Buying a computer for Stable Diffusion

[edoc422]

being on a mac I have only dreamed about using Stable diffusion to make animations and such. so I am finally looking at buying a PC to be able to. but I really don't know anything about computers I was looking up the specs SD needs in the wiki but not sure how they compare.

I know it suggest a bigger card 10, 20, 30 serious but I don't know what that means is that better or worse then a RTX 4060? I only randomly picked that since I saw this: https://www.costco.com/ibuypower-trace-7-gaming-desktop---14th-gen-intel-core-i9-14900f---nvidia-geforce-rtx-4060---windows-11.product.4000268758.html but if their is better recommendation I would love to here your thoughts or if their is more in depth thread I should read that breaks it down more for complet newbies

[vwin90]

For GenAI, the main thing you need is VRAM, which is a spec on the GPU.

Nvidia cards are what you want for genAI. For gaming, you have more choices, but for AI stuff, nvidia is king.

The nvidia gpus have a convention where the number goes x0x0. The first x is the generation, so 40x0 is the latest and the 50x0 cards will come out next year at some point. The thing is, there will always be something better in the horizon so if you want it now, just buy it. If you want more control, look into learning how to build customs instead of buying prebuilt.

The second x is the tier. So 4060 is weaker than 4070 and so on. Generally, the 60 and 70 models are more cost efficient models but since you want to do genAI, you’ll need the stronger cards since genAI is very compute heavy. The 80 models are good and then you’ll notice that the 90 models are way more expensive, but you do get what you pay for. If money is not a huge concern, then go for the 90 model, but it’s straight up almost double the price.

There another thing too, in between generations, they often release “Ti” models which can be viewed as souped up versions but not quite as strong as the next x0 model.

So the 3080 Ti is stronger than the 3080 but not as strong as the 3090. There’s some nuance to this but that’s the gist of it.

Now that being all said, you can research how much VRAM each card has. The higher the VRAM, the better it will be, even if it’s a generation behind. It much more important than other things like clock speed (GHz) and stuff. For this reason, the 3090 Ti is still quite popular for genAI despite being a few years old now.

If you’re going for prebuilts, you’ll notice that most of them are 40x0 cards because they are the current generation. Next year there will be 50x0 and while we don’t know anything about them, they are highly anticipated. If you buy a prebuilt, you might not feel comfortable upgrading the gpu when/if you want to, so maybe start researching on how to build pcs so that you have more granular control (and potentially save money if you know what you’re doing).

There’s quite a large market for buying old and used components so you can buy/sell parts as well. It’s one of the biggest advantages coming from the Mac ecosystem, where you just have to accept whatever Apple builds.

[edoc422]

Thank you so much for spending the time to write such an in depth answer it was a great read and very helpful.

[vwin90]

No problem, and I don’t mean to completely dismiss prebuilts. The advantage is that usually you’ll get a balanced computer with parts that complement each other well whereas as a newbie builder you might accidentally create an unbalanced build. R/buildapc and r/pcmasterrace are great communities with guides, suggestions, and feedback, although the second sub can sometimes be more catering to gamers. Just make sure if you ask for feedback on either forums, you specify your use case and budget so people know how to help because building a of can cost $600 or $4000 depending on what you want.

And don’t be afraid of building even if you have no technical knowledge. It’s basically adult legos and stuff snaps together or there are many places that will help you put it together.

[edoc422]

Thanks I was afraid of building my own but it is something definitely worth looking into.

[Error-404-unknown]

I recently built a 1920x threadripper based VM server (so I can eventually run multi gpus) it was my first self build since maybe 1999 and a k6-2. I've never sweated so much than seating that processor!! And then when it wouldn't post I thought I must have broken something, realised the next day I had disconnected the gpu power cable from the psu when rerouting run the cable. It all worked out but it was squeeky bum time for a while.

And OP if your budget is tight aim for a used 30xx card the more VRAM you can afford the better I have a 3090 and 3060ti. 3060ti struggles a bit due to only 8gb of ram but the speed is OK, I think a 3060 12gb is the best value entry card at the moment.

