Help me buy a new computer for rendering and gaming
Hello Polycount,
My name is Powerbored.
(long time fan, first time poster)
Introduction
Today my Dell laptop finally died after 3 years of being a pile of crap so I'm looking to buy a new desktop computer.
I'm currently in my final year of studying game design and would like a computer that will last me through the course and through my first few years working (hopefully) in the game industry.
I would like to spec the computer with a focus on gaming and rendering both from animation software (specifically Maya) and real time development software (specifically Unity)
The Fun Stuff
Any and all suggestions will be welcomed, from general specs of computers people either own or dream of owning, to experience with specific parts and compatibility, even opinions on preferred brands is useful.
The more you can tell me and the better you can justify your opinion or experience, the more likely it is that I will take it into account.
I have about $3500 Australian to spend, feel free to post using your local currency though, I'm not afraid of a little research and things tend to have a higher price mark-up over here anyway.
Also if anyone regularly buys or recently bought a computer around Melbourne Australia feel free to leave store recommendations/rebukes.
Thanks in advance,
Powerbored
My name is Powerbored.
(long time fan, first time poster)
Introduction
Today my Dell laptop finally died after 3 years of being a pile of crap so I'm looking to buy a new desktop computer.
I'm currently in my final year of studying game design and would like a computer that will last me through the course and through my first few years working (hopefully) in the game industry.
I would like to spec the computer with a focus on gaming and rendering both from animation software (specifically Maya) and real time development software (specifically Unity)
The Fun Stuff
Any and all suggestions will be welcomed, from general specs of computers people either own or dream of owning, to experience with specific parts and compatibility, even opinions on preferred brands is useful.
The more you can tell me and the better you can justify your opinion or experience, the more likely it is that I will take it into account.
I have about $3500 Australian to spend, feel free to post using your local currency though, I'm not afraid of a little research and things tend to have a higher price mark-up over here anyway.
Also if anyone regularly buys or recently bought a computer around Melbourne Australia feel free to leave store recommendations/rebukes.
Thanks in advance,
Powerbored
Replies
1. Your budget is too high, generally speaking 800-1500 USD can build a nice-superawesome computer. I'm not sure how much higher tech prices are in AU, but I doubt its 3X.
2. I'm going to suggest you look into building your own, as you will save a lot of money, and its a good skill to learn. Its also not that hard as well, just following basic instructions.
Let me tell you now that it's very stressful putting a computer together if you're not experienced. I suggest finding a friend who can help you out who knows about building computers.
I love building computers.
$1,500 would get you a good set up that will last 3-5 years maybe longer depending on what happens in that time. Plus you can upgrade it as needed and make sure you get quality parts. If its one thing computer manufactures skimp on its the hardware... While they're busy jerking you off about their service plans they're busy cutting every corner and pinching every penny so you actually need that service plan, heh. Crazy enough about the time it expires is about the time your box will too, conveniently enough it will cost more to fix than to replace... funny how that works huh.
A friend of mine at work is looking to build a new computer and this is what I pieced together and suggested.
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=19693607
Otherwise yeah, I would recommend a system almost exactly the same as that. I'd look for a case that doesnt come with a PSU, cause it will be cheaper + less shipping, and a 700w PSU is excessive, no need for more than 550w, which can be found for about $60. I just got an antec modular 550w 80+ PSU when my OCZ PSU died a week or two ago. Paid $65 for it, and its modular, which is verrrrry nice, I think I only needed one or two of the possible 5 cables... You know how there is always 47 connections and you only really need like 7? Yeah, its nice.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016
It doesn't have blinking LEDs and it wont run 3x SLI.... But... Who cares? =P
take the time to research the stuff, which if you want to make sure you don't screw up or have to make multiple trips for exchanges on purchases, this will take a good amount of your time. it isn't overly complicated, but you will get more bang for your buck and also the gratification of knowing you built it yourself.
listen to EQ. he could make a hadron collider out of intertubes, potatoes, and paperclips.
I managed to pick up a Dell Precision M6500 laptop before Christmas - a refurbished one, with the 3 year business warranty for around £1500 and saved £1000... so I would look into that if you want to buy 'new'.
However, I am about to build a new PC with a similiar spec to what Mark has suggested to his friend, plus two new monitors as my current one is making me depressed. All for less than your budget.
