Workstation performance improvement recommendations

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asbuiltguys
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Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by asbuiltguys »

My main system is bogging down on some operations. Hoping to upgrade as opposed to a new build. Any recommendations OR other resources would be appreciated.

This is what I have.
Gigabyte Aorus x570i pro motherboard
AMD 7 3800x
2 - Ballistix 16GB DDR4 3200 XMP - total 32GB
Sabrent 1TB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 main drive
Radeon RX590 graphics
It has been a couple of years since I put this together and it seemed pretty fast at the time for 2D drafting compared to my previous workstation. I am not a gamer and have lost touch with what is current. Now I am working with point clouds and some computer-based SLAM processing,

All of the bios settings are set to AUTO.  The stock CPU fan is annoyingly loud and the case has a lot of screens as opposed to solid panels.

Considered options:
New CPU - Ryzen 9 5950x or 5900x - looks like it will work on my motherboard - 2X faster at CPU benchmark
better graphics board - very expensive and hard to find now
Faster RAM
Liquid (quiet) CPU cooler

I prefer not to overclock unless it is easy. Zero experience with this.

Other options?
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by SlavikusAstana »

in order not to invest a lot of money, you can only increase the RAM, at least up to 64 gigabytes, if the motherboard supports and add another 1-2 ssd disks, preferably m2
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by RJGEOMATICS »

asbuiltguys wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:51 pm My main system is bogging down on some operations. Hoping to upgrade as opposed to a new build. Any recommendations OR other resources would be appreciated.

This is what I have.
Gigabyte Aorus x570i pro motherboard
AMD 7 3800x
2 - Ballistix 16GB DDR4 3200 XMP - total 32GB
Sabrent 1TB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 main drive
Radeon RX590 graphics
It has been a couple of years since I put this together and it seemed pretty fast at the time for 2D drafting compared to my previous workstation. I am not a gamer and have lost touch with what is current. Now I am working with point clouds and some computer-based SLAM processing,

All of the bios settings are set to AUTO.  The stock CPU fan is annoyingly loud and the case has a lot of screens as opposed to solid panels.

Considered options:
New CPU - Ryzen 9 5950x or 5900x - looks like it will work on my motherboard - 2X faster at CPU benchmark
better graphics board - very expensive and hard to find now
Faster RAM
Liquid (quiet) CPU cooler

I prefer not to overclock unless it is easy. Zero experience with this.

Other options?
Very software specific question. Working with pointclouds. Or registration. What software. The requirements for all software programs are very different. Many programs will not even operate on the AMD chips. Some programs specifically require Nividia RTX or Quadra cards. Many programs still perform better on INtel, and are actually very slow on AMD. Up until recently you couldn't even use Ryzen chips with Cyclone. Thus you really need be very specific in your software and workload requirements. There is no simple answer. Unless you want drop $43,000 and just dump everything into it, with Dual Xeon Gold Processors, a gigabyte of RAM and some A6000 graphics. If you plan on using Register360 or Cyclone, you need get into the i7 at a minimum and preferably an i9 and even better dual Xeon Gold. Stay away from Ryzen chips for Cyclone. You are just looking for issues.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by badam »

that is not true for register 360. We have been using ryzens from the start until the 2021.0.0 release since then the new renderer is way worse then before. But it is not because of the ryzen.

but you are right it software dependent. i also would only increase the ram 64 or 128 which is the maximum for that platform.

the 3800x is a good processor. i don't think you would see significant difference to the 5xxx series.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by smacl »

asbuiltguys wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:51 pm My main system is bogging down on some operations. Hoping to upgrade as opposed to a new build. Any recommendations OR other resources would be appreciated.
Most important thing here in my opinion is to measure where the bottlenecks are when you're getting bogged down and plan your upgrades on that basis. As RJ has said, this will vary hugely based on the software you're running and the data sizes you're working with. Simplest tool to use is the performance pane in task manager which will show you which resource is throttling performance. If you're seeing 100% CPU usage, a CPU with more cores / threads will speed things up. If you're seeing CPU usage that equates to 100% usage on one core (e.g. 100 / no of cores), a faster CPU will speed things up. If you're seeing 100% disk usage, faster disks (e.g. SSD RAID array) will speed you up. If you're seeing 100% memory usage, more memory will speed you up. If you're seeing 100% GPU usage, a better GPU will speed you up. For ongoing performance measurement, rather than staring at task manager, have a look at perfmon.

No point spending big bucks upgrading a part that's not actually slowing you down in the first place.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by asbuiltguys »

To further this conversation.
I have been doing some performance monitoring with task manager and Perfmon. Thank you for the recommendation.
Processing large files with Recap, the AMD pegs 100% cpu usage on all cores/threads on both graphs at certain stages, while the 32gb memory was at 40% and NVMe 4.0 disk usage was 2%
Thought someone might find that information of value.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by badam »

asbuiltguys wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 10:45 pm To further this conversation.
I have been doing some performance monitoring with task manager and Perfmon. Thank you for the recommendation.
Processing large files with Recap, the AMD pegs 100% cpu usage on all cores/threads on both graphs at certain stages, while the 32gb memory was at 40% and NVMe 4.0 disk usage was 2%
Thought someone might find that information of value.
just forget recap especially when you deal with large amount of data.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by sim.herrod »

badam wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:50 pm just forget recap especially when you deal with large amount of data.
Yep, this.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

sim.herrod wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 8:14 pm
badam wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:50 pm just forget recap especially when you deal with large amount of data.
Yep, this.
I make my recaps straight out of pointcab. I load them in civil3d version 2019. My recap license seemed to have expired which is funny buty i'll be damned if i pay autodesk yet another $ for their software.
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Re: Workstation performance improvement recommendations

Post by smacl »

asbuiltguys wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 10:45 pm To further this conversation.
I have been doing some performance monitoring with task manager and Perfmon. Thank you for the recommendation.
Processing large files with Recap, the AMD pegs 100% cpu usage on all cores/threads on both graphs at certain stages, while the 32gb memory was at 40% and NVMe 4.0 disk usage was 2%
Thought someone might find that information of value.
In that case, if your motherboard will take a 5950x, it could more than double your speed for the 100% CPU stages without having to change much else. Any other hardware upgrades will be smaller gains. If you're only seeing 40% memory usage on 32gb ram, chances are you're not dealing with very big point clouds as yet. Looking at alternative software is a good idea but will involve much more time and effort than a simple CPU swap.
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Atlas Computers Ltd
www.atlascomputers.ie

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