is better a core i7 5820k (higher processors of that family are just too expensive for the average pocket) , which indeed is sort of a more professional line, an hexacore. And...still it is. And you need a powerful cpu, as huge scenes do not fit in all the GPU memory (till some development might make Cycles start using the pc ram, there's some rumor about it) . The thing is, in sources I check, at least where I use to buy stuff, the price difference is big.The combo mother board + cpu can easily grow in a total 200$ difference (the old but pro line being more expensive). And seeing benchmarks, yep, the six cores one renders almost twice faster (1:10 minutes vs 2:08, same scene, though different OS and hardware, but..imo not a big factor in this case ), but still, it's pretty fast. Any difference grows exponentially if you render animations (for example to render frames for a 2D game). But if you only render stills, even at very high quality, might be better line to go for a 6700k, as is cheaper, and seeing today some video benchmarks, a lot of us could do with it coupled with a GTX 970 for smaller scenes renders.(just switch to cpu for huge stuff)

Yet though, like all in life, is about optimizations: I do a lot of work just with tricks. Blender Cycles, like most renderers allows a lot of tricks for optimizations, and some of these guys are not showing different trials with other tile sizes. And same scene in 2 cases, but not exact same hardware. Still, I think gives a good idea.

For people using very heavily the machine for video editing, seems the 5820k is better, anyway. But for some of us doing a bit of all, heavy graphic usage, but varied, the trade in cores-render performance and price, counting on the possibility of adding an average-good card, which will benefit overall the machine, using for it part of the money you save with the price difference among platforms.. If budget is not a problem and is required best rendering, compressing, or video rendering times (graphics production, nothing real time) , then the 5820/x99 platform.

I so finally probably will be going for a 6700k skylake, and if possible a gtx 9700 this winter. About time/performance gains, you might understand a bit better why for some of us is still more important the cpu/gpu than the disk: A high resolution render (print resolution 4k - 16k or more), with caustics, HDRI, etc, of large scenes not fitting even in 4 or 6gb of video ram, in Blender Cycles it can take a lot of hours, and the disk has almost no play there, is cpu and ram. A bottleneck way bigger than any other thing I can think of in my every day work tasks. (for compiling and other tasks, disk is crucial, I know...) . If I were seeing waits for the HD's fault, I totally would have already purchased the ssd as a first thing. Am just lucky with the tasks I need to cover/software used.

For those curious enough about the matter (the first one I believe has not optimized the tiles sizes thing, and this changes drastically the times, specially for the card ) :
cpu render i7 6700k vs gpu render gtx 970m

cpu render i7 5820k (but I think overclocked, sth I never do...) vs GTX 760 vs GTX 970 , and testing different tile sizes, making a huge advantage for the card (again, just fine if your scene fits in the card memory! Many of mine wouldn't. )

My most important conclusion is that both machines, even the 6700k, do render a tad load faster than my poor i7 860, they put it to dust, indeed (even while I get my renders in very few hours, with tricks, most of the times). Even just the cpu render performance of a 6700k is so many times faster than my machine that is ridiculous. (those looking mostly for render power, a cpu render twice faster in the case of 5820k is sth to consider, even if both are really fast. )
Also to consider that Cycles as most renderers, are improving every day, and Cycles has been optimized a lot in some months.

I know is not the use of the majority around here, but I guess there might be some artists around, too...

 

You should give Men of War Assault Squad 2 a try, personally I think it's a much more complex and fun game. Steep learning curve though.

I finally managed to have a 3TB backup drive in a safe deposit box at the local bank. Costs only 50,- Euro per year + harddrive.

None of my SSDs failed so far and I wasn't able to confirm that they are actually less reliable when I googled it a fair while back. Anyway, you could have an SSD for system drive and applications and a big HDD for data storage. That's what I do, SSD for data storage makes little sense for me price-performance-wise.

You should link your portfolio in your signature, I'd love to take a look.