As for the PSU if they have a whisper quite version at a lower wattage then its probably safe to go lower and save a few bucks but I wouldnt' give up the quite functionality to save a few bucks. In the past I've picked up cheaper power supplies and dealt with the noise but I can't stand it. This one comes with two fitted rubber gaskets that keep it from vibrating, which is awesome. If you can get something similar for cheaper I would go for it. I've seen people suggest using silicone to do the same thing with cheaper but that's a little too penny pincher for me.
I picked up the exact same PSU as I suggested, and its cables are the same plug in only what you need, LOVE THAT! Its good to hear other PSUs do the same finally!
2.8ghz i5 (for the 100 you save from the i7 you lose about 1-5% processing power in most situations, and 10-20% in situations of more 'pure math' (unzipping files, running processor tests..)
8gb of DDR3 1666 ram (I have never actually used more than 6gb at work out of the 12 we have installed, but I figured 8 would keep me up to date a little longer)
GeForce GTX 460 (evga) 1gb 3d card
Everything else is pretty cheap and not really worth calling out by name (I've 100% always only bought WesternDigital hdds, but even the 1TB 6gb/sec sata drive was only about 50 bucks), but if you'd like the list (with links) I should still have it in my email somewhere. That price also included a 24" monitor and win7.
Runs Star Craft 2 on maxed settings at a silky smooth frame rate, runs Unity without effort, and has handled max 2010 + photoshop with high poly and multi layer 2048s with no problems.
If you dont need a new copy of windows or a monitor then it'd have been about 800 bucks.
Yeah I actually purchased a modular PSU on accident, I just looked for something reasonably cheap with good reviews from a trusted company, so I found that Antec. I was really happy when I got it.
As far as noise, every PSU i've purchased in the $50-100 range in the past 4 or 5 years has been pretty quiet, I wouldn't pay toooo much more for a "quiet" one personally, as all of those PSUs have been far from the loudest component in a build(usually a video card or something else with a smaller fan is). But I dont get too crazy about PC noise either.
I see that one you linked to is actually only $90, for that price not a big deal, when I looked in the first link it was $140, which is just way too much to spend on a PSU.
Or baking AO, or normals, or baking lightmaps for your level.... I guess it all depends, if you just want something fast for games, the I7 isn't really necessary, but if you want high end baking performance, a good CPU can make a difference. That said i'm still using a Q6600 without much issue.
Really for most normal game-art tasks you're not going to be using 6 or 8 cores (or even hyperthreading) with any real massive performance gain, but if 100 bucks and another 80watts on the psu means little to you then obviously there's no point in not buying the i7.
I have a $1300au budget, which when i cross check it with newegg
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=13541731
equates to just over a grand US.
My reasoning behind the above list was... to keep price down and to keep the build somewhat open ended for upgrades at a later date. AMD for price, psu and motherboard so i can think about crossfire at some point.
The primary intended use is a workstation (see udk, max, mudbox etc), with gaming on the side.
I am however starting to think i should forget the crossfire support, go with a nvidia card and try squeeze a 6 core processor into the mix? which taking earthquakes psu advice above into consideration and reduced motherboard price due to not needing duel 16x PCIe ports might just be doable.
Also is there any reason i should be looking at Nvidia over AMD? i find it difficult weeding through the fanboy jizz to find real information, but did come up with physx support and enhanced tessellation for Nvidia - and the recent epic/nvida GDC announcement...
and with windows ultimate, are there any specific options added over professional i should be aware of?
Cheers
Lenny
They are one of the cheapest places around. Even if your not buying from them and using another store, they give you a good idea of the price.
My only recommendation for buy a PC is the same regardless of price. Don't skimp on your mouse, keyboard and screen(s)
A good quality mouse that is comfortable to hold for extended sessions and nice clicky keyboard. And if you can afford the space on your desk, go for a duel LCD setup.
I've spent most of today looking up computer parts and sales in Melbourne.
My original budget was based on what friends of mine who bought custom, store-built machines payed but it looks like I'm not going to need to spend that much if i build it myself (with help from my more hardware savvy friends).
I've decided I'm most likely going to buy my computer (parts) from PC case gear because their prices are very similar to MSY and their warehouse is in my suburb so i wont have to pay delivery fees.
I'll probably buy my peripherals from MSY because i can go into their store and see and feel what I'm buying.
