Which PC suits me?
polycounter
ok ok...yes...another bloody hardware "buying a PC" thread....(we really need a hardware section). So sorry, but i'm hopeless when it comes to understanding whats best.
anyway. I'm on the brink of buying a rig. Just a quick question on the options i've narrowed it down to.
As an artist using ZBrush and Maya mainly, which rig is going to be best for me.
(I'm not that bothered about gaming as long as I can play Deus ex3 when its released.)
Option 1: higher Ram lower graphics
Intel® 2nd Generation Core i7-2600 Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz) - LGA1155
*8GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
1024MB NVIDIA Geforce GTS450 Graphics Accelerator - DX11
Option 2: lower RAM higher graphics
Intel® 2nd Generation Core i7-2600 Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz) - LGA1155
4GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
1024MB NVIDIA Geforce *GTX460 SE Graphics Accelerator
The rigs are identical in price.
Cheers
anyway. I'm on the brink of buying a rig. Just a quick question on the options i've narrowed it down to.
As an artist using ZBrush and Maya mainly, which rig is going to be best for me.
(I'm not that bothered about gaming as long as I can play Deus ex3 when its released.)
Option 1: higher Ram lower graphics
Intel® 2nd Generation Core i7-2600 Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz) - LGA1155
*8GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
1024MB NVIDIA Geforce GTS450 Graphics Accelerator - DX11
Option 2: lower RAM higher graphics
Intel® 2nd Generation Core i7-2600 Processor (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz) - LGA1155
4GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
1024MB NVIDIA Geforce *GTX460 SE Graphics Accelerator
The rigs are identical in price.
Cheers
Replies
The SSD is what really improved performance though. They're expensive but so worth it.
Definately go with an SSD drive though, and have all your read/write files/internet cache etc located on another drive.
so the i5 2500K is as good as the i7 2600 (non K)?
oh.... So getting this i5 rig actually saves me £30ish but i get the 8GB RAM and the 460GTX
Intel® 2nd Generation Core i5-2500K Processor (6M Cache, 3.30 GHz)
8GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM - ( 4x2GB )
1024MB NVIDIA Geforce GTX460 SE Graphics Accelerator
I read that Hyper threading is good for video editing, etc...does that mean its good for 3D software as well, or not?
btw. This is the actually Rig i'm looking at. With the upgraded option. I've had a Mesh for the last 5 years and its been pretty damn good.
http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTCONFIGPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=950608
-sorry for hijacking of thread
Here's a direct comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=288
The truth is, most of this i5/i7/HT nonsense isn't going to make an appreciable difference when you're sitting down working. Skimp on your processor. Depending on how you look at it, it's not going to be out of date for several years, or it's already out of date once it gets to you. Sure, you might get a few more cycles out of it, but you won't know it. All those artificial benchmarks are there to either sell more processors or satisfy some techno-geek urge from guys that couldn't get laid in high school or college...
As was already mentioned, the two best gifts you can give yourself in a new computer are more RAM and an SSD. Both will make way more of a difference than the 'better' CPU, or probably a GPU. The hardware slowdown for 3D artists is rendering AO maps. Unless you have $15,000 in disposable income for a truly top of the line machine, they're going to be slow. Spending an extra $150 for a better processor so you can finish that AO bake 5 seconds faster is a waste of money. As far as GPUs, there're guys on here doing pro work with 8800s that go for $40 on ebay. The only reason to get a nice, expensive, new GPU is to play games, not make them.
My $0.02. Get what makes ya happy.
And thanks Artifice. You're right.
I'm still using a 5year old system with a 7600GT which has served me well and its a shame I cant really use any of it apart from the hard drive. So anything I buy now is going to be UBER LIGHTENING! compared to what i'm used to. but I do want to try and buy something that's going to last a good few years again with minimal upgrading needed. I like to get the best bang for my buck but I should just buy one. Its still going to blow me away.
Yeah man, That's me to a T. I wait so long to rebuild that I'm always blown away, even if it's not the brand new top-of-the-line. I'm 3 years out on my last build, and I'm kinda itching for a new system, if only to play some of the new games coming out with steeper requirements. A bit hard to justify, seeing how I don't have much time for gaming nowadays.
Since you mention rendering, you might look at a backburner setup using your old machine as a slave. In fact, it'd be pretty inexpensive/reasonable to throw together a small render farm with backburner, if you found yourself with the need.
out of interest. What's the best way to plug an old hard drive into a new rig for Data swapping without opening the case and messing about. I don't want to spoil the warranty straight away. The new rig has firewire. should I buy one of these USB hardrive readers. or is it easier to link directly to the old rig and network it?
(CPU1) Intel® Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz @ 4800MHz (ASUSTeK Computer INC. SABERTOOTH P67 mainboard) (RAM) 8GB @1866MHz, 6.31GB free (HDDs) 931GB, 762GB free
(VGA1) AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series (-2GB), 1440x900x32, 60Hz (OS) Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (SP1) 64-bit, 41m 9s uptime, 1d 12h 10m 20s uptime record
and honestly... it's like magic
i can import 32 million poly meshes from zbrush into max, inside of 40 seconds. with no problems at all.
i got a 6950 radeon card (XFX brand) and flashed the bios to a 6970, so it has all the shaders, gpu and memory clocks of the more expensive card, but £50 less.
the memory is corsair vengeance.
it is just... soooo fast X_X
if i were to advise between your two different setups, more ram > better gfx card. the main difference between the i5 and the i7 processor is that the i7 has multithreading quad core(can run 8 threads at once) and the i5 just has quad core.
and really, there's no games out there that won't run with the lower spec card. but the RAM will speed up just about everything you do.
but in the meantime. I was just reading this. (also I note a thread has already discussed this http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80712&highlight=sandy+bridge)
"you’ll want to wait until “fixed” boards start shipping in March/April."
