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BlogNew Workstation Plan for 2025

New Workstation Plan for 2025 by Drago3D

Configuration:

CPU: AMD 9950X3D Motherboard: ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870-E EXTREME Graphics Card(s): NVIDIA RTX 5090 and NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti RAM: 256GB G.Skill 4 x 64GB Storage: NVMe: Samsung 990 Pro 4TB x 2 SATA: Samsung 870 EVO 4TB x 4 Power Supply: Corsair AX1600i Case: CoolerMaster HAF700 Berserker Cooling: Custom Water Cooling

The goal

The goal is to assemble the most powerful workstation for real-time 3D rendering.

CPU

AMD 9950X3D * For one of the most important components, I’m picking AMD 9950X3D

AMD vs Intel

AMD is a no-brainer when it comes to CPU choice for Content Creators. It has been since 2017 and the launch of the Zen architecture. Having both the high operating frequency and many cores is exactly what you need from a CPU for 3D graphics. For gamers, it’s mostly about high frequency because games aren’t that good at utilizing many (not multiple, but many) CPU cores. For Content Creation, you’re going to be running multiple instances of multiple different software apps and Windows OS will be splitting the workload between multiple cores.

Ryzen (Mainstream) vs Threadripper

I am picking Ryzen the so-called mainstream platform.

  • Higher frequency over too many cores
  • There’s no need to spend $10,000 on a CPU :D … and RAM btw
  • (Maybe) better software support? I didn’t research on this and I might be coping with my wallet, but maaaybe there is software out there that would struggle with running on server architecture. Threadripper is basically desktop-adapted EPYC CPU.

Even though my maximalist emotions would drive me towards getting a Threadripper CPU, it would make me feel like failed if I would pick anything below the top grade CPU, the one with 96 cores. I do not need 96 cores, honestly. All of my work is based around real-time 3D (Unreal Engine) vs “offline” or “still” 3D rendering (3ds Max + V-Ray or Corona or Blender + Cycles).

  • There are rumors that AMD is preparing a new flagship CPU  in the mainstream segment, which should be basically the same as 9950X3D but have 192 MB of L3 Cache instead of 128 and TDP of 200W instead of 170W. The extra L3 Cache may come in handy I am personally expecting it to have the same clock speeds.

Motherboard

ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870-E EXTREME

Motherboard choice is the trickiest, by far. Primarily because of onboard slots and ports configurations since there has been scarcity of PCI-E lanes for the past several years. Here you can’t just buy the best or most expensive and think you are done. The PCI-E lanes starving is the primary (only) reason why a content creator would consider going with Threadripper instead of Ryzen. Frankly, duh, that’s their main selling point. It’s OK, but you just have to put in extra effort into planning, especially since I’m going to be running 2 graphics cards to run my 8 or 9 monitors setup. Brand choice - I’ve been using ASUS motherboards exclusively for almost 20 years, since my first PC in 2006. Their hardware is the best, but the supplementary software is mediocre. After you pick the motherboard brand, your choice is exponentially easier since you just have to buy their top model and, in ASUS’s case, it’s Crosshair X870-E EXTREME.

Graphics Card(s)

NVIDIA RTX 5090 and NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti

RAM Memory

G.Skill 4 x 64GB

I still need to pick the exact model, but I’m definitely going to populate all four RAM stick slots with the highest capacity per stick available. G.Skill is one of the best RAM brands in the world.

Storage

My choice is a combination of NVMe SSDs and SATA SSDs. I’m going to be using two NVMe SSDs and four SATA SSDs.

NVMe SSDs

Samsung 990 Pro 4TB

SATA SSDs

Samsung 870 EVO 4TB

Why SATA SSDs? Well, SATA SSDs are still pretty fast and reliable. It’s not like I’m using the spinning disk drives, right. I will be using SATA SSDs to recoup for the limited storage provided by NVMe SSD drives due to the PCI-E lanes starvation that I already mentioned multiple times.

Power Supply

Corsair AX1600i

I had Corsair PSU since 2017. It’s a very good brand. AX1600i is their most powerful unit. Although, maybe a few years old by now, but it’s 1600W with Titanium rating for 80PLUS efficiency and it’s from a reliable brand. 1600W is more than enough for the two GPUs, beefy CPU and extra headroom for potential future upgrades or whatever. The rule of thumb is to have your PSU have 50-60% of utilization when your system is running at full load. My system could be theoretically pushing around 1000-200W at full load, but that’s going to be extremely rare. There are often days where I am just prototyping stuff and not doing anything hardware intensive, so my entire system would be running in the 200-300W range. That’s why

Case

CoolerMaster HAF700 Berserker

This is mainly a question of taste. I’m going to be using a case that I’ve been using for a while. CoolerMaster HAF700 Berserker. It’s a full tower case with plenty of room for the main components, cooling systems and even some future expansions.

Cooling

Custom Water Cooling

I think it’s time for me to go the way of custom water cooling. My first water cooling experience was when I bought CoolerMaster Masterliquid 360 AIO system to cool my AMD Ryzen 9 3950X. Now that I have a huge case and beefy GPUs, I think it’s time to have a single big custom water cooling system. Multiple big radiators, many fans. I would have gone custom before, but I was anxious to overcomplicate things. I’m a hardware geek and I assembled many desktop PCs in the past, but I have zero experience with custom cooling systems. If I can find someone in my city who is reliable to install the system and service it from time to time, I will definitely go custom.