Newbie Trying To Build 1st PC

[djpavano]

Hi there,

Thank you guys so much for all the info. I'm looking to build my first PC, capping out at ~$1,000. I noticed your $700 budget build fit the bill, but was thinking about a few upgrades here and there or maybe you had some suggestions. I tried the custom build tool as well, but the GPU card was slightly on the lower side of ratings compared to some other ones I've seen. I also caught the build below around $1,000 and would love to hear what you think. All in all, I'm looking to pick up Blender for animation mostly and all other things Blender relate really now that I think of it. My MacBook is unfortunately becoming a barrier to learning Blender.

CPU: AMD R5 3600X
Graphics Card: GTX 1660
Motherboard: ASUS Prime X570-P
RAM: 16GB Dual-channel DDR4
Storage 1: 500GB Wester Digital SSD
Storage 2: 2TB Seagate HDD
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G3
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4
Case: Corsair 275R
Operating System: Windows 10

Thanks so so much for your insight!

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey! The build looks good to me

Some notes: You don't really need a x570 Motherboard for the 3600X if you don't use any of its features like pcie4. A b450 Motherboard like the MSI Tomahawk Max b450 would do the job just as well, maybe even better and save you some money.

What render engines in Blender will you be using? Cycles on cpu or gpu or another?

 

[djpavano]

Hey Alex!

thanks for the response, much appreciated. I actually got a little antsy and ended up getting everything from a local computer spot here that was open. Here’s where I netted out -


CPU: Ryzen 7
Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 1660
Motherboard: ASUS B550
RAM: Corsair 16GB
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo+ 500MB SSD
Power Supply: Powerspec 650 Watts
Case: Corsair Carb275R

Fingers crossed my antsy nature didn’t cost me here haha, would love to hear if you think all is well with the above still. Hoping to put it together today pretty pumped.

And in terms of render, I’m not really sure. I’d love to mess around with both Cycles and GPU so was hoping the build gave me a bit of a range here. It’s really all just a hobby right now so looking to experiment and see where I net out!

appreciate you taking time to respond here and thank you so much for all the help during this process. The site is amazing!

 

[Alex Glawion]

Looks great! Oh you got a B550 Board already, nice! Let me know how it goes

 

[djpavano]

The build went well! Thank god haha. Windows is fired up after a bit of pain getting it off my Mac and I think the last tech issue I'm having is recognizing bluetooth, gotta do more research there!

I have a few questions if you have a second and I'm sorry to bombard you with questions, but whenever you're free I'd love some insights:

- How do I ensure that my graphics card, CPU...etc everything is working at its max capacity? That I'm getting the most from it basically

- With the Corsair Carb275R, can I fit another GPU in there? seems like it would be a tight squeeze, just curious if you had any insight there as well!

Thanks so much, such valuable resources here on the site. Appreciate everything you do!

 

[Alex Glawion]

The easiest way to check if your components are performing as they should is by running a few benchmarks and comparing your results to those of others on various lists.

Go run Cinebench R15 or R20 and compare with our lists: https://www.cgdirector.com/cinebench-r20-scores-updated-results/
Also run, e.g. Octanebench and compare your result with our list: https://www.cgdirector.com/octanebench-benchmark-results/

You'll see some slight variations, but as long as it is not too far off, all is well!

 

[djpavano]

Alex!

How's it going? First of all, thank you so much for all your help and responses during the PC build, after the PC build. I could not be happier with how things have turned out and your site + content + guidance gave me so much direction & confidence to build everything. Really appreciate it.

I am back with one more question (sorry!), I think I'd like to go ahead and add another GPU into the build that I currently have. Here's an image of the existing GPU (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xbg6jSQWtqJE_DeUUsLypXWHmcDl35Se/view?usp=sharing) and I'm curious if another one will indeed fit under it! I'm a bit scared considering the space given.

Final question I was hoping to get your insight on, I currently have a EVGA GTX 1660 and was thinking another one of those should be more than enough? Maybe? Just curious what you think here, still in the newbie phase just want to bump up the speed of things a bit if I can in the meantime, so not doing large scale projects or anything like that.

As always, thank you so much for your time and effort in responding to this post and everyone else's!

 

[djpavano]

Oh, I can attach a file, duoh! sorry about that, image here as well!

 

[Alex Glawion]

Theoretically, yes you can place another GPU there. There are three things to note though:

1. What Motherboard did you end up buying? I am asking because that second slot below might run at lower pcie-speeds than you'd like.
2. You have an open air cooled GPU in the first slot. GPUs that are cooled like this don't perform too well in stacked multi-gpu configs, so expect the gpus to get a lot hotter. Usually for multi-gpu-configs, blower style gpus are the way to go to keep temps at a minimum (such as this one: https://amzn.to/2Xdc9pA)
3. What PSU did you end up buying?

Oh and what are your planned workloads? GPU Rendering? If so, a single stronger GPU might be the way to go, as the 1660 really is quite low-tier and has little vram. (A single stronger RTX 2060 super or 2070 super for example for perform nicely in gpu rendering)

Cheers,
Alex

 

[djpavano]

Thanks for the quick reply!

1. I bought ASUS B550

2. appreciate this tid bit about the GPU cooling/heat situation!

3. And I ended up getting a Powerspec 650 Watts

I do render everything in GPU. So definitely taking this last statement about just one stronger GPU being the way to go. Any other insights would be greatly appreciate of course. But sounding like just upgrading that one card would be the way to go!

Thanks again!

 

[Jerry James]

Since that looks like an ASUS B550-F Gaming motherboard, the second slot will only have access to x4 PCIe 3.0 speeds. As Alex suggested, I'd look into maximizing the load on the primary slot with a stronger GPU before considering populating the bottom slot

 

[djpavano]

Awesome, really appreciate you both for your responses. Thanks again!