# New PC/Workstation for Music AND 3D Graphics



## kessel (Sep 10, 2019)

Hi all,

I hope I'm not the only one here that apart from music also loves CG and 3D modeling and rendering and I'm about to sell a couple of gear pieces in order to get a good PC/Workstation for making music and modeling and rendering 3D computer graphics and animations.

I wonder if someone else here is or was in the same situation recently and what features would you pay specially attention when selecting the components for your new PC.

Do you think a computer that can handle 3D modeling and rendering is automatically going to be good for music too? I'm planning to get an external audio card/interface, but I'm not sure about how the relation number of cores/cpu speed may affect when working with music. Or if I might pay attention to something I'm still not aware of when deciding how to choose the components for a PC that should cover these two worlds.

Thanks in advance for any help and opinion


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## kessel (Sep 10, 2019)

I forgot to mention about overclocking, I don't know if that is a good practice at all or if I rather should avoid it


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## vitocorleone123 (Sep 11, 2019)

AMD 3900X (or wait for 3950X if you can and can afford it) + whichever GPU best supports your software + lots of very fast RAM.

And, yes, it would be great for pretty much any personal computing task.


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## kessel (Sep 11, 2019)

I was actually thinking about the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990 with 32 cores, which is very expensive but the CPU should be really a part of my PC I would like to last for long.

While I might be upgrading other components gradually the CPU should be one that still feels strong in 5+ years... what would you consider a good RAM amount and a fast speed? I think I should get at least 64GB, right? But I'm not sure how many MHz are considered fast these days


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## ckeddf (Sep 11, 2019)

What type of render engine are you using? It sounds like a CPU renderer if you are looking at 32 cores. Just a thought, if a GPU renderer is a possibility, you might have multiple video cards with cooling and/or noise issues. Watercooling could be worth considering.
I think 64 GB of RAM is plenty for 3D unless you need to do large simulations.


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## Pictus (Sep 12, 2019)

It can do music and 3D stuff just fine.

Wait a bit for the Threadripper 3000 Series








AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 Zen 2 Powered HEDT CPUs To Come In TRX4 Quad-Channel & WRX8 Octa-Channel Flavors


A bunch of new info regarding the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000 platform powering the next-gen Zen 2 based HEDT processors has been unveiled.




wccftech.com





For RAM G.skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600MHz CL16-16-16-36








F4-3600C16Q-64GTZN - G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd.


Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL16-16-16-36 1.35V 64GB (4x16GB)




www.gskill.com




If you think it is too expensive can go with DDR4-3200MHz CL16-16-18-18





Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory







pcpartpicker.com




And tweak/overclock
www.overclock.net/forum/13-amd-general/1640919-ryzen-dram-calculator-1-1-0-beta-2-overclocking-dram-am4.html




__





Ballistix Sport LT Overclocking


Thought I'd make a thread to see how people were getting on with this RAM. I have been playing around and have discovered what a deep rabbit hole RAM overclocking is! I've been using DRAM calculator for Ryzen 1.5.1 to get me started and I'm running the below: Ballistix Sport LT -...




forums.overclockers.co.uk












MemTestHelper/DDR4 OC Guide.md at master · integralfx/MemTestHelper


C# WPF to automate HCI MemTest. Contribute to integralfx/MemTestHelper development by creating an account on GitHub.




github.com






For motherboard try to get one future AMD X590 with Thunderbolt, maybe ASRock or Gigabyte.

For PSU https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

For SSD Samsung 970 series

For GPU I don't know, you need to check which render will be using.

To cool the beast I would go for a custom water cooler for CPU/GPU.


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## kessel (Sep 12, 2019)

ckeddf said:


> What type of render engine are you using? It sounds like a CPU renderer if you are looking at 32 cores. Just a thought, if a GPU renderer is a possibility, you might have multiple video cards with cooling and/or noise issues. Watercooling could be worth considering.
> I think 64 GB of RAM is plenty for 3D unless you need to do large simulations.



I'm most surely going for Houdini and Blender, maybe also ZBrush, as I want to start with free licenses to learn and find an app I could afford in case I finally want to use my work for commercial purposes. 
Maya, 3ds max and Cinema4D are accordingly off the table.

The idea is to make short animations I can add later on video for my music. I mean, I would make short animations and after that mount them together using mainly a video editor like Luma Fusion or Premiere/After Effects instead of making long animations directly on Houdini or Blender


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## kessel (Sep 12, 2019)

Pictus said:


> It can do music and 3D stuff just fine.
> 
> Wait a bit for the Threadripper 3000 Series
> 
> ...




Wow thanks a lot for this list, it's going a lot in the same direction I was looking for but this is much more precise than the ideas I got from the internet and asking some friends/co-workers.

I can surely wait for the Threadripper 3000 Series to come out as I have to sell some gear first before I can purchase my new PC and it seems like these series are just a couple of weeks away from release.


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## Will Blackburn (Sep 12, 2019)

Maybe the Intel i9 CPU Carillon uses in their flagship? It's about 2k if building yourself . Had their older 4xt for years and regularly run a packed Cubase template alongside Photoshop/Premiere etc. Haven't used Zbrush/C4D in a few years but don't remember them being overly CPU hungry?









18 Core music pc


Top of the line audio computer with an Intel 18 Core 36 Thread CPU, up to 256GB of RAM, for the most demanding music composers and producers, huge DAW performance.




www.carillonac1.com


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## kessel (Sep 12, 2019)

Will Blackburn said:


> Maybe the Intel i9 CPU Carillon uses in their flagship? It's about 2k if building yourself . Had their older 4xt for years and regularly run a packed Cubase template alongside Photoshop/Premiere etc. Haven't used Zbrush/C4D in a few years but don't remember them being overly CPU hungry?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Looks like a very interesting option too. I'm most likely to build the computer myself to save some money, so I'll add this CPU to my list of possible choices as well. Thanks


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