For what it's worth I think the best cycles renderperformance per $ comes from adding more GPUs. I did a benchmark a few days ago (the car scene):
GTX 660 - 87 seconds
GTX 1060 - 55 seconds
both at the same time - 36 seconds

If you find a way to squash the memory footprint of your scenes to fit into lower end GPUs I think you might get a lot more out of 4 ~100$ GPUs over 1 ~400$ GPU. Also keep in mind that with cycles you apparently can pretty much randomly mix different nvidia GPUs. I see no real reason to have them all be the same model. I used a GTX 660 together with a GTX 670 for a long time to render. The 10xx series only works with the 2.78 version of Blender, which is still "release candidate". If you have the patience for it you could just buy 4 used GTX cards with enough memory (might not exist, I understand the problem even though luckily I rarely run into it with my own work) for your needs, and a mainboard that has enough space for 4 dual slot GPUs (don't forget to buy a big enough PSU). If I seriously had to do rendertime intensive work, that's what I'd try to do. Maybe on a second PC, so that I can keep working on the primary workstation.

 

Did you know the average computer brand is now shipping SSDs with their sub-$500 laptops?

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad-Generation-Quad-Core-Bluetooth/dp/B01EP2SLVS/ - 128GB - $300
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-15-3558-laptop/dncwc010s - 128GB SSD - $380
https://www.amazon.com/X555DA-AS11-Full-HD-Laptop-Windows-Silver/dp/B01C086TLS/ - 256GB - $440
https://www.amazon.com/HP-15-ay013nr-Full-HD-Generation-Windows/dp/B01CGGOZOW/ - 128GB - $460

According to Amazon's power search there are over 600 entries for sub-$500 laptops with SSDs. We're now at the point where the average consumer will be encountering them.

 

Spot on I'd say.
It is funny how the mere mentioning of an 8core Zen CPU made Intel consider a 6core mainstream CPU.

They most probably would have been able to pull that off with Broadwell, if not Sandy Bridge. But no, lets fill those desktop CPUs with an even bigger iGPU. Because if those suckers want 6 cores, they can spend the 500+$ we charge them for the enthusiast platform sixcore CPUs.
Which are the ONLY true CPUs left in intels portfolio (not some crappy APU which hands over more than 50% of the die space to an iGPU that is still to weak to use for gaming, but way to large to just idle in 2D mode).

I have a 5 year old Nehalem 32nm CPU in my work rig that still runs circles around the fastest skylake mainstream CPUs in mutlithreaded tasks. All the while the enthusiast platform CPUs seem to not get better performance per dollar with newer generations, as Intel raises the prices constantly. Not going to plonk down 1000$ just to get a CPU that is finally more than just single digit percentage range faster than my current i7 970. Which is still running fine.
Zen cannot come fast enough, if you ask me.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/NzGKpb This is my intended future build as I said earlier if you can get both an HDD and SSD. An SSD for your boot drive and HDD for general storage. Also make sure you get a decent GPU especially if you are gonna be doing stuff like gaming and graphically intensive applications. In terms of CPU i personally would go with an Intel i5 since that one offers the best price performance ratio as far as I know. As for the i7, Hyperthreading is nice but not that much useful outside of certain applications such as video editing and 3D rendering

 

Let's add audio work and all forms of compression - the latter being a task you do pretty much constantly in Unity, even if you don't actively fondle your files (not sure the editor is all that great at multithreading it yet though, but it's the sort of task which can run partially in HT). Then there's all the behind the scenes work a lot of software we all use from time to time actually does. There are benefits, we just don't think much about them, and they're often background tasks. It should definitely help with baking though.

If you're doing only 2D work you will be happy with an SSD-equipped i5 laptop + 8GB RAM now. This is now considered the "default system" when not scraping the barrel ($450+ budget). There's a $390 laptop at Newegg with an 8GB i5 4200U - a previous generation CPU, but still awesome. Spend the rest of a $500 budget on an SSD and an external enclosure for the laptop's 1TB HDD

OP:If you want a decent desktop, you can get something nice for around the same price and use integrated graphics until you have money for a great GPU. You'll still get more work done, and you're already used to not playing the latest and greatest games anyway, right?