Here's a list of what my PC case gear shopping cart (based on advice from this thread) looks like:
ASUS P6X58D-E Motherboard $249.00
CoolerMaster Silent Pro M700 700W $144.00
Intel Core i7 950 $325.00
Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS $99.00
(possibly a solid state drive aswel)
ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Overclocked 1GB $299.00
Pioneer DVR-219L DVDRW OEM $35.00
Corsair CMP8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 $159.00
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM $105.00
Aywun Game Series G05 Case $48.00
Total $1463.00
How does that sound?
A few questions about the parts:
How can I tell what kind of RAM array (2*4, 3*2 etc) the mother board will support?
Which version of windows 7 is best to buy and how does the OEM work? I dont really see any significant advantages of Ultimate.
A few people recommend the GTX 580 graphics card, or dual 560s. Is this kind of set up significantly better, unnecessary, or just over powered?
Is this really all i need to build a computer? Do i need cables, a sound card, a network card? What purpose do these serve?
Thanks again you've all been a great help so far, if anyone is interested I might support this thread with photos and such through the whole construction process aswel,
Powerbored
Down in specifications: so 3*2 (meaning you need to use sets of 3 sticks, like 2x2x2 for 6 gigs, opr 2x2x2/2x2x2 for 12 gigs. Rethink that 2x4gigs you've got right now. There should be a triple channel memory set somewhere on the site.
Professional should do everything you need it to. Anything less than Pro is bad news. OEM generally means it's coming 'bundled' with something else...a hard drive, a CPU, etc. It's a full version and will come with a serial and everything, just no fancy green box. It's fine, and often cheaper.
Overpowered, especially the SLI. If you want to play games on high for longer, sure, but you're paying more for the privilege. The 460, especially the 1gig version, is the generally accepted sweet spot for your money right now. Anything else and you're either not getting a big boost over the 460, or you're paying too much for it. But I'm not going to tell you how to spend your scratch..you want it, you get it! :thumbup:
They do exactly what they're named - a sound card outputs sound, the network card is an ethernet card so you can connect to a router or modem...in this day and age, they're all built into your motherboard. You don't need any of them (unless you have a special need, like a high powered sound card for music production, or something).
Most of these parts your ordering are going to plug right into your motherboard via slots. The CPU, video card and RAM all get slotted. You won't be able to miss where they go, they only fit one place. The hard drive will require a SATA cable, but it'll come with one. Same for the DVD drive. The PSU will come with all the power cables for everything, and one to plug into the wall.
If I was going to make a suggestion, I'd step down from the 580 to a 460, and maybe an i7 to an i5, and put the cash towards a good SSD and more RAM. Those are going to give you more bang for your buck than the other stuff, and the SSD will carry on to later builds.
Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS $99.00
(possibly a solid state drive aswel)
i think the black WD drives are faster?
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_344&products_id=13660
took me just over 4 months (could've been 5) but this case is worth the wait.
Cabling is a lil cramped, but plenty of room for tons of hdds.
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/image/v354/flyer.html
I've been re-reviewing the hardware and I've got tons of questions that I'll see if i can find answers to myself but right now I'm reviewing HDD options.
Is there a really significant difference between the WD green HDDs and the black?
Would it be worth installing 1TB of each, using the green mainly for long term/document/media (music & video) storage?
Would it be more effective to have a 120GB solid state drive supported by the 2TB WD green HDD for storage?
Most expensive result would be solid slate drive supported by 1TB of each WD black and green HDD, however if that's going to be a particuarly effective option i'm happy to spend the extra $100 or so dollars.
Thanks in advance,
Powerbored
Also, guys.. Shit is dear in Aus.. $1500 for a PC is pretty damn good. $3500 for a high end PC is a pretty good price aswell.
If you're new to building PCs, I suggest you check out the whirlpool forums.. They have some awesome builds if you cant be bothered customizing your own rig:
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/rmp_sg_whirlpoolpcs
I've built a few of these builds for family members, and theyre pretty good value.
It gets treated like a copy that dell or some other company would use, except you get a disc. You can install it on one machine and its locked to that hardware when you register, you can install/reinstall it on that one box as many times as you need but if you change the hardware (mainboard) you'll need to contact MS and they'll unlock the registration and allow you to install. It's painless and I've done it with every copy of windows since 98 and never had a problem.
But still some people don't like having to contact the man to unlock their registration when they want to install it on some new hardware. Personally I don't change hardware all that often and sending off an email in the 90day registration window isn't that much work...
