Where you go wrong with this is assuming everyone gets a massive boner by owning the BEST COMPUTER. Its just not the case, this is a very niche thing that only nerdy PC builders actually care about. Your average person, and average game artist doesn't care, they just want a quality system to do their work at a reasonable price. Buying the highest end stuff is always a bad value. ALWAYS.
Whenever we have these threads we get these ridiculous nerds that feel the need to live vicariously through other people by recommending the most insane PC components they can find. Sure, if you're one of the 1% of people that are into that sort of thing, go build you own super computer. People coming on polycount asking for advice are generally not that extreme, and are generally budget conscious.
So stop acting like everyone who asks for advice is an enthusiast looking for the *best build ever omgggg* if they were, they wouldn't be asking for advice on polycount in the first place, they would just go out and do it.
Again, I'm still rocking a Q6600 and JUST upgraded my 8800GT to a 560 Ti because I got one for free! I do high end professional game art outsourcing, sure baking AO could be a little faster, but my computer does NOT hold me back. A stock 2500K or 2600K is significantly faster, OCing a 2600K and especially spending extra on silly watercooling and "high end" components is extreme overkill.
Now again, if you're building a RENDERBOX, your priorities may be different, we're talking about a workstation for game art here though, where straight up rendering is going to be a small % of the actual work.
I have yet to see someone emphatically recommend water cooling in one of these threads. I certainly don't recommend it. You can easily overclock with a good third party air cooler. It's actually a good value if you can get a few hundred more MHz from your CPU with air cooling. It just takes a lot of time and patience (not to mention many, many reboots and BIOS resets) to tune the hardware to achieve the highest stable overclock and all CPU's differ, even from the same wafer.
midtower is plenty. I've been using my antec sonata III for about 4 years with no problems.
Yeah, I ended up getting an Antec as well, plenty of room and fans on the top and the sides as well, so plenty of air.
And finally got some OS going, installed Windows 7 64 bit, but the bitch is complaning because my normal C drive was acting up and I had to format it, and my windows is just for upgrades :P So I have installed it temporary and gonna install my XP at some point later, just to reinstall my windows on it...
But tried Minecraft with it, man its great to have above 20 fps in it. Can't wait to do some proper tests of my Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz, with 8 GB ram (which is the main reason I changed to my 64 bit windows). So cheers for the help.
Nah, my C drive got totally wiped, and because of the problems I had when trying to install windows and it refused to format it (Yay, couldn't you have told me that, BEFORE I removed the partitions? gah), so ended up installing it on another drive. It's okay, haven't gotten my SSD yet anyway, so will need to install anyway when I do.
But something else, I get some graphic glitches, like small blocks that glitches flashing around the harddisk, 4x7 something blocks, just flashing on and off.
Generally graphic glitches mean video card, so it could be:
A. Bad drivers
B. Bad video card(is this a new one or and older card reused?)
C. Video card overheating - if its an old card a clogged up fan could cause problems, blowing the dust off should help
D. Video card without all the extra power connectors plugged in, some cards require 1-2 extra PCI-E 6 pin power adapters. If these aren't plugged in generally you wont get video at all, but its possible that it could be running and give you issues like that.
Must be bad drivers, since its brand new, and I didn't have any problems with it, until today where I for the first time installed Window 7 as 64 bit. It's the newest drivers though, so it shouldn't do it. I did notice when I changed graphic settings in Deus Ex, it suddenly went away, but its still present in Minecraft and sometimes I play video. Cheers.
I could understand, if polycount was a secretarial forum! this "divide between bleeding edge and utilitarian". I even understand an economic divide!
But because computers are in the end, NO WHERE NEAR AS POWERFUL TO COME EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO SATISFYING ALL THE FRUSTRATING COMPROMISES I FEEEEEEEL EVERYDAY! It just seems obviously idiotic questioning as I pointed out buying the most power possible.
Seems like I stepped into some kind of oppositeland type Twillight Zone episode.
And even with the economic concern. It isn't like it is that expensive! We are still talking about the the accessible level of a consumer market not some esoteric enterprise solution or military/scientific cray super computer. If you adopt such a philosophy and consistently buy uncompromisingly in regards to possible power given to a consumer product than at the most you would only need to spend about $2500 every other year! Not to judge anyone who could not afford that. There are endless situations/circumstances where one's budget would matter. But thats true even if the price was $100 a year!
In a nutshell! ( except I bet it could be done at even $1300 every 2 years! )
With multitasking, rendering, baking...
