Build 200 – The Pixel Forge: Visual Effects Workstation

The Pixel Forge is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4080 16GB video card.

Description

The Pixel Forge is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4080 16GB video card.

General System Design

This build is designed around a 24-core i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4080 16GB video card.

Software Workload/Customer Need

This customer needed a powerful new workstation to handle their growing professional workload that would last a long time. This build was designed for visual effects and animation.

This system is designed in particular for Blender, Cinema 4D, Redshift, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Houdini.

This build was influenced by Blenderizer and The DERRK Station.

System Spec

Processor (CPU): Intel i9-13900K

CPU Cooler: Fractal Design Celsius S36

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX

Memory: Kingston Fury Beast 2x32GB DDR5-4800

Storage (SSD): Kingston KC3000 512GB

Storage (SSD): Kingston KC3000 1TB

Video Card (GPU): PNY GeForce RTX 4080 16GB XLR8 Gaming VERTO EPIC-X RGB

Power Supply (PSU): be quiet! Straight Power 11 1200W

Case: Corsair 5000D Airflow Black

Fans: 7x Phanteks PH-F120T30

OS: Windows 11 Pro

Facebook Build Gallery | YouTube Video Archive

Design Rationale

  • The i9-13900K gave the customer a great amount of single-core performance for editing, and multicore performance for heavily-threaded tasks.
  • To ensure the CPU runs at full speed, liquid cooling with a 360mm AIO is recommended.
  • The customer wanted a stable motherboard with a good amount of desktop functionality.
  • The customer wanted at least 64GB of RAM, and didn’t want last-gen tech.
  • The customer was fine with our default storage setup.
  • We recommended a single RTX 4080 for editing and rendering performance. The case and power supply selection allows for an upgrade to an RTX 4090 in the future.
  • The overall design of the build meant that a 1200W power supply was recommended.
  • We used a bigger mid-tower case to fit the build.
  • We used our highest-end fans to ensure proper airflow and static pressure.

Customer Review

“Worked with Chris to build a render machine! He was attentive to my needs and even got everything within the budget.

Very happy with the machine, Top Flight delivered an awesome build.”

Kaleb, Santa Barbara CA

Build Gallery

Related Builds

The Pixel Forge is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4080 16GB video card.
The DERRK Station is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4090 24GB video card.
Tokyo Spice is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core Threadripper Pro 5965WX processor and an RTX 4090 24GB video card.
Transcend is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 24-core Threadripper 3960X processor and an RTX A6000 48GB video card.
The Shrenderer is a visual effects workstation, designed around a 14-core i9-9940X processor and twin RTX 2080Ti 11GB video cards.

Interested In Buying This PC Build? Contact Us!

See our brief update on the status of components, including pricing and lead time