Yey or Ney @ new PC configuration

Canti

So its been 2 years since Ive studied PC hardware and Im pretty sure i was doing it wrong back then so i need some help. Ive been suffering with my 09 Vaio up until now and Im getting something new around or before January

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1DLK7H

Planing on buying this (Mainly for the casing) But i was wondering if this build is good or not. if not can someone build me up something around or under 1500$.

I plan on using this mainly for Maya, (Modeling, Animation, Particles) Zbrush, Photoshop, and Some near future video editing
Gaming isn't really a top priority of mine as its a waist of time since games are to dam short these days.


Someone help me out please
I dont wana go out and build my own completely from scratch

PolyHertz

Wow is that ever overpriced. For $1500 you can get much better.

CPU: sandy bridge- 2600k or 2500k
GPU: Geforce 560 with 2gb vram or better
RAM: 16gb (you can get that much for under $100 these days from newegg)
SSD: 128gb Crucial or OCZ brand (boot drive)

Whatever for the rest. You should be able to get a PC with all that for under $1500, and it'll be significantly more powerful then the one you linked.

R3D

http://www.tinyurl.com/falconguide

The guide is for games though, for CG you want more ram and a single graphics card.

Canti

There are some useless things that i can remove to take it down a few hundred $$$.

I was planing on buying the default pieces of ram and graphics card then upgrading from some where els though. it keeps choosing the dam Halloween special crap so i had to pick something other than there recommendation

I was looking HARD but couldn't find anythnig on SSD's on the site everything is to cluttered i may have over looked

@Ryswick i got that guide book marked

R3D

Also i'm not too sure how NCIX works in the states, but they pricematch here in Canada.

It will always be cheaper to buy separate parts.

http://us.ncix.com/

dpadam450

I dont do a whole ton of z-brush and what not but isn't 16GB overkill? Who fills up 16GB worth of textures/applications etc. What do most people on here have?

And building it yourself by buying the parts is not hard at all. Have you thought of it? Price each of those components on newegg or whatever and see what it comes out to. I'm sure you can find someone to help you build it.

R3D

dpadam450 wrote: »

I dont do a whole ton of z-brush and what not but isn't 16GB overkill? Who fills up 16GB worth of textures/applications etc. What do most people on here have?

And building it yourself by buying the parts is not hard at all. Have you thought of it? Price each of those components on newegg or whatever and see what it comes out to. I'm sure you can find someone to help you build it.

to be fair, zbrush is still only 32bit

greevar

dpadam450 wrote: »

I dont do a whole ton of z-brush and what not but isn't 16GB overkill? Who fills up 16GB worth of textures/applications etc. What do most people on here have?

And building it yourself by buying the parts is not hard at all. Have you thought of it? Price each of those components on newegg or whatever and see what it comes out to. I'm sure you can find someone to help you build it.

But with that much RAM you can run Maya/Max/Zbrush while you're using Photoshop/GIMP, Crazybump/xNormal, and UDK/Source/Crytek/Unity all at once. Though, you might want a second display if you're doing that. Task switching can be a pain when you're trying to do work and you might want to be able to see two apps at once.

Canti

Well to buy separate parts/Complete build from scratch i would have to get a job which i probably wont until some time later after January so i wanted to buy what was good from this vendor regardless the price (While keeping it under 1500) and use that until i can slowly upgrade it into the god it deserves to be myself


Though ram is cheep as hell round here its pretty much a steal....They also leave the ram sticks laying about in the stores like there useless so there usually stolen at most places i also have a few 3-4gig ram sticks from friends computers.

greevar wrote: »

But with that much RAM you can run Maya/Max/Zbrush while you're using Photoshop/GIMP, Crazybump/xNormal, and UDK/Source/Crytek/Unity all at once. Though, you might want a second display if you're doing that. Task switching can be a pain when you're trying to do work and you might want to be able to see two apps at once.

Thats kind of what i want to do rather than have 2 programs open, close 1 to open another finish a bit of work, close another etc.. and When i had a second monitor it was paradise...the minimize button became 75% useless

My laptop is a pile of trash and i paid 2000$ for it in 09 its in no way awesome. i was completely ripped of. Only got it because it was good looking and i didnt understand the difference between a duo and dual core back then. Dont wana make that mistake again

PolyHertz

Not for long, Pixologic announced Zbrush 5 would be 64bit at the same time they released 4r2.

As for the ram being overkill, depends on what you're doing with it. Some artists at Epic studios use 24gb.


CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130662
SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

MM

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1DLKFJ

Price: $1,314.00

you should be fine with the following BUT keep in mind that Intel is most likely to release new processors late November so prices might drop before Christmas for the same config.

