new pc specs

Ruz

if you were putting together a new pc specifically for 3d work, what components would you order.I am thinking mainly cpu and video card here. I will probably go for a dual core cpu , 'amd' not 'intel'

Sa74n

(+)2gb ram

Tulkamir

Yea, deffinatly wanna get decent ram in there as well. And some restraints might be good, like how much money do you have to spend here?

mr.damage

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I will probably go for a dual core cpu , 'amd' not 'intel'

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The intel conroe is looking good (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5692)

cheers.

Ruz

yeah I suppose 2gig ram is worth having . I was wanting to spend around 1000 pounds (1,856.30 USD)
mr damage - I have used intel since 1997 and after having an AMD at work recently I found it a lot better.

TomDunne

I don't know what prices would be like for you in the UK, but in the states, you can build a vertiable war machine of core PC hardware for that kind of cash. Going through my favorite online seller, I built:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4
4x1gb Corsair TwinX2048
EVGA GeForce 7900 GTX superclocked 512mb

That comes in at $1861.30, before it's shipped. There's no way I don't get 4gb of ram, it's less than $100 a gig. That motherboard rocks the hizzle fo' shizzle, by the way. If you find an extra $600 lying around the house, you can have SLI PCI-E video cards with an astounding 1gb of video ram. It might not help too much with 3D modeling, but you'll be able to run all your games at the high quality settings

Rick Stirling

Get as much RAM as possible, and a BIG hard disk.

Joshua Stubbles

Vermillion's setup is spot on, but I'd go for an SLI configuration. Forget that Quad SLI crap - driver support is horrible, and nothing takes advantage of it. Get 2x7900GTX cards and you'll smoke anything out there.

More importantly though, what is your price range?

rawkstar

if i was getting a pc now... i'd get two of these with SLI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130021 1gb of video memory for $300... total bang for the buck. and yeah for $1800 you can pretty much build a totally badass PC

pior

Hey there, I am in the exact same situation as Ruz, same needs, same price range (with 20inch flatscreen included, haha). I was about to go for a Dell setup but realized that the dutch website don't have the same components than the french one, and is more expensive.

Hence my question : do you know a reliable online seller that would ship a good already built work pc to the netherlands? Thanks, hope you don't mind me sneaking in Ruz

Ruz

hey no probs. the more post the merrier , cause I want to make the right choices
I was looking at this uk site which seems pretty good

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php

Not sure if they ship stuff but its all prebuilt for you anyway

EarthQuake

If your goal is to get a massive e-cock from your texture memory just make sure you get a card thats actually fast enough to allocate that much memory, i've seen 512mb 6800s perform the same as 128 mb 6600gts... I wouldnt outright go for SLI off the bat, thats more of an upgrade thing. Wait for a game to be released that actually stresses a 7900. Instead of spending an extra $300 or whatnot buy 3 250 gig seagate SATA drives and run raid, i cant remember the type off hand but the one that gives you double redunancy + extra performance and only costs the space of 1 drive.

I would NEVER buy top of the line cpu, there is ALWAYS a curve where you lose out on value if you go too high end, you'll end up..... Actually looking at newegg this isnt quite the case as much as it was in the past, i seem to remember those stupid fx 55s and shit being 4x more expensive than slightly slower cpus. Regardless i doubt the performance difference between a 4200+($357) and a 4800+($632) is anywhere FUCKING CLOSE to being worth spending nearly twice as much, this again is something that should only be purchased for bragging rights as a 4200+ is a VERY fast cpu. Again here you could save nearly $300 that could be used for another video card, better drives, or something else that would be more usefull.

Benchmarks to back up the very small actual difference in performance: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2410&p=4 5-10% difference for twice the price is a baaaaddddddddddd choice, i cant see why people would suggest something like that.

Two gigs of ram atleast, i dont think xp even uses over 3 gigs, but i know xp 64, server 2003 do and so will vista. Personally i wouldnt even buy an expensive video card if you plan on getting vista when it comes out, as only dx10 cards will be supported(of which there are none currently).

In conclusion: LOOK FOR VALUE, NOT BRAGGING RIGHTS! =D Nobody cares how big your e-cock is if you overpaid for all your shit.

McIlroy

Here is a site that really does try to put together the best PC components for the best price . I put together a very high end PC for under 1000 on this site .

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/Default.asp

thomasp

my advice would be to get very decent RAM, preferably of the ECC type or whatever fancy error checking methods are "in" today. this can save so much trouble. and let's not forget a powersupply that can deliver reliably even under really heavy load.

i only got misconfigured PCs at every workplace i've been so far and that's where you pick up bits like this - it get's burned in through all the suffering. cause what do i care if it's 7 or 8 ghz if the damn thing crashes every hour...

Downsizer

rockstar, those cards are gddr2, and GS editions, less pipes and clocked down. just fyi. they are'nt very powerfull cards. A single true 7900 would blow those out of the water, even sli.

2 gigs ram indeed. i would personally wait for the intel conroe. SATA 2 drive obviously.

sledgy

I'd recommend a SCSI hard disk. I just put in a 147G Atlas 10K IV a few months ago and I still get surprised at it's quickness. A single drive and a 160- or 320- adapter can set you back quite a bit, but you just can't beat the speed and reliability. You can get much better sustained transfer speed for your pounds with an SATA-2 array (RAID 5 btw EQ) but the access times on SCSI really make an impressive up-close-and-personal impact. Most programs you use daily are a bunch of little files. The only time you'll miss that sustained throughput is if you regularly copy large amounts of data. Of course the same size RAID-5 SCSI array would blow away an SATA-2 array but that would blow your whole budget too.

I'd suggest an Adaptec 29160 card off ebay, a new (don't buy used drives) 147G SCSI (best bang for buck) and a HIGH QUALITY LVD cable. You could get an LVD-320 drive/card but it's really not going to gain you much other than a bit quicker burst on a single-drive configuration. 320's are really built for RAID.

Also bear in mind that SCSI is a bit louder, although the newer models not much, but I can't/won't go back to ATA/SATA for my primary drive now. I just got louder speakers

P.S. If anyone on this board needs SCSI advice I have pretty extensive experience with it and if I don't know, I know where to find out! Feel free.

thomasp

best thing about SCSI is reliability IMO. the quality seems higher than with consumer drives. never lost a single SCSI drive in all those years. and the 10k models are nicely balanced between speed and longevity. fujitsu 10k drives are rather quiet, btw.
as a fast system drive, such a disk could make a noticeable difference indeed.

but if you want real speed, forget SCSI, go fibrechannel

sledgy

Yeah SCSI is definitely where it's at as far as reliability. Most SCSI drives have a 5-year warranty but they will normally last much longer than that. Fibrechannel is a great bus for large arrays but it just comes down to how fast the seek times and sustained transfers are. A single drive is a good $300-$800 so that's really an "enterprise" solution. There's also SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) which is nice because you don't have to deal with the cabling but don't make the mistake of thinking you can plug one into a standard SATA controller...it takes a special SAS controller which can be pretty costly especially since the tech is so new.

Also remember that the larger capacity drive you get, the higher the sustained transfer will be for the mere fact that more bits are passing under the heads per revolution. 15K-rpm drives sound impressive but they're not actually that much faster - not for the money anyway. Plus there's the reliability thing. The faster your drive spins, the more friction, the quicker the bearing wears out. 10K is a good balance with where the tech is right now.