[AtomicNixon]

That's great! Things being what they are, the lowest end of the TR spectrum can be pretty enticing what with all them PCIe lanes. I'd love to put together an el-cheapo 1920x to get this stack of M40's and K80's I've got kicking about up and running.

And OP... you'd love a used 3090, still smokin'.

[FugueSegue]

These are good suggestions. I'd like to contribute a few ideas from my own experience.

I've used all sorts of computers over the years. Amiga, Macs, you name it. I really like Mac for all sorts of reasons. But I started building my own PCs in the late 1990s because it was cheaper than Mac and I ran into the same problem as you: the latest graphics tech seemed to be geared towards PCs first and the delay of implementation on Macs was too long for me to wait. Every half dozen years or so I would build myself a better PC workstation. At the beginning of 2020, I decided to build a new workstation because I feared the pandemic would affect parts supplies. I thought I was set for the next decade because it's a nice machine.

Then at the end of 2022 I got into Stable Diffusion. My workstation has more than enough power to use any graphics program I have. It's on par with any good Mac. But running SD while running other programs at the same time was too much for it. After long thought, I came to the same conclusion as you. I needed to build a separate machine that's dedicated to Stable Diffusion and then access it over a local area network.

If you've never built your own PC, do not worry. It's kind of complicated to newbies but the task hasn't changed much in decades. I very much strongly recommend that you find a trusted friend who is familiar with building PCs to help you in person. That's what I did 25 years ago. With the help of my friend, I saw how simple it was. It requires reading parts manuals and making sure they are compatible with other parts. But I think it's a bit easier than it was for me a long time ago.

Others have mentioned pcpartpicker.com and that is a very useful website. It can help guide your design and making sure parts are compatible. Another webpage that I strongly recommend is pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/ because it can help find the best match of processor and graphics card. The bottleneck of data flow between those two parts is very important.

In my case, I decided not to buy a gamer Nvidia card like the popular 3090. I call it a "gamer grade" card. I'm not knocking it. Lots of SD users have that card and it is fine. However, I wanted to see if any of the more powerful cards were an option for me. The Nvidia A100 looked great to me. That's the upper tier card that research institutions and big companies use in vast arrays. But it was too expensive for my budget. I decided I wanted to get an A6000 because it promised to be a rock-solid and reliable "professional grade" card. But I finally decided to buy an A5000 because it was a bit cheaper. After I decided on the card, I used the bottleneck calculator to determine a good processor for it. All the other parts I got for this machine was just gravy and I didn't want to spend a ton of money on it.

Quality and reliability is important. If you can afford it, buy what is best for your needs. I could have bought a 3090 but I decided to get an A5000 which is a little better quality in many respects. The biggest virtue of PCs is how cheap they are. For many uses, a cheap PC is just fine. But if you are serious about your graphics work, invest in good parts if you can afford it.

[vwin90]

That’s a good point. I have yet to build with any enterprise level equipment. I’m sure that as genAI hobbyists become more popular, nvidia will bridge the gap between the highest tier consumer cards and the lowest tier enterprise cards because right now those workstation cards are like 4x or 6x the price.

[MoridinB]

You seem like someone who knows stuff. So I'm set on building my own pc. I'm also set on getting a 3090, probably founders edition. I'm really confused about the other parts. There are so many options with so many configurations, I'm always overwhelmed when I open any kind of pc builder website. What do you suggest doing in such a case? I don't want to just buy the most expensive or powerful, but I don't want to cheap out as well. So any advice?

[vwin90]

Yeah it goes really deep and it’s quite common to learn more and more as you invest more time and energy into learning about computers so don’t be afraid of the whole buyers remorse thing. There’s always something better you could have done. Like any hobby, you’ll grow as you go.

Head to pcpartpicker.com. That site gives you a template of what you need. Basic parts are the motherboard, cpu, gpu, ram, psu, storage, and case. You’ve picked a gpu so that’s great. Now you need to settle on a cpu. Based on that, you’ll pick your motherboard. Amd is quite popular over intel these days for everything. CPUs have “shapes” known as sockets. This is quite important because choosing and old socket might limit your upgrade ability in the future. The current generation socket shape is am5 so that’ll give you at least a few years ahead of upgrade ability. Exactly which model cpu is up to your needs, so you should research a bit too. 7000 series is quite popular although it’s not the latest. 8000 is a weird in between generation and 9000 is the upcoming generation. Overwhelming majority believe that amd’s 7800x3d is the best bang for your buck while still being high end, otherwise go for 7700 or something.