[EDIT]

Just noticed that the config recommends 700W power supply. so just adjust that and price should be $1324

700 Watts - XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply


main components:

CASE:* Apevia X-Plorer 2 Mid-Tower Case w/ Side-Panel Window and MultiMeter Display

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K 3.30 GHz 6M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155

HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD

HDD2: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD

MB_SRT: 60GB Corsair Force Series SATA III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 550MB/s Read & 510MB/s Write

MEMORY: 16GB (4GBx4) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module Corsair Vengeance

MOTHERBOARD: Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard

POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts - XtremeGear Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready

VIDEO:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 2GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+147] (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA

Daelus

On the subject of ram overkill... Why not? The difference between 12 gb and 24 is like maybe a hundred dollars, give or take 50 depending on brand. I'm running 24gb, and I've never ran out of ram (wouldn't expect to). The thing about ram is that you never notice it until you don't have enough. Maybe you won't need it now, but you may later on, so you might as well.

Anyway, even if you've never done it before, build your PC yourself. Buying parts separate will save you approximately 25-50%, plus they don't force a pre-installed OS on you. It's really not as hard as you'd think. Load up a little guide on a laptop or print it out, make sure you read your motherboards instructions and it's something you can easily do in an afternoon even if you've never done it before. The only thing you can really do wrong is forget the thermal paste with the cpu, but other than that, most things won't fit where they aren't supposed to go.

Finally, it may just be me, but most of the applications I use don't rely heavily on the video card. Max/Maya are mainly ram/cpu intensive, same with zbrush (last I heard). I'm using a pretty budget video card, and it seems fine, so no need to go overboard there, unless you want something to double as a high end gaming console.

Anyway, I'm not much of a hardware nut, but my understanding is that you should splurge on cpu and ram first, video card second, and the rest can fit within whatever budget you have left.

Entity

PC's are so easy to assemble these days, I remember back when documentation was shit and there were barely any labels on the motherboard. LED connections drove me crazy.

Daelus

Entity wrote: »

PC's are so easy to assemble these days, I remember back when documentation was shit and there were barely any labels on the motherboard. LED connections drove me crazy.

Oh god. The first time I had to switch cases on my PC, I think my reset button ended up as the power button, the power button I was afraid to push, and all the LEDs didn't work. You had to push these tiny little connections into a stack of 8 sets of pins in varying directions with no markings. :poly127:

ericdigital

Here is a build I just built about 2 weeks ago thats been running AWESOME with anything I throw at it.

Total cost was just a touch over a 1000 bucks (seriously it was like 1,004 bucks)





Mobo: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271

Video card: EVGA 01G-P3-1561-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130623

PSU: Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231440

HD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

Heatsink: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

windows 7 professional OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116992

bitfenix shinobi case
http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/shinobi

You should really consider building it yourself. This whole build was up and running in about 2 hours and I'm really not a tech guy at all. Just watched random youtube videos and it couldn't have gone smoother.It's just way cheaper than anything you'll buy pre built and double the awesome. It's affordable enough that you can add a SSD or add more ram(added 8 more gigs since newegg gave me a coupon) and still not break the bank.

CONSIDER IT!

Canti

Thanks MM, Daelus, and ericdigital for your help!

I just may build it myself then . I was planing on being a dick and spending as much of my fathers money as possible. Him being incarcerated it would have been funny to watch him suffer. So the price isn't an issue i just prefer not to go over 1500$

I would have love to go out on the hunt and build one from the ground up to have bragging rights but i know theres more to a custom build that meets the eye

@EricDigital, Would there be any problems if i replace that case with "Colossus Venom Edition"?

Also Ive been wondering but does the different types of Windows have anything to do with how it preforms when working? Ive been using Home premium for Vista and 7 since forever. Would things be different if i were to use say pro or ultimate? Im very close to leaving windows and using Linux. All i would have is Maya though
__________________________________________

Top reason as to why i wanted to buy from Cyberpower is that good'ol Best friend of mine has no chance of building his own Desktop ANY time soon. Hes putting non existent faith into his family buying it for him.There pretty dam stupid. Last time they got him a comp it was a recalled Acer Aspire 1 with w7 started on it. They believe that cyberpowerpc is a non existent vendor and will overcharge there credit cards or steal money from them so i had to do a lot of convincing to get them to stfu (old Cyberpower walmart ads saved the day).

So in all if i were to have bought one they would get one for him and realize how paranoid they are.
They FOR SOME REASON think that since its the modern age all computers are suppose to be a godly advanced hyper fusion of protean and reaper technology or something so they'll buy anything cheep expecting it to be gasmictastic. Where's my family is the right kind of stupid and buy over priced gaming computers and use it for crap like social sites or youtube without realizing they ripped themselves off.

Daelus

Canti wrote: »

Also Ive been wondering but does the different types of Windows have anything to do with how it preforms when working? Ive been using Home premium for Vista and 7 since forever. Would things be different if i were to use say pro or ultimate? Im very close to leaving windows and using Linux. All i would have is Maya though

As far as I know, the only difference between the types (I assume already that you're going 64 bit) is going to be the amount of ram supported, and a few features most people probably won't care about. Home premium caps out at 16gb, so if you go for 24, you'll have to upgrade the OS. Basic caps at 8gb. LINK

MM

Canti wrote: »

Also Ive been wondering but does the different types of Windows have anything to do with how it preforms when working? Ive been using Home premium for Vista and 7 since forever. Would things be different if i were to use say pro or ultimate? Im very close to leaving windows and using Linux. All i would have is Maya though

get windows 7 professional 64bit at least, if not ultimate.

scroll down on this page to see memory limits:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

also if you plan to build your own for the 1st time, make sure to do your homework first. make sure everything is compatible.
make sure the RAM you buy is the voltage supported by motherboard, and the speed is matched. best way to check is to download the manual of the mobo before hand.
make sure you handle the processor and motherboard carefully and avoid static discharge.
etc.

