Gaming vs 3D Workstation

[dethkrik]

Greetings,

I'm hoping to be able to build a new computer in the somewhat near future. It's been quite a while since the last time I built one (going on about 7 years...) and I'm a bit out of the loop on what's what with tech advances over the past years. The main concern I have is, along with gaming, I work with 3D Modeling (3DS Max, Maya, Zbrush), as well as 2D graphics (After Effects, Premier, Photoshop, etc). So, I'm interested in any knowledge/advice anyone has on building a system that can handle both. I know back in the day, gaming graphic cards didn't work as well (or at all) with 3D software, and more graphics related graphic cards didn't work well with games, so first off I'm wondering if that is still a thing or if the 2 have meshed a little better over time? Secondly, even if they've meshed, I'm sure some cards work better for one thing or the other, so I'm curious if there are cards that are maybe not masters of either gaming or graphics, but are very good at both?

TYIA

[Deleted]

Yeah high end gaming cards atm can handle everything, even 3d rendering, there isn't the case like the old quadro gpu's. You are mostly looking for an i7 or a xeon, a decent gpu and depending on the load how much ram. Also depending on your budget you can go to X99 platform to benefit more. I would say that when you are close to do the purchase ask for help here, cause things change every few week. There is new gpu's coming out soon-ish, Q4 of the year new intel sockets etc. And in case you ask, of the top of my head, a budget ballpark would be 1500$ upwards .

[Kagthul]

Ehh.. only partially true. While high-end GPUs are now *OK* at doing 3D rendering and Compute-heavy loads, they are still NOT the best for this job, often deliberately crippled (See: Titan X having compute-friendly tech stripped out completely to prevent it from competing with their workstation cards). Are they *awful*? No, but if you're the kind of guy doing heavy workloads day-in, and day-out, where shaving off 40-60 minutes/day can add up to dozens or hundreds of billable hours extra and bring in thousands of dollars more, then you're still going to want to invest in a workstation class card.

If you're doing "pro-sumer" work, where waiting an extra few hours for a render isn't going to break your schedule or hurt your workflow, then using a high end "gaming" GPU should do you just fine.

[dethkrik]

Ok, awesome. Thanks for all of the feedback.