Hardware Questions, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ask The Community.

heboltz3

Hello World.

So it's about that time again when I have to put together a build a new rig.

But first, a little background..

Just moved across the country (NY -> CA).
Didn't bring the six year old monster rig(Full tower,3x 24 inch monitors) for current/future moving reasons.
As I have moving expenses/loans, I would rather not pay an arm and a leg, but understanding that it's my main tool for art I'll do what I have to.
Overall, I'm planning on buying parts over time when they go on sale, or supplemental income kicks in.

Going for a Mini-ITX because I'm expecting to move semi often in this builds lifespan, and that brings me to the major question...

Should I go for an AMD or Intel system? What do you guys recommend? What have you guys used/use?

I'd normally just jump on Intel, because its what I've used before, but the mini-itx motherboards only currently support up to 16gbs of ram, and I'm worried 1,2,3 years down the road that might become obsolete and I'll have to reinvest prematurely. (Current AMD mobo Im peering at can support upto 64gbs)

I'm also totally not as versed in hardware as I "should" be, so any help will be killer.

Past that I'll have some quandaries about GPUs and what to do there, but this is just my major conundrum, and I'd love to hear what you guys use/stories/experiences.

Thanks in advance super humans!

As far as the elephant in the room, I know that shipping my old rig would probably be the least expensive option, but I'm terrified of shipping it/having it break/lugging the thing through SF, and this is more of a discussion about what I should look at for the new rig.

ZacD

For anything heavy on the CPU (such as baking, rendering, simulations, etc), Intel is the much better option. Although a lot of those tools are starting to use GPU acceleration, you'll probably save a lot more time just using Intel.

DDR4 ram is set to replace DDR3 in the next year or 2, so DDR3 prices will go up a lot once that starts happening, I'd say stick with 16 gigs for now, unless you really feel like you need 32 gigs now, then go for AMD with 32 gigs ram. But really I think you should just get 16 gigs and understand in 3 years you won't be able to upgrade it cheaply or easily either way.

Nvidia GPUs have always had less issues with viewports and 3d production software from what I've seen an read.

What is your budget?

Have you found some ITX cases you like?

Have you considered mATX at all? there's some decent sized cases for it.

heboltz3

Hey Zac, Thanks for the quick reply!

I have found a case I like, I picked up the CoolerMaster 120 today, mainly because of its support of full sized GPUs, and on that note I'll definite stick to Nvidia, as I hear that is pretty much standard at this point, and I had a gtx480 which I liked alot.

As far as budget, I couldn't put it on a total number at this point, but more of a price value per item. I'd say a ballpark total would probably be atleast 1.5k leaning towards 2k, but like I said, I'll be buying the parts as they go on sale over time.

Just curious, why is Intel better for intensive CPU usage as opposed to AMD?

ZacD

Well for ITX rigs, Intel CPU's use a lot less watts, which is really important for heat in a small case, and here's a benchmark I found. It's older but still pretty accurate.



Also: http://www.cbscores.com/

They just have better single-core and multi-core performance in pretty much all scenarios.