New build - how much VRAM do you recommend?

G

Gage

Member
Hi all, I'm configuring a new build (32GB RAM) and am not sure how to go regarding the graphics card. I use photoshop, do video recording and editing, multi-tasking and may want to get back into 3D modelling and rendering in the future (I don't play video games though).

I was considering getting the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4080 Super (16GB), but can't decide if I'd be better off getting the 20GB PNY RTX 4000 or the 20GB AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, so I have enough room for GB growth over the next few years if I need it. Or is more than 16GB overkill for what I need? I'm not sure.

Also would an AMD card be suitable for these kinds of tasks? I've always used Nvidia cards in the past, but AMD are cheaper, which would be helpful. I've looking at reviews and stuff, but it's not really helping me decide.

Thanks!:)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Gage said:
Hi all, I'm configuring a new build (32GB RAM) and am not sure how to go regarding the graphics card. I use photoshop, do video recording and editing, multi-tasking and may want to get back into 3D modelling and rendering in the future (I don't play video games though).

I was considering getting the Nvidia Geforce RTX 4080 Super (16GB), but can't decide if I'd be better off getting the 20GB PNY RTX 4000 or the 20GB AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, so I have enough room for GB growth over the next few years if I need it. Or is more than 16GB overkill for what I need? I'm not sure.

Also would an AMD card be suitable for these kinds of tasks? I've always used Nvidia cards in the past, but AMD are cheaper, which would be helpful. I've looking at reviews and stuff, but it's not really helping me decide.

Thanks!:)
Click to expand...
For professional use, NVIDIa cards still have quite an advantage to AMD with the tensor cores

The appropriate card much depends on your maximum budget and what suites your working with for editing/rendering and 3d modelling
 
G

Gage

Member
SpyderTracks said:
For professional use, NVIDIa cards still have quite an advantage to AMD with the tensor cores

The appropriate card much depends on your maximum budget and what suites your working with for editing/rendering and 3d modelling
Click to expand...
Thanks. Suites would be like Substance, blender or Silo, maybe other stuff like Terragen. But frequent use of Photoshop for sure, which seems to hog quite a lot of resources on my current PC.
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I wouldn't worry too much about Photoshop, it's the least likely to hit a wall with the GPU. 16GB would be massive overkill for Photoshop but for your other uses it's a good shout.

The next generation of GPUs is around the corner. I would also get advice on the system as a whole, rather than selective queries. We often see people go down similar avenues with builds that we try to avoid.

Some information and guide to what we need to suggest some builds:

Please read before posting:- Collaboration of Helpful Hints

NB: These forums are not an official support channel. None of us work for PCS, we're all either customers or techies who just like to help out where possible. For any official support, you need to contact PCS directly either through your PCS account, or via the contact details on the main...
www.pcspecialist.co.uk www.pcspecialist.co.uk
 
G

Gage

Member
Thanks Spyder.

So here's the current configuration I'm looking at. My reasoning is to have something that's going to last for a while and allow for increased RAM and VRAM requirements for applications in the future/other upgrades. My current build gets slow and choppy now when I've been using Photoshop for a bit (documents with lots of layers and file size), and trying to multitask. So I want something that can handle that.

I also need a good amount of storage space (again, mainly because of photoshop docs with lots of layers), but I may do my video creation and editing on the desktop instead of my latptop, and other creative tasks, so that will eat up space.
Looking at the post 'Why more than one storage drive?' has been helpful, so I'm thinking the SSD for the OS (2TB or 4T?) and 6TB hard drive for creative/video software and document storage (or should the creative/video software run on the SSD? ) and then buy a separate external hard drive as a secondary backup for that.
I'll add a second monitor I already have too.

It's quite expensive (for me). I would rather have kept it below three grand, but can spend a little more to get the right specs that will last.

So my questions are:
- Do you think this build is suitable or overkill? Should I increase/decrease any of the specs?
- Also, which is better: Corsair or Samsung SSD? (I've seen a lot of bad reviews for both online:( )
- And Vram, should I go for the Geforce16GB or PNY 20GB (I've always used Geforce in the past but it doesn't have a 20GB option).

SPEC:
Case
LIAN LI LANCOOL 205 MESH C GAMING CASE - WHITE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24-Core Processor i9-14900K (Up to 6.0GHz) 36MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B760M-PLUS WIFI II (mATX, LGA1700, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E)
Memory (RAM)
64GB PCS PRO DDR5 4800MHz (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
20GB PNY NVIDIA RTX 4000 ADA GENERATION, 6144 CUDA CORES 4 x DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

1st Storage Drive
6TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CX SERIES™ CX-650 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 150 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Extra Case Fans
2 x 120mm PCS Black Case Fan
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I'd recommend staying away from Intel, as you'll never adequately cool it, and will have to run it at reduced power to stop it breaking.

I believe the RTX4080 / 4080 Super is about 50% faster than the RTX4000 ADA in rendering (in fact the only 2 GPUs that beat the 4080 are the 24GB RTX4090 and 48GB RTX6000 ADA, and if the 5080 is about the same price for 10% more performance it may be wise to wait for that instead.

If it were me, I'd be buying the PC without a GPU and waiting until the end of the month to buy a £979 RTX5080 from SCAN as soon as it's available (may be low stocks initially, so you'd have to jump on it as soon as you saw it).