EarthQuake

I would suggest win7 pro 64bit, ultimate is probably a bit excessive considering the price unless there is something specific you need from it.

rolfness

I now run win7 64 home premium edition (thanks to BF3) dont see why anyone would need pro or ultimate.. :S

ericdigital

The venom would be fine Bitfenix cases are really nice and will give you plenty of room.

Agreed with EQ on pro 64bit you can get it OEM pretty cheap and be good to go.

MM makes a great point about the ram, You can also check out crucial's memory advisor and almost every mobo manufacturer has suggested ram on there website as well. As you start poking around for people building there own stuff you'll see trends in components that people tend to go with which is how I settled on the build linked above.

Here is a great thread on neogaf as well for seeing whats current/compatible etc

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=417014

MM

rolfness wrote: »

I now run win7 64 home premium edition (thanks to BF3) dont see why anyone would need pro or ultimate.. :S

premium is limited to 16 GB RAM.

the motherboards, like the Z68 series and most of the new LGA 1155 series supports 32GB maximum memory if not more. windows7 pro would allow him to upgrade later.

Will Faucher

I got Win7 home premium, I don't ever see myself needing over 16gb of ram, my motherboard only supports triple-channel, so I could only get 3x 4gb of ram anyways.

Canti

Been studyin dem components.

Hows about this, am ah doin et right?

Case: Level 10 GT: Snow Edition 299$

Mobo: ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $149.99

CPU: Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed Processor $179.99

HDD: AV-GP 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive WD5000AVDS - OEM $79.99

PSU: 550 Watt Fatal1ty Series Modular ATX Power Supply $79.99

RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 $37.99

Video Card: 02G-P3-1559-KR NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 2048MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card $174.99

SSD: Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW080G3K5 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive $169.99

CD/DVD: ASUS 24X DVD Burner Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM $19.99

Monitor: HMZ-T1 799$ (Kidding)

ZacD

WHY SPEND $300 on a case?!?!?!

Canti

Because it would look perfect next to my wii and ps3

Some places have the case for 170$ or 204$ its just originally 300

MM

yea, why spend the most money on the casing? get more RAM like 16GB instead, or higher processor or better GFX card.

if you are gonna spend that much on the casing, get something that is solid and has a high quality manufacturing like something from Lian-Li.

that casing you have look silly to me, and i think you might get bored of the design pretty quick.

i got this Lian-Li case like 4 years ago for $390 and it has been solid. it is 100% Aluminium and built like a Mac Pro casing, very quality product.

ZacD

You can get a quality case for $60,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Jesse Moody

You drop your price down on a case in the 100 range and you instantly go from the GTX550 to a 570.

Who cares how nice it looks when it can't do a fucking thing you need it to.

Canti

The case is a personal deal i want that one because it looks awesome and i like what it does.
Im not trying to save money Im just trying to not get ripped off (As Much).

I hate the color black and brushed metal designs with a passion

@MM i mean no harm but Lian-Li cases all look like microwaves and brushed metal boxes. i dont really want something like that at my side 24/7

@Jesse Moody if my vaio still does what i need it to do then this will do what i want and more. i can always buy better pieces later.


Since Im not going to pay for this all at once like i would have with a cyberpowerpc i don't think the price of the case matters when purchased separately.

eld

I would have to agree with getting a case that one feels looks good, as long as it has good airflow and is easy to fit too, and besides, the chassis is one of those investments that sticks around quite a few upgrades.

greevar

That case looks like a boondoggle that should never be. If that's what suits you, I question your taste, but taste doesn't factor in as long as its efficient. I've bought a few cases that were all about form over function and was disappointed, so I finally settled on a Lian Li and later on, an Antec 900 V3. It's all about the ventilation for me and it has dust filters, which is always a bonus.

Canti

eld wrote: »

besides, the chassis is one of those investments that sticks around quite a few upgrades.

My thoughts exactly

greevar wrote: »

That case looks like a boondoggle that should never be. If that's what suits you, I question your taste, but taste doesn't factor in as long as its efficient. I've bought a few cases that were all about form over function and was disappointed, so I finally settled on a Lian Li and later on, an Antec 900 V3. It's all about the ventilation for me and it has dust filters, which is always a bonus.

lol i don't see whats so bad about it. Im getting it for a few reasons, Its size, its color and those dust filters are where they need to be. Ive watched a few reviews and asked people about it they seem to like the thing.

Canti

Gots a question!

How would i tell if a processor is 32/64bit before purchase?

greevar

Pretty much every CPU available now is 64 bit. It's hard to find a 32 bit CPU now.