Pro vs Ultimate
I went with Pro and upgraded to Ultimate when I found out it had several features I rely on. Ultimate has gpedit.msc which allowed me to disable their tablet software with ease much easier than the 20-30 steps you normally have to take and its disabled for all profiles even new ones. It also does a bunch of other things, read up on it if its just IT mumbojumbo then you can probably skip it. I was shocked with pro didn't have it.
It also came with file encryption and password protection which for me was a must, gotta keep the ref folder away from little eyes, and I use it when transporting files on a portable drive.
Also the easy connect to a remote network (work) was great and simple to set up. Beofre I was using logmein.com and it was a nice but a bit slow and laggy. It's great having access to your work machine at home, especially when you're working from home and forget a file or need to send files back to run them through a process, or just monitor how some renders are doing, or check email. You might be able to do that with Pro but I'm sure they made it harder...
You will probably be fine with Pro and its easy to upgrade if you want to later but you are paying for a retail upgrade not OEM discounted prices.
About HDD's
I would get a SSD drive even if that meant shaving a few hundred out of the other components. Which is what I did in the build I first posted so it could include SSD. The ram can be upgraded later for lower cost and video cards often get changed out as systems age so I would look there to save money.
SSD is crazy fast. Traditional platter drive HDD's have been the single slowest bottleneck in modern computers for a long time now. In a normal HDD you have a physical disc spinning and a tiny arm reading those discs like a record player. With SSD you have a MP3 player, its a bunch of memory chips so no physical moving parts that can break or fall out of alignment, and you're not stuck waiting for the little arm to find the right groove.
SSD finally gets rid of that seek/write time bottleneck. Apps open faster, it writes and copies files (especially large files) quicker.
To fully take advantage of SSD you want everything on, not just your OS but your apps and working files also. It's probably fine to go 80gb and shuffle things off to a slower platter drive that acts as an archive.
If you're really concerned about the cost of SSD, you can look into raiding several cheaper HDD's for speed. So you get 3 1tb drives and instead of 3tb of space you have all three drives pretending to be a single 1tb drive that is faster, because it writes and retrives data to all three drives at the same time, instead of only going at the speed of one. I did this with 2 drives and the SSD was still faster, as in I could see the speed increase in everything I did, no benchmarks required.
Check this out this baby instead...
http://www.pugetsystems.com/parts/Motherboard/Intel-S5520SC-Shady-Cove-5961
You could fit two quad cores to this (if you want) and kill any consumer computer.
ASUS is one of the few companies that I've found that still uses quality onboard audio and its typically a good marker as to which boards are cheap piles of crap. I stay away from VIA audio it's horrible and is notorious for causing problems with games. When I was doing tech support for Atari a few years ago, just about every game would run into issues with VIA. These where all kinds of games built by different companies using the soundcards in different ways and it always crapped out. If they stick ya with crappy audio what else did they stick ya with.
Realtek is typically a good reliable onboard sound chip, of course you can replace it with even better audio but as long as its not VIA I don't care. If a board has onboard video also, I typically run away screaming.
We also have ASUS boards at work and never had a problem.
The gigabyte board had the network port right next to the audio port, pretty standard stuff, but it was unshielded (a cheap move to save a few pennies) so whenever there was network traffic the audio would buz just a little. If they can't spend a few cents to protect the audio port from interference then I can't spend a few extra bucks to buy their junk.
Experience. Being a system builder for a few years with a majority of customers replacing Asus motherboards + having 2 of these boards fail on my home pc's.
The more expensive Asus boards have more slots etc. but the components are identical. Chipsets, for one vary greatly in quality, particularly the thermodynamic aspect of them. Also, in cheap boards, many components are huddled together to save space which creates heat problems and reduces overall life span. As most of us know, heat is a major factor in the longevity of electronic equipment.
Aside from that, it's pretty common knowledge amongst techies that the quality of bios rom chips are much poorer in consumer boards. This was one of the main reasons why I experienced so many failures in Asus boards just a few years back.
So now... I steer clear of them like a dog turd on the pavement!
If you had large numbers of customers coming back with burned boards... I would start to eyeball suspiciously the construction methods and all parts, just because the one central piece that everything plugs into fails doesn't mean it was the cause, maybe it was I don't know. Maybe it was a bad batch, it happens to even the best manufactures.
