Opinions on new building new PC?

Hayden Zammit

Hi everyone. I'm doing some research into upgrading my PC at the moment and was hoping I could get some opinions on the set up I've been quoted by a local PC shop. Currently I've got a Q6600 processor, 4gb DDR2 ram and a Quadro 1700 FX video card.

I'm mainly wanting it all for Maya modeling and rendering, good UDK performance (it doesn't run too well on my current PC), and watching movies on a 47 inch sony bravia. I've already got a monitor, and am running Win 7 64 bit.

Here's the new parts I'm considering. I was quoted about $800 AUD for these:

4GB Kingston KVR1333D3N9/4G 1333MHz DDR3 RAM

Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz LGA1155 Quad Core Processor

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3RB3 w/ 2XPCI-E,RAID,SATA3,GbE,USB3

Thermaltake 700W Lite Power Power Supply


I'll probably want to change it to either 8 or 12 gigs of ram too.

So what do you guys think? Does this sound good for Maya, UDK and watching movies?


cheers.

chriszuko

8 gigs of ram at least.. 4 gigs gets used up pretty quick when you start opening up maya and UDK at the same time. But... to me it sounds like everything else is alright.

Hayden Zammit

chriszuko - Yeah, I'll probably get either 8 or 12 gigs of that Corsair brand ram. I was told they're pretty decent.

EarthQuake

Get a decentish Gamer video card, say Nvidia 460/560. Quadros suck for game dev, they're optimized to do things like anti-aliased wireframe on CAD models. When it comes to running realtime shaders and games(IE: UDK) a moderate gamer card will be much better.

Get yourself an SSD too, say 120gb or so minimum. You'll see a nice performance increase from this, esp with win7. Install your art apps, and keep your working art content(psds, sculpts etc) on this(and archive/move to another drive when you're done).

700W is likely more than you reasonably need, I wouldn't really recommend anything over 550W unless you've got some real specific need for that much power. More important to a PSU is just getting a high efficiency 80+ or better one. Modular PSUs are nice too, if you can find a modular 550W for the same price as a 700W, it would be a better buy.

biofrost

Go 8 gigs, I am currently running 4 an with UDK and Maya open it starts to lag a bit. Even Maya alone will lag some if I'm working on a high poly.

AnimeAngel

Yep more ram for sure, and that Vid card sucks. As EQ stated you will need better, that one just doesn't do anything for you. That processor is nice, I just put one in and very happy with it. The power is nice too but it doesn't really appear that you need that much. I believe you need at least a 500w to run most i7 boards but anything over that should do nicely.

mdeforge

I have this pair of Ram and love it. I'd recommend going for slightly higher speeds with the 1600 instead of the 1333. It's not that much more.

This is an excellent PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W

I'm personally waiting to get into SSD's. I think they are a bit too pricey and error prone to invest in still, especially when my Samsung F3 is fast enough. Less than 30 boot up time. I can wait, lol.

I ended up going with a 560 TI Graphics card.