 

Perhaps I should consider getting an i7 instead then if I plan on moving forward with game development

 

Only if you have money to burn

Can you do it cheaply (i.e., your i5 uses the same socket as an i7 of decent speed)? Maybe. But I'd just upgrade everything else first. SSD the heck out of that thing, ensure the GPU is the nicest you can get, within reason. Or just get a 1080 and live like a king. Get enough RAM. Have enough? Get more! FILL THOSE SLOTS!

Not upgrading your CPU leaves a lot of money for other quality components

 

That being said memory is by far the easiest upgrade for a computer. Just make certain you're buying high capacity sticks over multiple lower capacity sticks and you'll be able to add more of them down the road once you have money again.

If your choice is between an i7 or more memory I'd choose the faster processor. Other choices are naturally more complex.

 

Another thing is building with your intentions in mind

Like, if you aren't overclocking, don't buy a processor with a K in the name (6700k for example, vs just a 6700). It just raises the price for a feature you won't use anyway. Yeah, in the case of the 6700 vs the 6700k you also get more stock clock speed, but really, 3.4 ghz is still pleanty fast. and 4.0 ghz (at the moment) feels unnessessary. And if thats the case, buy a motherboard that matches that, so instead of getting a Z170 mobo, go with the H170, because again, the main difference is overclocking. You'll end up saving yourself a significant amount of money.

 

You're only looking at the base clock speed though. There is even less of a difference between the Turbo speeds. The 6700 has a Turbo speed of 4GHz whereas the 6700K has a Turbo speed of 4.2GHz. During heavy use the difference is a mere 200MHz for $35 more (NewEgg USA price difference).

http://ark.intel.com/products/88196/Intel-Core-i7-6700-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that

I thought it was closer to a $50 difference these days

Not to mention the near $100 premium on Z170 mobos over H170 mobos, which you need to even get all the benefits of the 6700k anyway

 

Though you may still find yourself purchasing a Z170 motherboard if you have need of multiple graphics cards or advanced storage drives (M.2 slots, SATA Express, etc) as they have more advanced usage of the PCI-E lanes.

Puget Sound Systems has a nice article as well as charts detailing the differences.

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

 

Yeah, I guess

I think the biggest shame about Z170 boards are that they all have that crappy "gamer" aesthetic

 

How often do you look at your motherboard for this to matter?

 

While thats true, I'll know it's in there, looking terrible

Not to mention the huge price premium on some of them, so I'm paying extra money for all these fancy plastic black and red covers that say "Ultra super 10x murder death kill fatality EX frag FTW n00b pwner bro edition!" all over them with their stupid RGBs lighting them up inside a dark, windowless case.

It would haunt me, it would be my secret shame.

 

Do any of these have the aesthetic you prefer? They're all fairly plain looking motherboards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157636
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130900
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188178
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130892

 

Heres the rub, I'm looking for a Mini ITX, because I want something reasonably compact, and all of those are aesthetic disasters

 

How about these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128847
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188179

 

Well, it's hard to trust the first listing, considering their info graphic claims it has 4 DIMMS and 2 way graphics, when you can see on the picture above that isn't true, or even possible, ha ha

The second one lacks proper M.2, everything else looks good except that.

Theres a nice Asus H170 board I like, but now I wonder how it's supposed to have a graphics card and an M.2 drive at the same time if it doesn't have enough PCiE lanes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GHQMTJ...UTF8&colid=1XHV2YTXMVJU2&coliid=IGECE0YPVQBDE

 

Both the CPU and the chipset provide PCI-E lanes. The CPU provides 16 and H170 provides another 16 for 32 total. After you've subtracted the GPU (16 lanes), the M.2 (4 lanes), the SATA Express (2 lanes), you still have plenty of leftover lanes.

 

So what then is the benefit of Z170 if this is the case?

Though, I suppose my example here is something of a unique one...

 

Ordinarily boards with high-end chipsets bring far more expansion options. I've seen a board with support for up to seven graphics cards (8 lanes per slot), a board with support for up to three M.2 slots, and so on. These are very much the extremes but they allow you to have some very useful combinations (for example RAID 0 M.2).