Like I said I've never run into any heat issues and I typically overclock a little but I'm also very careful about airflow, proper cooling (all air) and good PSUs. On my current board I was concerned about the proximity of the memory chips but they where a standard width apart for all boards, so its a problem no matter what you go with.
I'm on my 8th system in 15+ years of using what I build and I've always retired perfectly functional hardware every 2-5 years, most of the systems have been passed onto family and friends or parted out. Even the Gigabyte board was still functioning.
As for the north/south bridges just about everyone uses the same chips, Intel X58 for the north and Intel ICH10R for the south. That really doesn't vary from manufacture to manufacture its almost always Intel. It follows more in line with the variation of processors. Once you settle on a proc you then go shopping for a motherboard, the N/S bridges are almost always the same from one company to another.
As for proximity of pieces its all the same form factor and typically one company isn't going to pack things together and leave giant dead spaces. But you can look at the pics yourself and compare if that is an issue. You also don't want to be using the mainboard to dissipate heat, which is why airflow is so important heat sinks don't do much good if air isn't flowing over them transferring the heat.
Also ASUS is pretty big on warning people about overclocking and the effects it has on the lifespan of parts and providing software and hardware tools to protect the system. Typically with ASUS they tell you how long they expect it to last in the manual and on the box.
I personally wouldn't touch a workstation board for what we do. The price just isn't worth it, $500+ for the board plus 2 Xeon procs at 800-$1300? Ouch, it just seems like buying ultra high end tech for the sake of it.
Also think about a typical artist isn't going to see that much of a difference between a standard machine and a Xeon. If they're building props or characters they'll run into the limitations of the apps before they hit a hardware ceiling on either system. At least not like they would see between a SSD drive vs a platter drive.
I don't know, Xeon in this case, seems like overpriced overkill than it does economical performance.
Yeah, I know the difference, I was just trying to ease him into the idea since he doesn't seem to be too acquainted with it all.
PLEASE! Listen to the man. He speaks the truth. I really think there isn't a better performance boost out there for the money. As Mark said, it effects everything you do - OS, games, 3D, notepad...everything. And you can carry it over into new builds down the line. I don't know anyone that has bought one and didn't love it.
Been building systems for 17 years, for myself and friends, and professionally for a little while. I generally use ASUS, have yet to have a problem with one, over probably 40-50 boards. I'll stand by that assessment until something happens to change my mind. YMMV.
You can find out what boards have the best reliability on overclock.net where people have consumer boards to the max for years.
Majority of problems were related to bios rom chips, remember the Asus A8N Deluxe? That was a terrible AMD board. Overclocking is a joke anyway, why on Earth someone would want to push hardware past safe working limits is totally beyond me. About psu's: todays top quality motherboards have voltage detection and will not POST if there is a danger of component dammage from out of range voltages.
Not true, they do differ but lets say on one hand you have a gamer on his Asus with 4 gigs of ram at 60% memory useage for 3 hours. Then you have an artist on his Intel with 8 gigs of ram at 100% memory useage for 6 hours. You could infer that the amount of heat given off from both systems is different and you would be right. The quality of available components is higher (fully buffered ecc ram) on server/workstations, they can purposely handle more data and respectively more heat.
8th? Wow, I'd be pretty pissed at buying that many systems in less than a lifetime. Good idea passing them on though.
Different chipsets for different chips, Intel produces most of them, yes. However, server/workstation chipsets are different from desktop chipsets. Compare the 771 socket (older) Seaberg chipset (mine) to the 775 Socket (newer) G31 Express chipset. The Seaberg has DOUBLE the memory bandwith (gigabytes per second on dim slots) because it is workstation grade hardware and not consumer. That's one aspect to consider.
Xeon is king, always has been and if you can afford it, why not? By the way you don't have to buy two processors, it will run on one quad core xeon but the option is open for performance kick-assery.
Another thing, that Asus board posted http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14230 is $250 anyway!!
In the end were talking about 15 years life with a much more powerful performance compared to a measly 5 years. Actually you can see the difference in speed straight away, my mate has a moderate to beefy (consumer) system and he commented on me navigating file systems and exploring the web the other day "wow, when your clicking around now, it's like instant, mine takes time".
When your ready for upgrade or a new system you could use it as a render node so it's really an investment!
[ame]
You're posting a lot of opinion and conjecture that goes against popular consensus. Back it up with something other than your personal ideas and experiences. What you consider 'worthy of upgrading for' and what I do are obviously two different things. Links would help, like this one. Sorry if I don't just jump on this workstation bandwagon right away, but I like to be shown, not told.
