Building New PCs for Millbox + Hyperdent CAM - Hardware Recommendations?

[tuyere]

We're looking to upgrade our agonizingly-slow CAM workstations, but I'm not great with building PCs or choosing parts- anybody have any recommendations?

I'm looking at two separate systems, one for Millbox, one for Hyperdent. I was told by a CIM Systems employee to make sure we have an Intel i9 14th generation processor b/c it cut toolpath generation time by 2/3rds, we're currently running a 12th gen i9 so that's a good place to start there.
The hyperdent system meets the bare minimum specs provided by FOLLOW-ME here - https://www.follow-me-tech.com/support/ so I'm thinking to also upgrade it to the same processor we get for the Millbox system, buy 2x16 gb sticks of decent RAM, and probably upgrade the GPU too. All of this probably equals just building a new system- it's a Dell so I'll definitely need to upgrade the motherboard, and at that point might as well start over and do it properly.

This is all pretty scatterbrained, does this make sense if my goal is to reduce toolpath generation times and keep things running smoothly when I've got a lot of programs running simultaneously? Should I just build two new systems and save ourselves the headache of upgrading systems that were mediocre to begin with?

 

[CoolHandLuke]

upgrade your RAM clock to 3200 or better, aim for 5000+ if you can, which may mean a new mobo

if you get the 14th gen cpu update your BIOS because of the intel snafu

 

[tuyere]

upgrade your RAM clock to 3200 or better, aim for 5000+ if you can, which may mean a new mobo

if you get the 14th gen cpu update your BIOS because of the intel snafu

Yeah, I'm opting for some Corsair RAM w/ 6000 clock speed, heard it helps take advantage of the CPU.
Definitely going to build two new systems, both existing PCs are off-the-shelf desktops with mediocre hardware and cases that are an absolute nightmare to work inside of. A new case doesn't cost much, and this lets me make sure everything plays nice with one another by just putting it together with PC Part Picker, starting from one of their stock builds and swapping out parts as needed to get us under budget.

RE: the mobo BIOS, how do you upgrade that before it has a CPU in the socket? Put the update file on a USB drive using another computer, something like that?

 

[CoolHandLuke]

you can do it after you boot with the bad older bios, as long as it boots even if its not the best stability wise, it should get you to the mobo mfr webpage for the dl.

i meant the intel 14 gen cpu firmware, not the mobo bios though, sorry.

 

[ANoobTech]

Oh I love computers. Yeah if they recommend the 14900 go for that. There's a great website, pcpartpicker.com that helps with compatibility if you want to build one. Here is an example I just came up with quickly.

Otherwise you can get a pre-built gaming PC. For Millbox You'll be looking for a i9 14900 CPU with any modern NVIDIA RTX GPU (Something like a 4060ti/4070/4070ti), and 32GB of ram with at least a speed of 5600. Storage wise, you will want at least a 1TB NVMe drive. Hopefully you have a server, if not you will want more as 3D files take up a lot more space.

 

[tehnik]

Does it have to be i9 14th gen with all the problems? As I see i7 is almost as good.

UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-14700K vs i9-14900K

 

[ANoobTech]

Does it have to be i9 14th gen with all the problems? As I see i7 is almost as good.

UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-14700K vs i9-14900K

They suffer from the same problems. Performance wise yes they are very similar, the i9 will provide superior results (may be negligible though). Btw I wouldn't use userbencmark, they are very intel biased in their reporting

 

[CoolHandLuke]

Does it have to be i9 14th gen with all the problems? As I see i7 is almost as good.

UserBenchmark: Intel Core i7-14700K vs i9-14900K

there really isn't a great benchmark for CAM calculation, so the closest applicable benchmark will be anything that uses a Boolean function

the blender render times may then provide closer insight into performance gaps for our application. not so much the clock speeds or game performance.

and yes this test is more gpu focused, again its not perfect.

maybe what will help fill the gap is the explanation someone gave about gpu busy



effectively the time between when the gpu is working it stops the flow of data into the gpu from the cpu, and how making the flow of data more efficient through the chain is how the benchmarks that require both cpu and gpu will work better/faster.

 

[tehnik]

I built a new PC specially for millbox. Have many problems now and these are all caused by the 14th generation of Intel processor. Affected are also 13th gen ones and this information is directly from Cim System. So whoever suggested from millbox to use the latest processors from intel, is just pure ignorant.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

I built a new PC specially for millbox. Have many problems now and these are all caused by the 14th generation of Intel processor. Affected are also 13th gen ones and this information is directly from Cim System. So whoever suggested from millbox to use the latest processors from intel, is just pure ignorant.
View attachment 46336

interesting info. i am in the process of building a new PC for hyperdent after our scanner support told us we are having issues with our scanner due to the PC (which is like a year old and WELL beyond what is required)
soooooo, now i get to build a new speedy comp! weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

[ChefGoldblum]

SSDs are a must, I'd also like to throw in that AMD processors may end up being the play over intel. I saw a few demos of nesting/calculating mill jobs by this company in Chicago earlier this year; https://levelupcadcam.store/products/high-performance-cam-workstation-built-for-millbox using this specific machine and I was stunned at how quickly the jobs were ready to be milled. Singles and a bridge (bridges and multi unit cases are the real bog down, single unit mills will be pretty quick regardless.).