Everyday I suffer with what technology I have. But thankfully, compared to prices I was paying 15 years ago everything is an amazing value! No matter how frustrating computing power is I never have the gnawing frustration that I went cheap in the face of what are ridiculously cheap prices compared to my old SGI stuff!
How much cheaper does this stuff have to get until one appreciates the value?
Especially, considering that it is your tool?
I suppose we do have some boys on the forum that are going to college full time?
I would certainly recommend working as little as possible and concentrating on yer grades.
I have gone through tough times as well and had to make such sacrifices. And maybe you were not around when pro hardware was upwards of $8000 to appreciate the incredible value you are lucky enough to have today.
Most importantly, perhaps you do not actually render out complex global Illuminated lightmaps or load multiple layers of HD video sources into memory for effects work.
If you do not suffer with today's performance than by all means it is not being cheap and petty but practical!
But if you are like me ( and maybe I am just impatient to a fault? )
Then I would hope that you would understand what it means to know for a fact: That you have done all that you could without compromise to have the tool of your art perform at the pinnacle of possible performance. For me the price of admission to have that peace of mind is a steal.
Earthquake does make a good point in regards to Watercooling.
I won't hide behind the noise advantage. Although you do not have to be a nerd to appreciate a tool that performs without compromise, I am as nerdy as they come when it comes to watercooling. Nothing practical about something like the L33t desk I posted before. You would have to be nerdy enough to consider it sex like the Camaro Z28 BLOWN car culture reference I made.
But considering there are so many imaginative minds here? particularly Earthquake's imagination with his wonderfully wild gee whiz weaponery!!! Doesn't a moody creation like the L33t Desk not give any of u guys even the slightest of stiffys??
I still do a lot of freelance work for film and broadcast so I am going to assume that Earthquake is right and that more performance is not really needed for game design.
But considering a new gen of consoles in the future that Carmack predicts will have new "micro polygon levels of tessellation performance support"! I'll try to give value conscientious advise with an eye towards such a future performance requirement in a machine that is built to last long enuff to play in that future. If you want to build such a machine...
For those that are still suffering performance and not doing so hot with cash.
I would definitely reccomend not buying just yet!
Hold out 3 more months particularly if you were going to get a GTX 560ti!!! Maybe even sooner if rumors pan out.
This april the replacement kepler card "gk104" will be released before the enthusiast cards and the perfomance comparisons show it thoroughly beating the gtx 580!
If you want value! I can't remember any consumer value card ever beating the previous top end ( single gpu ) card in the Nvidia line up!
According to the specifications he acquired, Nvidias GK-104 chip would be a replacement for the GF-114 (GTX 560Ti) Chip. The GK-104 GPU would feature a 28nm architecture consisting of 3.2Billion Transistors, 576 Cuda Cores, 96 TUs, 12 Geometery Engines and 48 ROPs.
The performance of the GK-104 chip is said to be 10-15% faster than the GTX580. OBR also mentions at the end of his post that the Launch of the new cards is sooner than expected. Reports from Fudzilla suggest that the new cards would launch in Q1 2012 however no official reports have been released. More info on Kepler from Nvidia below:
The gtx 580 was 10-15% gtx 480! Now a consumer value card will accomplishes as much.
The price tag still seems steep compared to the highend. If it is supposed to compare to the 560ti I imagine that a price drop would be inevitable? In which case I would advise waiting for that price drop.
Also I would wait for a version with more ram. 3 gig releases following initial release seems to be the new trend.
Working with the steepest performance requirement in games today, 3 gigs of vram makes a huge difference. For instance3 gigs of vram can make a huge difference with extreme resolutions and Frostbite 2's gBuffer technology. Where the added ram determines whether the game is even playable.
As memory advantages made a huge difference with todays consoles I am willing to bet that the same memory concentration will appear in the next generation.
In which case, waiting for that 3 gig version will probably save you money in the long run. Where if I am right you would be forced to make that upgrade.
Hopefully that is value conscientious advise that will make a real difference.
Replies
I have yet to see someone emphatically recommend water cooling in one of these threads. I certainly don't recommend it. You can easily overclock with a good third party air cooler. It's actually a good value if you can get a few hundred more MHz from your CPU with air cooling. It just takes a lot of time and patience (not to mention many, many reboots and BIOS resets) to tune the hardware to achieve the highest stable overclock and all CPU's differ, even from the same wafer.
Yeah, I ended up getting an Antec as well, plenty of room and fans on the top and the sides as well, so plenty of air.
