I’m more of a “user” than a “technically gifted” person. So I’ve put together and built all my last workstations together with a good mate who, unlike me, really knows his stuff. Today it’s about testing whether this can also be a customised workstation, assembled in an Nvidia Studio certified company? So people who are familiar with such things put together the right components in joint consultations and ordered the package from Schenker XMG.

Nvidia 4000?

At the time of testing, the Nvidia 4000 cards were not yet available – but the hard work grinds slowly, which is why we are looking at the 3090 version here. However, our colleague Finkbeiner will be taking a look at Houdini, AI cores and the generation leap at the next available opportunity when test devices are available – which is why we only touched on these features very briefly in our test.

What’s coming from XMG?

The large parcel was delivered by DHL and I was glad that they delivered on the first attempt this time. In the large box, surrounded by several air cushions, were the actual box with the workstation, as well as the boxes for the Nvidia card and motherboard.

In contrast to the packaging for the graphics card, the box for the motherboard was very heavy. One look inside later and I found a bag with a lot of cables and backplates that had to be removed to give the graphics card access to the outside world. Next to it was the manual and a USB stick containing all the important drivers.

The workstation itself was in another box and additionally secured with foam inserts. Once you have finally freed it completely, you can see a sticky note – a request to remove the additional transport protection inside the workstation before starting it up for the first time. Someone has thought of this, because as a DAU user, you would immediately look for the nearest power connection to quickly see the new device in action.

My previous computers usually had screws on the back that had to be removed in order to slide the side panel backwards. With this Fractal Design Torrent Compact Black Solid case, however, I found no such screws at the back. A simple, careful attempt to simply slide the side panel backwards did not produce the desired result either. In a video I found, the explainer simply pulled the wall away to the side and fortunately also showed a place where the side panel could also be secured with a screw.

On the “back” of the motherboard, the rear panel was secured with a screw, but not on the front – this was also the side from which the transport lock could be removed from the computer.

Under the bonnet

This gave me the opportunity to have a look around the inside of the workstation. None of my previous computers had as much free and empty space inside as this workstation. The cable management was also exemplary. Nothing hangs around anywhere. Everything is connected where it makes sense and attached to the housing.

And where you have already opened it, you can also see the screw that secures the side panel. It’s not only with 3ds Max that looking helps! At first I even assumed that the large hard drive wasn’t in there at all, but this later turned out to be a mistake on my part. With such an interior, the airflow for cooling has a clear path to do its work.

However, it was also lucky that I had had a look inside, because two fastening clips for the fans were no longer in their correct position and would therefore not really fulfil their task safely. This probably happened when the transport securing device was pushed into the computer – or DHL is rallying again.

External values

The case itself has a clean look with the power button at the top centre front surrounded by two USB 3.0 and one USB-C ports. There are also two sockets for a headset and microphone and a small button on the other side for a forced restart if the machine gets too bogged down in a task.

Inner workings

At the rear, the Asus Prime Z690-P D4 motherboard offers two USB 2.0 ports (Type-A), one USB 3.2 Gen 2 port (Type-A), one USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C port, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (Type-A), one Realtek 2.5Gb Ethernet port, one optical S/PDIF output, five audio jacks, as well as one HDMI port and one DisplayPort, neither of which we need because of the RTX 3090 at the centre of the workstation.

Inside, in addition to the aforementioned mainboard and graphics card, an Intel Core i9-12900 processor, which is kept at the right temperature by a Noctua NH-U12A CPU cooler, and two 32 GB DDR4-3200 Corsair Vengeance LPXs provide the thinking power. The power supply is regulated by an 850 Watt Seasonic Focus Plus power supply unit. The supplied system was rounded off with a 1 TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO and a 2 TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO as well as an 8 TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro HDD with 7,200 rpm, which was hidden in the upper area under the top cover. All in all, this sounds like a really good combination on paper

It’s alive!

But now: connect the power supply and keyboard, mouse and monitor and you can finally press the button to start the computer for the first time. You can hear a slight breathing noise, but otherwise the workstation is pleasantly quiet. There are few things worse than sitting next to a hissing and groaning monster. Let’s see when I start to plague the box a little.

All the basic components I’ve plugged in so far, such as the mouse, keyboard and monitor, were recognised straight away and I want to have a look around the new system. However, Windows 11 first wants to get to know its environment and users and has presented me with a checklist that I should work through first. As this was my first direct encounter with Windows 11, I had to be careful – clicking “Next” without reading the texts would have quickly landed me with an unwanted subscription to Microsoft Office and a Game Pass.

Tests

I’d love to jump straight into my favourite programs now, but I should run a few tests first. After all, this article is about finding out whether I will continue to assemble my own computers in the future or whether I can rely on assembled systems from experienced companies.

So I put together the usual programmes. These are Cinebench from Maxon and V-Ray Benchmark from Chaosgroup. In just fifteen minutes, I’m already smarter. While the Cinebench test was still in progress, I had already shot up to second place. Somehow this is a source of pride, even though it wasn’t even me who assembled the system. At the end of the test, the system remained in second place in Cinebench R23 with a score of 27217.

The V-Ray benchmark delivers three different tests. The V-Ray Render test scored 18039 Vsamples, the V-Ray GPU CUDA test resulted in 2054 Vpaths and the V-Ray GPU RTX test finished with 2681 Vrays.