RTX ADA comparison in content creation(same benchmarks, so you can see the difference in scores):
www.pugetsystems.com

NVIDIA RTX Ada Generation Content Creation Review

NVIDIA has released the complete family of professional Ada cards. How do they compare to the last-gen Ampere based professional GPUs?
www.pugetsystems.com www.pugetsystems.com
RTX 4000 ADA Series.jpg


RTX 40-series comparison in content creation (same benchmarks, so you can see the difference in scores):
www.pugetsystems.com

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series Content Creation Review

NVIDIA has released the SUPER variants of their RTX 4080, 4070 Ti, and 4070 consumer GPUs. How do they compare to their non-SUPER counterparts?
www.pugetsystems.com www.pugetsystems.com
RTX 40-series.jpg


My £3k would go on something more like this (it's £2100 as I've excluded the GPU)...

Case
CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER ATX CASE - WHITE - better case for thermals, and room for upgrades
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 16 Core CPU (4.3GHz-5.7GHz/80MB CACHE/AM5) - the best AMD productivity CPU you'll get without going to a Threadripper CPU
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 (AM5, DDR5, M.2 PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 7) - latest motherboard platform with USB4 for very fast external drive/device connections
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz (2 x 32GB) KIT - upto 10% faster in Adobe benchmarks than the 4800MHz kit
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD - either a reduced price RTX4080 Super or a new RRP RTX5080 Founder's Edition (once the new models are released at the end of the month)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) - small, fast drive just for Windows and your application installs
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR CORE XT MP600 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 5000 MB/R, 4400 MB/W) - good value and fast secondary drive
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE - went up to 8TB as it's slightly cheaper than the 6TB, but I'd prefer the Ironwolf drive myself as it's an enterprise-grade drive, rather than a consumer-grade drive
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1200W RMx SHIFT SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET - not needed if you went for the 4000 ADA model (could get away with the new 750RMe or 850RMx ATX 3.1 models), but for a 4080/5080/5090 then this will not be excessive
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
Processor Cooling
CORSAIR ICUE LINK TITAN 280 RX RGB HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU COOLER - latest offering from Corsair and will keep the CPU operating well within its optimum temp - and be quiet doing so (once a bit of fan profile tweaks have been done, as they're a bit aggressive out of the box)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
NONE OR ONBOARD Wi-Fi (MOTHERBOARD DEPENDENT)
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Price: £2,128.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/Zg2Dm6um8A/
 
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Meant to add that the desktop 4080/5080 would be better UNLESS you’re using software which only offers support for the workstation GPUs (as I know some CAD stuff is awkward like that).
 
G

Gage

Member
TonyCarter said:
I'd recommend staying away from Intel, as you'll never adequately cool it, and will have to run it at reduced power to stop it breaking.

I believe the RTX4080 / 4080 Super is about 50% faster than the RTX4000 ADA in rendering (in fact the only 2 GPUs that beat the 4080 are the 24GB RTX4090 and 48GB RTX6000 ADA, and if the 5080 is about the same price for 10% more performance it may be wise to wait for that instead.

If it were me, I'd be buying the PC without a GPU and waiting until the end of the month to buy a £979 RTX5080 from SCAN as soon as it's available (may be low stocks initially, so you'd have to jump on it as soon as you saw it).
Click to expand...
Hi, thanks very much for your feedback and suggestions.

Some things I'm not sure about: doing some cursory research I've read that AMD's are not as good as Intel for raytracing, and intel are better for compatability with different programs, AMD aren't always compatible.

I've not ever tweaked a desktop CPU cooler, so not sure how I'd get on with that.

If I'm using the HDD for storage, and the 1st SSD is for the OS, what is the 2nd SSD best used for? Would it be best to install the OS on one SSD and run apps on the second?

Thanks:)
 
Last edited:
T

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
The 13/14th gen Intel i9s were the best multi-core offering…until the Ryzen 7000 and more recently Ryzen 9000 series CPUs came along.

The problem with the Intels was that they’d start degrading the moment they were installed, and jus5 got worse and worse the more they were used, and would ultimately require replacement due to crashing. So much so that cloud providers were swapping out their Intel clusters to AMD clusters, and realising they were using about 50% of the power for the same performance, and didn’t require as much cooling.

Intel have released microcode updates to mitigate the degradation, but it reduces performance and only slows down the issue.

The 4TB SSD is simply there to replicate your original choice…but it’s not recommended to have all your critical files on the same single SSD as the Windows install, as you will invariably need to reinstall a corrupted Windows install at some point, plus it gives you another level of redundancy.

Tweaking of the cooler just means going onto the Corsair iCUE software and manually adjusting the fan speeds so they’re at a comfortable balance of noise/performance for your ears…we can help if you need assistance.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Gage said:
I've read that AMD's are not as good as Intel for raytracing, and intel are better for compatability with different programs, AMD aren't always compatible.
Click to expand...
Think you're getting confused with CPU vs GPU, you're referencing AMD GPU's which for this kind of workload aren't as good as Nvidia. But in CPU workloads they're way ahead of Intel.

Gage said:
I've not ever tweaked a desktop CPU cooler, so not sure how I'd get on with that.
Click to expand...
Not something you do.

Gage said:
If I'm using the HDD for storage, and the 1st SSD is for the OS, what is the 2nd SSD best used for?
Click to expand...
For production systems, this is best practice for drive setup

  1. OS & Application files - Fastest NVME
  2. General documents/download files - HDD storage
  3. Project media (video, images, sound, etc.) - Fast NVME
  4. Cache files - Fast NVME
No matter how much RAM you have, you'll always offload to the cache, and for best performance you want this as a dedicated drive

www.pugetsystems.com

Understanding Storage for Video Editing

Processors and video card may be the most discussed hardware when designing a video editing workstation, but the type and configuration of your local storage drives is also a very important consideration. Not only can a proper storage setup help your workstation perform at its best, but it can...
www.pugetsystems.com www.pugetsystems.com
 
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