Unless there's a major turnaround in high energy physics funding, we won't see practical quantum computing in our lifetime. The issue is decoherence of the Hilbert space system Hamilitonian over SU(2), which is really an issue of power. We might get a quantum computer up and running for a few minutes by blacking out the East Coast of the US, but it's just not practical without denser power sources. Despite what Popular Science would like us to think, I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.
On another note, I've got the first computer my family ever purchased, an 8088. It still runs. That 640k RAM and 20MB HD makes it quite the beast. Quite an investment for $3000 in 1984, eh?
A bad PSU is more likely to cause heat, voltage irregularities and internal instability problems while under a load rather than at post. Most of the variation between slots isn't significant to offer better cooling.
Again I think proper air flow across the memory heat sinks is paramount to keeping the chips from being damaged by heat. Without good cooling both system will shorten their lifespans. In the case I have, I installed a fan for the memory.
Now you're just being an ass =P But I guess once you figure out I typically build two systems at the same time one for my wife and one for myself, the math makes a little more sense. I never upgrade for the hell of it either.
I'm not sure double the price offers a noticeable difference. Now take that extra $250 and drop a SSD drive in a standard machine and watch the persons face light up. That's $250 well spent.
I still think the user would hit more bottlenecks in the apps than in the hardware. There are chunks of max and maya that don't utilize more than one core... ouch... zbrush still caps out at using 4gb of ram... ouch. If the apps can't use the full extent of even a standard system why bother going overpowered? Also the way max2012 is structured as part of their new XBR overhaul, they're using the GPU more and more. Nitrous and the new hardware rendering method are using the GPU... It's a sign of things to come.
It's lonely at the top. If you're not going to use the extra performance why bother? Most of the game artists aren't pushing giant mechanical CAD scenes or in need of massive rendering power. Using a xeon to render a 1024 AO map is like killing flies with nukes. Impressive sure, but wow what a waste. When we talk about xeon making a difference in rendering its more like rendering imax res movies with renderman or vray, not 512 normal maps.
The point still stands that for every xeon system you build you can build 2-3 normal machines and still be running faster than the apps can push.
In 5 years games went from this to this.I can't imagine trying to use even the most advanced machine from 1996 to make stuff today. After a few min of trying to get apps to install I would probably be thankful for even the worst machine from 2 years ago.
None of what I posted is opinion. It's factual, from personal business experience as a previous system parts seller, building systems for years and actual available data. Can't comment on the quantum side of things, that was just fun really.
The next jump in architecture will be 128bit but like 64bit, it takes 5 years or more for software manufacturers to catch up and consumer markets to upgrade. Even today most programs are still 32bit, so even if 128bit tech is affordable in 5 years (which would be premature) how long do you think it would take for everyone involved to catch up? 10 years? 15 years?
And no, comparing a computer in 1984 when dos first came out to one in 1999 is not the same as comparing one in 2011 to one in 2026. If your thinking like that ask yourself this: from valves, to transistors, to microchips with tiny transistors, what comes next and how long will it take before it makes all other technology obsolete?
Anyway, I think we are getting out of the scope of discussion here, the guy said he had decent money to spend and wanted to render and play games. My point was why go cheap when you can get better.
When it comes to game dev, would you want to use a 10 year old CPU and a 10 year old video card? How about a 5 year old one? I personally would rather have something recent, that I can find proper driver support for, that will be optimized to run things like UDK etc, than 10 year old hardware. If for no other reason than software support.
I understand and agree with the point that we wont see the same jump in tech in the next 15 years, that we have in the last 15 years. But even so, you're going to be stuck with old crap that doesn't support the latest tech, no matter how fast or great it is.
Why get more than what you need when there is a good chance you'll never fully realize the full power of your battle station? Like you said most of the apps are still designed around old hardware. So using bleeding edge workstation tech doesn't get around the limitations in the software and its not like they're planning to build the software to work better on workstations, for the same cost/performance concerns developers are using the same machines we're suggesting.
I would liken your suggestion to me telling my grandma to get the same machine I would. Grandma if you're reading this don't, your phone already does what you need to do, we'll talk later grams, love ya.
Suggestions for the extra money:
Buy some 3d apps, Modo, mudbox and photoshop. Woa all legit copies, imagine it. BTW I actually did that 3 years ago its a great feeling.
