My 8 core Mac Pro decided to depart a couple of years ago (mainboard failed) and since then I have been using an upgraded MacBook Pro for modeling and rendering. It wasn’t the best experience but got me by. Two weeks ago the MacBook also decided to give up also. This time the graphics card gave out. So I’m forced to put the plan for a new workstation that I have been postponing into action. The idea is to create something that theoretically will be able to handle anything I throw at it for the next 5 years. For this reason I’m ignoring the budget and going with the best I can buy.
When it comes to what to get the CPU is the main issue. I was debating going XEON again but the issue there is the single core clock speed in quite low and since I’m going to be using the same system for both modeling and rendering I need something with a decient speed as well as maximising the number of cores I can have. This time I really didn’t want a multiprocessor system as my XEON had two processors of four cores / eight threads. Some applications didn’t take proper advantage of both processors. So I have decided on the hardware specification below.
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 750D – Airflow Edition
Mainboard: Asus X99-Deluxe II
Lighting: BitFenix Alchemy 2.0 Magnetic RGB LED Strip – 60cm x 3
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1600 W G2 Series 80+
CPU: Intel Core i7-6950X
GPU: 8GB Asus Strix GTX1080 VGA Card
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum (4 x 16gb) 64gb DDR4 3000MHz CL15
Memory Cooler: 2 x Corsair Dominator Airflow Platinum Fans 2 x 50mm Each
Cooling CPU: Corsair – Hydro Series™ H115i 280mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Extra Airflow: Corsair ML140 Pro Premium Magnetic Levitation Fan to the base of the case
OS Drive: Samsung 960 Pro NVMe M.2 1TB Solid State Drive (October)
Material Library Drive: Samsung 850 Pro 512GB Solid State Drive
Storage: 4 x Seagate Barracuda 4tb 7200rpm in Raid5
Monitor: Acer Predator X34P (December)
UPS: Innova 2k 2000VA / 1600W
