@edarlak wrote:
Looking to upgrade our Inventor & ACAD 2020 workstations. I've been building them for years, last go around was a while ago (~2014). Just want to list the major components here that I plan to go with to see if anyone has any better suggestions. We will not be going the Xeon/Quadro route, been there done that spent the money etc...
We have assemblies of upwards of 35,000-40,000 parts and will just now start generating control document drawings with Inventor as opposed to AutoCAD. I did some testing and 6GB GPU's will likely work for many users, some will need 8GB. I plan to just go with RTX 2070's on all machines for the 8GB unless someone has a better idea.
CPU: i9-9900K
GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2070 Winforce 8GB (I would have went with a 1070 here but they cost more...) I prefer EVGA cards but can't find one as cheap as this GIGABYTE.
MB: ASUS Prime Z390-A
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM DDR4 2666 MHz 32 GB total (4 x 8 GB DIMM)
OS Drive: Samsung 970 Pro M.2 2280 1TB NVMe
Storage Drive: Repurpose our current OS Drive, Samsung 850 Pro 500GB
Again, the only thing on that list I am leery of is the GIGABYTE GPU, only because I have been buying EVGA for the past ~10 years.
If anyone has an Inventor Bench of a setup similar to that I'd appreciate taking a look.
i9-9900K is still the fastest cpu for single threaded use (Most of inventor except rendering and stress analysis). There's the 9900KS that's a slightly better binned 9900K with an 5GHz all core turbo, instead of 4.7, but runs hotter, and 5GHz all core should be achievable with any 9900K with some tweaking in the bios. There's also the 9900KF that lacks the iGPU, which you don't need if you have an ext. GPU. F model should be a bit cheaper than regular K.
If much rendering is done in inventor, or some other software that benefits from cores, one should consider the Ryzen 3900X, or 3950X, as they are almost as fast single core (Inventorbench 12.5-13) as 9900K, but significantly faster multicore.
My goto mobo for the 9900K(S/F) would be the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite. This is similarly priced as the Asus Z390-A you considered, but has higher quality VRMs. https://www.overclock.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=250662&d=1548963030 I use this mobo in my home gaming/inventor rig as in a few inventor rigs at work too.
For AMD Ryzen 3900X/3950X the MSI B450 Tomahawk is a solid budget alternative with ok VRMs, and any X570 board from ASUS will have good VRMs for the 12-16 core chips too. Here's a good list for those https://i.redd.it/v41vtfrvxkk31.png
Both 9900K(S/F) or Ryzen 39x0X are hot chips and need proper cooling. I'd recommend nothing less than a quality 240mm or larger AIO, or a high end air cooler in a well ventilated, preferably mesh front case that isn't too small.
For 32GB Ram, get 2x16GB instead of 4x8GB (The listed non HEDT (Z390,B450,X570) platforms only support Dual Channel. (4 sticks would be needed for quad channel on e.g X299, X399 or TRX40). Also get something faster than 2666 MHz (Only a very slight impact on the score of this test but price should be roughly the same). You should be able to get a 3200MHz, or even 3600MHz 2x16GB kit for roughly the same price as 4x2666 basic KVR DIMMs.
If you choose the intel platform (PCIe Gen 3), the Samsung 970Pro is a solid alternative. If on a budget, get the Adata SX8200 Pro with the same performance for half the price, if you can live with the slightly lower endurance.
If you choose the AM4 platform with X570 chipset (PCIe Gen 4), you could consider waiting for the Samsung 980 Pro or get some of the already available PCIe 4.0 NVME SSDs. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15352/ces-2020-samsung-980-pro-pcie-40-ssd-makes-an-appearance
The Gigabyte GPU is fine. Windforce cooler is beefy and efficient. As said here before, the GPU power of such a card for the non GPU accelerated inventor, is more than enogh, and the 8GB VRAM is good. If you can get a RTX 2060 Super 8GB for cheaper, then that should be good too and basicly as fast as a 2070 (non Super) in GPU intensive applications too. (This would be the cheapest 8GB nvidia card now when 1070 is EOL). If on a budget an AMD RX 570/580 8GB or a 5500XT 8GB is fine for inventor too (At least RX570/580 is, 5500XT haven't tested yet but should be fine as the 5700 I tested was fine).