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cougar-point-sandy-bridge-sata-error,12108.html
The board the rig comes with is:
ASUS P8P67 LE Mainboard
Mesh state that they have "bypassed" the problem.
Should I be worried and should I wait till the boards are fixed?
If you think about it a video card is only fully utilized when the app is specifically written to use it, and can push it. Most cards are for games, the apps that make games are still rocking some pretty old tech and not really pushing systems.
- Mudbox doesn't really use the video card that much its mostly ram and proc.
- Zbrush caps out at 4gb of ram regardless of what you have installed.
- Max and Maya say they use multiple cores of the CPU but they often fall back to using just one and rarely push video cards that hard, like a game would.
A blazing fast proc and video card and a mountain of ram aren't any good if what serves them the info is ancient and slow.I ran tests against two SATA drives in raid for max performance and they weren't anywhere nearly as fast as the SSD drive. I wasn't going by crazy benchmarks or graphs that didn't really matter, but by actual "do I see a difference" and the answer was yes. Windows boots faster, apps are faster, copying files is faster.
The single biggest bottle neck in PC's has been the slowness of the HardDrives, they haven't progressed much in speed in the last 5-6 years because of physical limitations, those same physical limitations are the core weekness of the old school platter drives, its like a record vs a mp3. With a record the more you play it, the longer its around the more like it is to crap itself. With an mp3, you can play it as many times as you want and no loss to quality. It's the same thing with HDD vs SSD
What really made me a believer in SSD was that at work we had switched to SSD and it was like a whole new machine. Same hardware all around except the SSD was added as the main drive. It's still slowed down if I write to a older non SSD drive like a backup drive but all my apps and working files are on the super fast SSD and I can't imagine going back to the slower drives, even if I beefed up everything else in the machine I would still trade it for something slower running SSD.
Also if you go SSD (and you should) don't relay on another drive to store your working files, get a size that will easily hold everything you ever wanted to put on there. You can archive stuff on slower drives but don't ever work off of them, you'll be right back in slow-mo land you're in right now.
Helpful links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjCmLJtITK4 (They've gotten faster since then, btw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OFR28i2ips (Skip to 40s)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72705 (The PC I built 7 months ago, its rocking probably faster cheaper pieces out there now)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80027
sure windows boot speeds and application launches will be faster on an SSD. but i boot from cold to application launch in windows (you know, when you can actually DO stuff) in 12 seconds. and max takes 4 seconds to fully launch.
i don't know that 5 seconds off the windows boot speed and 3 seconds off the 3dsmax launch time is really worth the cost of an SSD.
right now it's just price vs capacity. i'm aware the performance is there, but getting literally 10x the capacity for 1/2 the price, and still decent/good performance is why i went for a platter in the end.
It's not just app or OS launches, its the speed at which the apps can access files. The benefits don't stop once windows or the app is up and running, that speed increase is still working in everything you do.
SSD is unlike a video card that requires specific apps running specific things in order to use some of those high end features you paid top dollar to not use while building games, SSD is active and continually boosting the speed of everything all the time.
once they start pumping out 500gb for around £150, it might be worth it. but at the moment... it's just not (to me).
The size restrictions are not a big deal at all, so long as you don't try and use it as a storage drive. After installing and configuring every program and app that I use my 128gb isn't even half full. 1x boot drive and 1x storage drive (and maybe 1x backup storage drive) is the way to go.
i'll be getting myself one of these in the next month or so:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb-ocz-revo-drive-bootable-mlc-flash-x4-slot-full-height-65k-iops-read-540mb-s-write-490mb-s
and while browsing the site, i came across this... and literally fell off my chair lol.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-ocz-technology-z-drive-p88-mlc-flash-x8-pci-e-ssd-read-1400mb-s-write-1400mb-s-512mb-cache
when you could get literally 100 1tb drives for that price, there's something wrong :P
I bought it from Cyberpower Systems. They upgraded some of the components for free, probably due to them not having stock.
I ordered:
700 watt power got 850 watt
Corsair 8GB RAM got Kingston 8GB RAM with heatspreader (whatever that is)
Which I think is about £50 upgades.
Anyway. Here it is:
*BASE_PRICE: [+416]
CAS: Thermaltake V3 Black Mid-Tower Case
CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+/-R/+/-RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE. (BLACK COLOR)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 2500K Quad Core 3.3GHz 6MB cache LGA1155 + HD Graphics ***Overclockable XXX*** [+25]
CS_FAN: Maximum Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+10]
FAN: Asetek 510LC / Xtremegear Liquid Cooling system w/ 120mm Radiator (Asetek CPU Water Cooling ***Overclockable XXX***)
HDD: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache HDD (Single Hard Drive)
MEMORY: 8GB (4x2GB) PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz Kingston Hyper X BLU [+71]
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P8P67-M P67 DDR3 Intel LGA1155 DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, SATAIII USB3.0 ***Overclockable XXX*** (B3 Stepping)
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Home Premium [+74] (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: 850 Watt Avenge Power
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX460 1GB 16X PCI Express [+85] (JETWAY)
FREEBIE_OS1: Free Microsoft(R) Office(R) 2010
FREEBIE_CU1: FREE Game - Shogun 2 Limited Edition Coupon: Total War
FREEBIE_NVVC: FREE! H.A.W.X. 2. Full Game Download Coupon with purchase of NVIDIA
PRICE: (+704)
GRAND TOTAL £826.80
Lets see what this bitch can do. BACK TO THE BRAWL!!!!!!!