 

Well yeah, in those cases it makes sense obviously

Well....I don't know if it makes sense per se....but I mean it sure is pretty damn amusing just to see it even being possible

Practical? Probably not in most cases....but boy is it awesome, ha ha

What in the world sort of case does that dual CPU motherboard even fit in, is that even ATX? It looks square, but also huge. I mean it looks like a rack mounted server board, but it's marketed as a workstation board, do they make special cases for whatever size that is?

I have seen 3 way RAID 0 M.2 in a video before, at that point apparently it's even pushes the limits of what PCIE can handle bandwidth wise

I guess in a use case like my example, in a Mini ITX system where one only has access to a very limited amount of PCIE devices and no intention to overclock anyway, or one where the user doesn't intend to expand beyond a single graphics card and M.2 drive or something along those lines, H170 is a better value? Or is there a reason why you would want Z170 even in that case?

 

Yes, it's a server form factor but there are gaming cases (primarily Phanteks) that support it. Only reason I even know about that motherboard is because of Linus Tech Tips and their attempt to build one system for seven users. Just keep in mind the price is higher than it actually needs to be due to the $1,500 monitors they're using.

Outside of an unusual motherboard you'd likely be better off with the H170. Though overclocking motherboards should have better power circuitry I don't know if it'd really benefit you or not. I've never truly done anything with overclocking.

 

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Yeah, that guy loves his extravagantly expensive perepherals. His solution to like every problem is throw a Titan X or 3 and a Xeon at it or something

Yeah, so to refer back to the original idea presented to the original poster, if you are doing a (reletively) simple build like me, no OC, one GPU, one M.2, and you are running Skylake, go with H170 chipset. If you are expanding more than that in a bigger form factor, go Z170.

And if you are building something insane with two CPUs and like 4 GPUs, go with X99 and one of those motherboards and cases, and also, can I be your friend?

 

Hi, sorry. Very busy lately to even check around here..

Yup, that's my idea since I read some post here, skimmed parts in that article-experiment, and then did some research on my own...Usually no time for all this (besides my usual focus on other parts). But that once I'm with the right budget isolated for a new machine. Meanwhile, I'll will maybe just replace the gtx 270 (not able to be used in blender in any way) with a gtx 970, 1060 or rx 480 (this one mostly due to the large 8gb memory for a nice price. Even while am a nVidia user...I'll notice the performance increase amazingly with any of the 3, so, memory is a big factor (for big scenes renders)... But just when I found a nice price, read a lot of complaints with the rx 480 flickering... :/ )

Is not actually a Blender head portfolio, not even a 3D only work portfolio. I'm a jack of all trades, and I can't upload most stuff of last years, as most projects take A LOT to finally published. When is not an NDA, is just my word given... Also, is a very crappy site. The free portfolio site am using is great, but makes me feel some sort of embarrassment that am using one as I was in charge of designing, coding and maintaining several portals in my last job previous to becoming freelancer. And is not the most embarrassing (and most of all, non convenient) point of it, but the fact that with the samples uploaded, makes almost an inverse effect of what would be desirable. I want to find time to code from scratch one, funnily I have the domain and hosting purchased, just no time, and when there seems some free time to come, arrives a new gig...(and guess what I give preference to, lol )

But anyway, I have just updated my sig down below. Is nice to see some Blender power user around

Yup but... With tricks, am already able to do all needed with my old i7 860, so, is mostly the case that anything just fine will do lots for my productivity, as right now I am able to set less cores for it while rendering, and do tasks in the meantime that eat close to zero processing and use the times when am away, sleeping etc. Plus, rendering is only a small part of my usual work, is coming only for some projects. Still, is a royal pity to loose so much time when it's needed, that's it.

In that situation, more memory is better: To be able to fit super large scenes with huge textures and etc, even if is not the peak solution in speed. Also, a bit afraid of two other matters : Over heating, am in an area of extreme temperatures... The less I cram there, the better, so I'm gonna prefer just one powerful one, plus, for my needs, it will surely even exceed the thing.. If I were to make a movie I for sure be on a team doing some distributed render, using some cheap render farm, or mounting my own at home with second hand dirty cheap PCs (I know a place where I can buy those at 50 - 70$! ) . I saw one great friend of mine, inside a university where I worked as designer and tech support, like a bazillion years ago, and the guy mounted a render farm in Linux, it worked incredibly well, and was all made with computers that had been thrown away as non usable any more by teacher departments and etc....