To test the speeds of the installed drives, I used the Aja system test. The 1TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO NVMe and the 2TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO NVMe had a read speed of 5429MB/sec and 5384MB/sec on a 1G file and the 8TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro HDD had a read speed of 255MB/sec. The write speeds were, in the same order, 4350 MB/sec, 4191 MB/sec and 234 MB/sec. The fact that the large hard drive is significantly slower was of course to be expected from the design. After all, it is only supposed to store the data.

Warranty and advantages

I wouldn’t give myself a three-year warranty, but I get one here. If a problem were to occur with this system within the next 36 months,Schenker XMG wouldpick up the computer, repair it and return it. It also comes with a fully installed operating system, which I still have to personalise, of course. All the drivers for all the built-in components are already set up, but they may still need to be updated to the latest version. In my case, I then installed the latest Nvidia Studio driver before I started the real tests with my favourite programs.

Studio tools?

While the latest version of 3ds Max and Adobe Substance Tools is loading, you can also try out what the supposedly clever “Nvidia Studio Tools” are all about. “Broadcast” sounds practical, and in a test call with the dishwasher running and children shouting outside the house, the person opposite won’t notice a thing. And the resource monitor jumps up by 2% in the system – you can almost carry on rendering in the meantime! The “Background Replacement” works without a hitch, eats up another per cent of system resources, but a white wall is no great challenge.

Compared to the old machine, the “additional load” on the system is ridiculous – there it was just under 20% more, and a few stoppers were also added. So if you often give webinars and courses, you can get a plus in professionalism for free, or, depending on your disposition, save yourself the hassle of cleaning up. Omniverse-Suite and Canvas tests will follow soon!

Everyday life in Max

Finally, I can turn my attention to why I bought such a machine in the first place. One of my main programmes is 3ds Max and I had just created a scene on my work computer with a procedural object with well over 1.5 million polygons. On my work computer, consisting of an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X 12 processor, 64 GB RAM and an RTX 2080, I can actually work quite well and smoothly with this scene. However, as only 10 to 100 FPS are achieved in some cases, there are stutters here and there. Of course, my work computer is older than the test system in all components, but I would still like to see if there is a significant difference.

The scene loaded quickly and was also easy to edit. The FPS hardly ever dropped below 100. I was also able to leave the “Show Endresult” button switched on for this more complex modifier stack and easily make adjustments further down in the stack, which I can then also see interactively in real time.

Everyday life in Substance

A working project with a size of 2.3 G has developed in Substance Painter during the training that has just been completed. It still behaves well on the work computer. But I would like to see how this project behaves on the workstation that is currently available for testing here.

Even loading this rather heavy project went smoothly. Zack and the project is open. I was also impressed by the layout of the preview images for the materials and brushes. On my work computer, I sometimes have to wait many seconds for all these preview images to appear one by one. On the test system, this happens almost in real time as I scroll down the palette. Editing the project also ran really smoothly. Substance Painter often has to think for a short time before finally displaying the result of the procedurally created masks and textures in the 3D view window. Even on this workstation, the thinking bar was occasionally briefly visible, but to talk about seconds here would be an exaggeration. It is really fun to work with this programme on this system. It’s also nice to switch on the higher values in the Substance Painter Display Settings so that everything looks really good without having to worry about the computer going down on its knees. On my workstation, I usually leave the resolution of a project at 2048, as I can specify higher resolutions when exporting the textures anyway. On this workstation, I was able to work just as fast as 2048 even at the highest resolution.

Everyday life in 3d Coat

I didn’t have a current heavy scene in 3D Coat, but that didn’t stop me from putting together something with many millions of polygons. So I connected various objects in voxel mode, created technical objects with the sketch tool, opened a few existing scenes and carried out various operations. So far, everything has run smoothly and I haven’t yet managed to make the computer sweat or stutter. The fan has also not become louder in any of the tests so far. So it is pleasant to work with.

And what does it cost?

In terms of price, this solution was similar to our self-assembled system from two to three years ago and I didn’t have to assemble anything. However, as hardware and prices change all the time, I put the components installed here directly into a shopping basket with one of the component suppliers and came out at around 4055 euros. However, I was then informed by my mate, who knows his way around, that even now the prices are fluctuating greatly and that there has just been a significant drop in prices. Apparently I missed something with crypto? Was that important?

Of course it would be cheaper to buy the individual components, but then it’s my knowledge and my time to put everything together myself. I would have to install everything from the operating system to the drivers myself. In my particular case, that would even be someone else’s work and time, namely the person who knows the ropes. Apart from that, I’m sitting here in front of a system that was put together by certified professionals and simply works straight away in all areas.

Conclusion

Even as a non-technician, but a pure mouse pusher or actually rather a tablet scratcher, here is a solidly built box at a competitive price – and even if I don’t know the difference between DDR4, i9 K/S/xyz, the “Nvidia Studio sticker” helps. Without gaming lighting, but with plenty of power reserves and a system optimised for “content creation” (as all artists and 3D/video people are apparently currently referred to), you can start working straight away. Of course, you can certainly also play games on the machine, but I much prefer to create content than play with it.

All the points that we criticise are down to companies that are only peripherally involved with the machine – DHL and Microsoft respectively.