Buying a New Computer

Hello! I am currently looking for a new desktop computer that will support Rhino. I am currently looking at Dell Alienware AURORA RYZEN™ EDITION R14 GAMING DESKTOP.

This is my first time buying a computer with these types of capabilities and am getting very confused and just want to make sure it will run rhino, revit, enscape, etc.

The specifications I have chosen thus far are:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (70 MB total cache, 12 cores, 24 threads, up to 4.70 GHz Max Boost CLock)

Graphics Card:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, 10 GB GDDR6X, LHR

Memory:
3200MHZ
32 GB, 2 x 16 GB, DDR4, 3200 MHz XMP

If anyone is able to give me some guidance on whether these specification would work well or if I should change anything.

Thank you!

I have no experience with the AMD Ryzen processors, but I would guess that would be a pretty fast system.

I have a new Alienware x14 with the i7 and the RTX 3050Ti.
Works very well for my moderate needs.
It was only $2,000

You’ll pay a huge premium for an Alienware, but those specs are more than enough to run Rhino - might even be overkill depending on how much rendering you do, or how big/dense your files are. Here’s a similar machine I built for myself for Rhino:

https://pcpartpicker.com/b/mvL2FT

Fwiw - the price on that video card has come down by about $450 since I put that system together - it’s also go 2x the RAM and a 5950X instead of a 5900. If you’ve ever thought about building your own system, I can tell you it’s a total blast, not that hard and will save you lots of money.

I’m currently on a Ryzen 5800X and it works good. Nothing to say.
(Due it being a single 8core “packed” it actually have temps higher than a 5900X, which is a double 6-core inside…)

What will you use it for?
On a 12-core processor, if you don’t plant to do some rendering, most of the cores will sit and sleep most of the time.
A 5600X would perform almost the same as the 5900X (3% difference) but with half the price (200 bucks difference, tough).

The GPU is probably very good, and also probably very, very overpriced (as the whole GPU market in the last 2+ years).
I have nothing much to say about Nvidia GPUs… I don’t know.

SSD? Are you planning a NVMe SSD, right?

RAM, pick the 3466 MHz option, it’s a better quality for just 30 € more.
32GB of ram like this will last a decade.

Earlier this year I was using OG intel 4970k and upgraded to Ryzen 9 5950x and noticed that I was missing out on a lot of performance before the upgrade.

These are good specs for the next 5 years, so if you are comfortable with the price then go for it.

I agree on the 64GB of Ram , you never realize the need until you hit a big project. Get 2 sticks of 32 GB, don’t get 4 sticks since they will cause some instability with DOCP (standard memory overclock)

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64GB of RAM :sweat_smile:

I work with 1GB rhino files, but I’ve never even come near into using my 32GB of RAM.
With 64GB I could run the whole OS as on RAMdisk, + rhino + my project…

I sort of envy you guys with big projects…

I do a lot of RE work with laser scanned data (some of those datasets are 4-5 gigs), and I’m often keeping multiple projects open at once - pretty common to see 40-50 GB of usage. Admittedly I could reduce it by not keeping multiple instances open, but if you got the RAM why not?

More Ram = More Sanity.

This is my Holomark score with my machine 5950x CPU + A40 GPU both are comparable to your 5900x and RTX 3080.(Ignore the Tesla Cards these are not being used by Rhino)

Just make sure you have more RAM and a Good PCIE4 NVME

I would recommend against Alienware and build the same pc yourself if you have the time. Will likely be cheaper, plus prebuilt PCs sometimes make it difficult to upgrade later. Cheaper to swap out a single bottlenecking part vs get a whole new PC when the time comes.

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True.
I wanted to see if I could get a good performing laptop at an affordable price.
The x14 was a great compromise I can recommend to students that are willing to sit near a power outlet.

Also for a desktop it seems that some alienware has some cooling issues with their cases.

For your weekend enjoyment

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All good tips here. 15 years ago a colleague had an AW desktop–I could hear the fans blowing @max rpms constantly from the other room!
Rhino works well on nearly any spec; file size will be your limiting factor: I had an i7-6700k up until last September. Revit and Enscape req’s will be likely be more intensive. I got a 5950X for Unreal, not sure it’s necessary otherwise.

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