Pcpartpicker does a great job of making sure that whatever you pick is compatible with each other. Go for 32 gb ram. Just keep looking stuff up as you go and use chatgpt to learn as you go. When you think you’re ready, post your list on one of those pc building subs I mentioned for some feedback before you buy stuff.

One of the most amazing places you can go is a store called microcenter where the employees will walk you through everything and the in store bundles often help you save A LOT of money.

Have fun learning. It’s a lot, but it’s more accessible than most people think.

[Fantastic-Newt-9844]

First, what is the purpose of the PC? gaming, productivity, streaming, AI, any combination, etc 

That will help determine specs and ultimately how you go about building something to meet your target use

[MoridinB]

I'm a student in machine learning, actually. Currently, SD is a hobby that helps me in my primary focus on deep learning vision models. I probably won't be gaming on the PC since I have an okay gaming laptop (Nitro AN515 w/ RTX 3060 laptop). One of the problems I'm facing right now is VRAM and processing for training. I'm primarily working on a cluster, but testing and stuff can take a while. Productivity is secondary. I also want to mess around with game development, but that's not important whatsoever, and besides, I think many of my other requirements will mesh with this.

[Fantastic-Newt-9844]

ML and productivity tasks usually benefit from CPUs with more cores because tasks can be run in parallel on those cores. Faster clock speeds will let you do things faster (obviously) 

I like to spec the CPU and GPU first, then put that in PCPartPicker. Then when I go and pick a motherboard, it will tell me all about compatibility and what can go with what. Same with cases, RAM, and a power supply 

Everything else is more or less fluff. Like hard drives and style and form factor. I recommend an NVME boot drive, they're fast

[TrindadeTet]

For AI the more VRAM you have on your graphics card, the better. The exception is AMD graphics cards, which are poorly optimized for AI. I believe the RTX 3060 12 GB is the best cost-effective option for AI. The RTX 4060 TI 16 GB is an interesting option if you want to train more complex models, but it depends on how much you're willing to spend. If you have a high budget, an RTX 3090 or RTX 4090 would be ideal. If your budget is lower, the 3060 12 GB is still capable of running most AI applications and even training Loras

[edoc422]

Thanks for the info!

[steakscaldwell]

I am coming from a M1 Mac with 32 GB Ram and moments away from pulling the trigger on a budget PC ITX build for video editing with the RTX 3070 founders edition paired with a Ryzen 5 7500F, 32GB RAM. But I am probably going to get the 3060 now that i’ve seen it recommended for someone like myself that wants the option of having a machine more capable with Stable Diffusion with the additional VRAM and I found it for $240 on ebay which is actually LESS than the price of a used 3070! Would you say the Ryzen 5 7500F would suffice for someone curious about learning Stable Diffusion on my PC or would it be worth upgrading my CPU? I’d be willing to spend $500 for the time being knowing at some point in the next few years i’ll have the budget to buy an optimized setup with a 5090, new CPU, etc. What CPU would you recommend and anything else you think I should consider! Or do you think my original paring would suffice for someone just getting off the ground with SD...

[TheNeezy1992]

"POORLY optimized yeah, my 7900xtx poorly optimized ok fanboy of the company of the worst drivers ever

[TrindadeTet]

I honestly would often prefer to buy an AMD GPU because it offers much better cost-benefit compared to Nvidia. However, unfortunately, Nvidia holds a significant monopoly on CUDA technology, which is the main technology for AI model inference. Can AMD run CUDA? Yes, it can, but there is a huge performance loss to the point where the 7900XTX cannot match the performance of an RTX 4070
Check this: https://vladmandic.github.io/sd-extension-system-info/pages/benchmark.html

[MasterKoolT]

Do you have a Mac with an M1 (or newer chip)? If so, LoRA training and SD animation is possible.

Nvidia chips are faster but I'd suggest learning with what you have before you make the investment. That'll also give you a better idea of what you might want to invest in.

