I am thinking of building a new rig for PI and RC Astro tools.
Comparing Intel 265F based Alienware system. Trying to decide between 5060 + 32GB RAM ($1229) and 5060 Ti + 64GB RAM ($1629)
Do I need 64GB RAM for PI? Price difference is $200.
Also, is a 5060 Ti worth $200 more than a 5060?
Hi, 5060 + 64 GB RAM for me, if you want to save a little of money. PI need RAM, cores and a good NVMe with a transfer speed greater than 4000 MB/s (more is better). The Nvidia graphics card doesn't need to be that powerful unless you use the computer for gaming.
I would second Alejandro’s comments. If you’re not gaming, the higher end GPU isn’t going to make much difference. Either choice is a BIG step up over a CPU alone with RC Astro tools. A 5060 would be more than adequate.
Re PI, I found that though system RAM is a nice-to-have, jumping from 32 to 64 GB for me wasn’t much of a difference. What matters is having one or more NVMe drives - set them up as swap space for PI, and also process your images from them. The difference in performance is substantial.
And obviously PI scales very linearly with number of CPU cores. So the more cores (rather threads) the better there.
More RAM, GPU doesn’t matter as long as it’s NVIDIA and can do CUDA acceleration. Put the majority of your money into RAM and CPU. Then just make sure you have enough for a decent SSD and a GPU.
I am getting a good 2TB SSD.
The Ti version has 144 tensor cores vs 120 for the non Ti. Both have 8GB VRAM. RC Astro products use TensorFlow. So was thinking about the Ti card but the non Ti is heavily discounted. There should be ~$80 price difference but the Ti version is $200 more.
I just pulled the trigger on a new PC as well, below were some of my focus points:
1) A CPU with proven performance in PixInsight.
For this, I used the PixInsight benchmark page to compare results across different CPUs. I ended up choosing the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. I went with the 3D model mostly because I like to pretend I have time to game every now and then, otherwise I would have went with the 9950X.
2) 6000MHz DDR5 memory.
I went with 128GB of Crucial Pro (4×32GB). This is probably more then necessary, 64GB is plenty for my workflows, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t become an issue later on. PixInsight does a lot of in-memory processing, and faster RAM definitely helps.
3) Fast, Large NVMe SSD
I focused on getting a fast TLC NVMe drive but at a higher storage rate. TLC drives are faster sustained writes, and this is where I would really like to see some improvement compared to my current setup (I save projects infrequently because of slow write times, and it’s probably bad practice. I’d like to make it better). I went with the Samsung 990pro 4TB.
I already have an RTX 4080, and PixInsight barely touches the GPU outside of the RC-Astro tools; those run fast enough on almost anything Nvidia, so I don't think a high-end GPU is necessary. A modest Nvidia card works fine unless someone is gaming or doing GPU-heavy work outside PI.
Overall, I tried to eliminate the bottlenecks I’m currently feeling: CPU speed, memory bandwidth, and storage performance. File load/save times and certain heavy processes are where the slowdown shows up for me. Aside from the RC-Astro tools, PixInsight leans heavily on CPU, RAM, and disk; so that’s where I put my money.
One thing nobody has mentioned. PixInsight (and just about everything else) runs faster on Linux.
PixInsight was developed on Linux.
I installed linux ubuntu on a seperate SSD, I can boot to windows or ubuntu.
I built this computer about 10 months ago -
1. AMD Ryzen 9 7950x with 16 cores and 32 threads - PixInsight loves this processor
2. ASUS Tuf Gaming X670E-Plus Wifi motherboard
This motherboard has 4 PCIe M.2 slots for very fast SSD hard drives
3. Crucial T710 1TB Gen5 NVMe SSD, Up to 14,900 MB/s, PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280, Internal SSD
Use this fast drive for your image files
4. Crucial P310 1TB SSD, PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 2280, Up to 7,100MB/s
Use this one for running your operating system.
5. Two more M.2 ssds for swap drives and backup
6. 64 gigs of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3600MHZ
7. ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3070 Ti OC 8GB GDDR6X Graphics Card (Nvidia)
The RC-Astro Xterminator processes run much faster
8. I use external 4TB USB drives (spinners) for backup of my important image files etc
9. A large case with lots of fans to keep things cool.
10. Water cooler - I like these because they direct the heat out of the case.
The graphics card makes the Xterminator processes run much faster.
The 16 core/32 thread CPU makes everything else run faster.
Main thing - multicore processor, lots of fast memory and fast PCI express solid state drives.