And finally got some OS going, installed Windows 7 64 bit, but the bitch is complaning because my normal C drive was acting up and I had to format it, and my windows is just for upgrades :P So I have installed it temporary and gonna install my XP at some point later, just to reinstall my windows on it...
But tried Minecraft with it, man its great to have above 20 fps in it.
I actually just took an old drive that I had laying around, threw it in, installed 7 on sdd, took old drive out. Worked flawlessly.
But something else, I get some graphic glitches, like small blocks that glitches flashing around the harddisk, 4x7 something blocks, just flashing on and off.
A. Bad drivers
B. Bad video card(is this a new one or and older card reused?)
C. Video card overheating - if its an old card a clogged up fan could cause problems, blowing the dust off should help
D. Video card without all the extra power connectors plugged in, some cards require 1-2 extra PCI-E 6 pin power adapters. If these aren't plugged in generally you wont get video at all, but its possible that it could be running and give you issues like that.
and yes, buy just below the absolute top-of-the-line. you'll save incredible amounts of money.
In a nutshell! ( except I bet it could be done at even $1300 every 2 years! )
With multitasking, rendering, baking...
Everyday I suffer with what technology I have. But thankfully, compared to prices I was paying 15 years ago everything is an amazing value! No matter how frustrating computing power is I never have the gnawing frustration that I went cheap in the face of what are ridiculously cheap prices compared to my old SGI stuff!
How much cheaper does this stuff have to get until one appreciates the value?
Especially, considering that it is your tool?
I suppose we do have some boys on the forum that are going to college full time?
I would certainly recommend working as little as possible and concentrating on yer grades.
I have gone through tough times as well and had to make such sacrifices. And maybe you were not around when pro hardware was upwards of $8000 to appreciate the incredible value you are lucky enough to have today.
Most importantly, perhaps you do not actually render out complex global Illuminated lightmaps or load multiple layers of HD video sources into memory for effects work.
If you do not suffer with today's performance than by all means it is not being cheap and petty but practical!
But if you are like me ( and maybe I am just impatient to a fault? )
Then I would hope that you would understand what it means to know for a fact: That you have done all that you could without compromise to have the tool of your art perform at the pinnacle of possible performance. For me the price of admission to have that peace of mind is a steal.
Earthquake does make a good point in regards to Watercooling.
I won't hide behind the noise advantage. Although you do not have to be a nerd to appreciate a tool that performs without compromise, I am as nerdy as they come when it comes to watercooling. Nothing practical about something like the L33t desk I posted before. You would have to be nerdy enough to consider it sex like the Camaro Z28 BLOWN car culture reference I made.
But considering there are so many imaginative minds here? particularly Earthquake's imagination with his wonderfully wild gee whiz weaponery!!! Doesn't a moody creation like the L33t Desk not give any of u guys even the slightest of stiffys??
I still do a lot of freelance work for film and broadcast so I am going to assume that Earthquake is right and that more performance is not really needed for game design.
But considering a new gen of consoles in the future that Carmack predicts will have new "micro polygon levels of tessellation performance support"! I'll try to give value conscientious advise with an eye towards such a future performance requirement in a machine that is built to last long enuff to play in that future. If you want to build such a machine...
For those that are still suffering performance and not doing so hot with cash.
I would definitely reccomend not buying just yet!
Hold out 3 more months particularly if you were going to get a GTX 560ti!!! Maybe even sooner if rumors pan out.
This april the replacement kepler card "gk104" will be released before the enthusiast cards and the perfomance comparisons show it thoroughly beating the gtx 580!
If you want value! I can't remember any consumer value card ever beating the previous top end ( single gpu ) card in the Nvidia line up!
http://wccftech.com/alleged-nvidia-geforce-gk104-kepler-specifications-leaked/ The gtx 580 was 10-15% gtx 480! Now a consumer value card will accomplishes as much.
The price tag still seems steep compared to the highend. If it is supposed to compare to the 560ti I imagine that a price drop would be inevitable? In which case I would advise waiting for that price drop.
Also I would wait for a version with more ram. 3 gig releases following initial release seems to be the new trend.
Working with the steepest performance requirement in games today, 3 gigs of vram makes a huge difference. For instance3 gigs of vram can make a huge difference with extreme resolutions and Frostbite 2's gBuffer technology. Where the added ram determines whether the game is even playable.
As memory advantages made a huge difference with todays consoles I am willing to bet that the same memory concentration will appear in the next generation.
In which case, waiting for that 3 gig version will probably save you money in the long run. Where if I am right you would be forced to make that upgrade.
Hopefully that is value conscientious advise that will make a real difference.