So, while I know the dual stuff is true (yet though the memory used is as much the per -card memory, not the sum of both) , and even some users have two for rendering, and a different model for preview, but is not my case. If I were rendering all day with Cycles... for sure, or, more likely rent a render farm or the poor man farm solution. Indeed, one of the main points of purchasing in a pair of months or so a new machine is to have one processing in the background (not just rendering! also for video editing rendering, etc) , in any of the big variety of stuff I need to deal with. Also as makes me a lot nervous that the machine fails in the middle of any project: Is also time lost in re configuring, re calibrating, etc, a new machine. Having a machine with all at 100% for meanwhile the main one is repaired, will make me sleep better, for sure.

Thanks for the advice, though. I have been looking for benchmarks, both in the usual lists Blender users make, and videos... A single 970, or 1060 like the one you mention (last time I checked, seems to pack quite some memory) will be more than be what comes after great, as a comparison with my current situation, and are within reasonable price ranges. That's today's plan, unless I take a bunch of work later, and can afford the machine. Anyway, I think the only card that might work with my 860 is the 970, not sure about the 1060 or the rx.

That doesn't seem likely in some very important cases (they are not uploaded to my cheapo site, btw ) where no matter what I do, am required to use *huge* textures, and loads of objects...For other simpler renders but requiring high caustics quality and the like, yep! There the GPU will for sure make a wild difference.

probably, but not in terms of memory/scene, I think Blender takes as much not sure if just the one with the less card memory. Plus, seriously worried about : heat/temperature (40+ celsius outside, little less in my room.. :/, and yep, no special cooling solution in any part of the machine. Only extra thing I have is an UPS for power shortages and stuff. ) , space (i don't think even 2 would fit. Is a tower but a crappy cheap one) , cost per watt (yep, i do care quite about it..not killing my economy now, but if I purchase anything, I prefer sth less power hungry. The 860 is old and very bad at that, I know) , and noise (I don't like noisy computers, as I work all day...)
Again, if technology has as well overcome all these too (at least 2 year ago they were there) issues, great then. I will start to think we're entering in a sort of technology paradise where nothing bad happens anymore ;D

Yep, had read about that and the different card models able to be used by Cycles, and don't know where, also that it "could" be a plan of developers to make the GPU render to look for system memory. It'd make for me no sense in terms of speed, as the DDR5 memory in the card, that path sounds to me as much faster, unless it means to start using system memory once there's no more card ram available, but my only-artist knowledge tells me that then the render would slow down a lot, if is not the whole thing just crazy sci fi...

It depends on the scenes...Even so, my best purchase would be new board+cpu+ram (surely skylake's 6700) , as I have been in the situation of using physics, and that's get mainly cpu... And for sure, all my print work (almost main stuff now in my everyday) would benefit crazily from mostly a CPU + RAM update. It'd be a way major upgrade to every task. (is a matter of final budget)

About the "gamer" parts, with blinking lights... I only care about that if I see'em, and not for aesthetics. is just disturbing... I've been a slight bit of a hardcore Quake Live player for years (and at a more relaxed level, in a bunch other FPSs, in the happy years) and I yet to understand the need of the flashy light, the shocking color labels and all.. But maybe I was even too old already when started playing a bit seriously, way older when I left it, lol.

Thx for those advices. As you "might" have noticed, in some components am stuck in, maybe, what was established some years ago, lol...In elder times I was up to date with every freaking advance, model and even price of any part. But got busy....For that paragraph and the entire followup, seems that for me (and whoever uses the machine like me) that a H170 is way enough for me. About the non k version... I though there were more differences....yet though, I don't much mind paying extra 30 $ for +600hz in base clock and 200hz in turbo. Still, is good to know that would be not that relevant... I never overclock (the high temperatures I deal with, the fact that I don't put money in it, neither have any sort of knowledge about special cooling, and that I am not savvy in OC, so can't ensure stability for huge number of hours per day, often 24/7 with the machine intensively working. ) So... I guess like for some others, this thread is helping to to define better my new machine, too...