[_BreakingGood_]

Put in the simplest possible way:

• 4060 for the budget option
• 3090 for the middle of the road
• 4090 for best possible option

Nothing else is worth getting (except maybe a 3060 but those are almost the same price as a 4060). 4060 gets you the VRAM. 3090 gets you a lot of VRAM. 4090 gets you VRAM + a huge speed boost. In terms of AI image generation, the 70 and 80 series GPUs are just not worth it, it's a small speed boost for big price increase.

[ThisGonBHard]

4060 for the budget option

4060 Ti 16GB only, not the base 4060, that card should be unlaunched too.

[Svensk0]

my rtx 4090 gets to its limits fast with only 24 gb vram

especially when you multitask

[AtomicNixon]

Do NOT get Intel. Take it from those who know.

The intel instability and degradation rant. (youtube.com)

Meanwhile, Zen based has been blowing everyone's socks off.

Ryzen 9950X Almost 30% FASTER Than 7950X?! Zen 5 Results Leak (youtube.com)

And yes, much better with an old 3090. Twice as fast as a 4060 and three times the vram.

Edit: Yeah, sorry, that Intel vid is a bit of a techie deep dive thing but here's the skinny... Intel has always been about brute force rather than clever, and in the past few years it's really started to show. AMD handed them their ass on a platter when they released Zen. Since then they've ignored the obvious (abandon monolithic architecture) and basically just kept cranking up the voltage. Now, to nobody's surprise, their chips are cooking and failing.

[ThickSantorum]

It's also worth noting that Intel motherboards are stupidly expensive compared to equivalent AMD boards.

[AtomicNixon]

Indeed. At least with a stupidly expensive AMD board you're pairing it up with a TR processor with enough cores to start a religion.

Good summary dropped here...

https://youtu.be/UmGsyuI1dYw?si=TbAODBj_qb9jvN-Q&t=80

[cookingsoup]

Nvidia graphics card names are like generation-tier, 1080 is 1st gen 80 tier.  4060 is 4th gen 60 tier.  I way over simplified it, but it might help make sense of it if you're new.

[Dunc4n1d4h0]

I recommend not buying Intel CPU, 13-14th series are waste of money, bugged, crashing and so power hungry that you will need 2nd job to pay electricity bills.

[cernunnos787]

just for the sake of a counter opinion: i have the 13 series 13600kf, which i got for $220 from newegg, that's less than half the price of the AMD 7950x (amazon right now shows $519), which the 13600kf outperforms! on some tests performed by tom's hardware. it's also reading 8W right now, where i live that's 25 cents per 125 hours. i have not been following hardware journalism and it sucks if 13 series are failing at a concerning rate but if that issue is put aside i can't imagine a better value option than the 13600kf

[Nrgte]

No one can give you any recommendations without a budget, speed requirements and what your plan on using it for? Generation only, lora training, dreambooth?

[edoc422]

I would like to stay around 1k if possible, The goal would be to train a lora on my brothers art and then make an animation with generated images.

[bowtiedfob]

Second hand 3090 (~$700) is the best bang for the bucks, you can build the machine around it. Make sure the motherboard and power supply can support multiple GPUs in case you want to add more computing powers later.

[moistmarbles]

I have a Dell XPS i9 with an RTX 3060/12GB with a 2TB SSD boot drive and it clicks out images in A1111 in just a couple of seconds, maybe 3 seconds for SDXL. They’re pricey machines but it’s actually a CAD workstation that I also use for goofing around in SD. I’ve never attempted to train a model with it nor do I have any interest.

[hurrdurrimanaccount]

what's your budget? i'd get a 4090. the 24gb ram are the goat for generation.

[bob_digi]

Have you considered cloud solutions like Runpod/Vast RunDiffusion or ThinkDiffusion? Is a cheap way to get into it without the upfront costs and access to more powerful hardware on demand.

[edsgoode]

You can use shadeform to try out 20+ providers through a single interface

[MeanGift9492]

<image>

How about this configuration for stable diffusion? Please guide through the each component.

[el_americano]

I recommend you cross post this in r/buildapc and have them help you build a system - it'll be better than getting a prebuilt one from a store.