I wish I could recall what specific AMD cpu they were using, as that was the only real difference between their PC and the ones we use in our lab. Of course they don't note the secret sauce on their listing and I don't blame them.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

SSDs are a must, I'd also like to throw in that AMD processors may end up being the play over intel. I saw a few demos of nesting/calculating mill jobs by this company in Chicago earlier this year; https://levelupcadcam.store/products/high-performance-cam-workstation-built-for-millbox using this specific machine and I was stunned at how quickly the jobs were ready to be milled. Singles and a bridge (bridges and multi unit cases are the real bog down, single unit mills will be pretty quick regardless.).

I wish I could recall what specific AMD cpu they were using, as that was the only real difference between their PC and the ones we use in our lab. Of course they don't note the secret sauce on their listing and I don't blame them.

would love to know what AMD they were using. if there's something better, i want to put it in my new build!

thats a decent build, and we dont run millbox so i cant speak to that. hyperdent is a big bog so i want a beast of a machine to handle the calculations (especially when we are calculating more than 1 job at a time on hyperdent)

 

[ANoobTech]

would love to know what AMD they were using. if there's something better, i want to put it in my new build!

They have a 9950x CPU, and put in a 4050 or 4060 graphics card, kinda depends on what they have on hand. A person I know has one of their desktops

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

They have a 9950x CPU, and put in a 4050 or 4060 graphics card, kinda depends on what they have on hand. A person I know has one of their desktops

okay thats not shabby!
going to have to make a trip to microcenter i think. everyone is out of good graphics cards lol. microcenter has a 4060 i could snag though. the 4090 would be awesome.....its just a hefty sum

 

[ANoobTech]

As I've been told, millbox doesn't do any computing on the graphics card besides basic graphics so anything above the most baseline models is a waste of your money unless you'd like to brag lol

Edit: I realized you're using hyperdent, that could be a different story on the graphical power it needs, that's beyond me

 

[tehnik]

Millbox specs says other about graphics.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

Millbox specs says other about graphics.

i would imagine hyperdent is very similar

 

[CoolHandLuke]

i would imagine hyperdent is very similar

quite the opposite really



hyperdent hasnt updated their minimum specs for a while, and if i'm honest i can see why, after tinkering so much on templating and doing support.

you actually want 11 gen cpu for hyperdent, the new 12-14 gen cpu all have the P v E core fiasco, if your cpu has Power cores and Efficiency cores, then tasks from windows running in the background get relegated to Efficiency cores.

anything not open in the foreground, is put on the efficiency cores. you can therefore expect a massive DROP in performance if hyperdent is minimized, or behind any other window like Chrome. you have to use the P cores for hyperdent speed when on a 12-14 gen cpu, meaning you have to have hyperdent FRONT and CENTER and dont have anything else running.

and yes you can work even with a 1050 video card from 8 years ago if you want, because hyperdent has a maximum part size. if your bridges are over 15Mb yes Megabytes you will have slower than normal nesting, and connector placement.

despite having all that vram.

for this reason hyperdent can run on older machines consistently, even if suboptimally, without needing extra horsepower.

bob, i doubt you need the new pc, unless you can prove its one of those intel cpu's that was affected by their bios issue. even then a bios update should resolve it.

 

[sidesh0wb0b]

bob, i doubt you need the new pc, unless you can prove its one of those intel cpu's that was affected by their bios issue. even then a bios update should resolve it.

i doubt we need a new PC too, this one i built a year ago is fantastic. it does bog down with hyperdent calculating big jobs
BUT
thats not the reason we are being forced to review our PC choice.

suddenly our desktop scanners wont work and their solution is...."oh your PC is the problem".
before that it was a windows update, and a usb port, and blah blah blah. i rest well knowing its not my PC but they refuse to troubleshoot anymore at this stage and my scanners stopped working completely. they scan fine on an older PC so they blame the PC

 

[CoolHandLuke]

i doubt we need a new PC too, this one i built a year ago is fantastic. it does bog down with hyperdent calculating big jobs
BUT
thats not the reason we are being forced to review our PC choice.

suddenly our desktop scanners wont work and their solution is...."oh your PC is the problem".
before that it was a windows update, and a usb port, and blah blah blah. i rest well knowing its not my PC but they refuse to troubleshoot anymore at this stage and my scanners stopped working completely. they scan fine on an older PC so they blame the PC