Take a mini vacation.
Buy homeless people smart phones and or laptops, they seem to like that better than sandwiches.
Get some amazing headphones and 2 high quality monitors and a new tablet.
Fill your bathtub full of quarters and pretend your Scrounge Mc Duck.
Get a new TV for the bathroom.
Get an ostrich to ride back and forth to work.
Have some of your models printed out.
Take random people out to lunch.
Head up to the roof of a building take your pants off and throw them over the edge, when the cops show up, palm them some cash and tell em to keep the pants.
Since last time I posted a friend recommended I check out this thread on PC powerplay forums which has been very helpful.
At this stage I'm most likely going with the motherboard recommended for the $1500 build, the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3.
However I still have plenty of questions, this time about GPUs more than anything.
The GPUs I'm considering are:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti Overclocked 1GB
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Twin Frozr II OC 1GB
ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Overclocked 1GB
All of these cost a square $300 so price is no issue, what i was wondering is whether any is significantly better or does it all come down to brand preference?
Is there a significantly better option available?
Would I be better off cross firing (or is it called SLI for GTX?) 2 GTX 460s and how difficult would this be to manage?
Or would I be better off spending the extra $300 and cross firing 2 560s?
I also have a few questions about SSDs.
The SSDs I'm considering are:
OCZ Vertex 2 120GB SSD - $240
OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" 120GB E Series SSD - $250
Corsair Force Series 120GB SSD - $265
Once again the price isn't really an issue here, my main question was whether OCZ is a reliable brand? I don't know much about them but Vertex 2 SSD was recommended in the aforementioned powerplay thread.
Is there any significant difference between these SSDs that I should know about?
Or would I be better off spending $100-$150 more for a larger (160-240 GB) SSD?
Thanks again,
Powerbored
I really don't see the point in SLI/Xfire. For the money, it's about as bad a deal as you can get. Unless you're playing games that benefit from it 24/7, you're paying for two cards but not getting double the performance. Also, you get zero benefit in 3D apps from dual cards. Skip it and put your money elsewhere (nice list, Mark
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15496965
My budget was roughly 2k$ without monitor, keyboards, mouse or external drive, and I can say that you can really get a FRICKING BEAST for this price...
How does this set-up look:
Intel Core i7 2600 - 325$
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 Motherboard - $239
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti Overclocked 1GB - $299
Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 - $135
OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" 120GB E Series SSD - $249
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB HD103SJ - $69
Pioneer DVR-219L DVDRW OEM - $35
CoolerMaster Silent Pro M700 700W - $144
Antec Dark Fleet DF-30 Case - $115
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OEM - $195
ASUS PCI-G31 54Mbps 802.11b/g Wireless PCI Adapter - $19
Total - $1824
I'd be happy to hear some opinions on the Motherboard and PSU because they're the 2 pieces of hardware I know the least about.
If anyone has suggestions for a better case at a similar price I'd also like to know, i just picked the case because it looked cool :P
Also I was wondering whether I should buy a fan for the CPU, will one be provided or will i need an independent model?
Thanks again everyone!
Powerbored
Coolermaster is an ok brand but pleeease take a look at this link:
http://www.overclock.net/power-supplies/183810-faq-recommended-power-supplies.html
You can price compare and find a PSU that's highly recommended. Only PSU's that have a proven track record are on this list. Overall I think you could get away with a 650watt psu and be fine.
There's no accounting for taste in cases *shutters*
Any of those 3 video cards you pointed out earlier would be great really. Whichever one has the highest clock speeds is the one you should get.
Rest looks fine.
I like all the parts and specs on the motherboard, I'm not a fan of gigabyte, but it looks like they're properly shielding the audio from the network port which was the only issue I ever had with the one gigabyte board I had. That board is still functioning btw my nephew has it. The memory slots are packed together pretty tight but like I said that's the case with most of the boards. Think about installing a fan just for the memory.
PSU:
Now that you've more or less settled on parts you can run them through a few different PSU calculators (<-thanks to slum for pointing me to this originally) and find out roughly how much wattage you need. It's good to factor in a little more wattage for full RAM capacity, external USB devices, new drives (HDD DVD or blueray), and more powerful GPU's, also consider fans and some moderate expansion of any other extras you might plug in like a sound card or some kind of expansion controller.
I wouldn't go much higher that 50wtt over whatever the general recommended consensus ends up being. If they generally say 600-630 I would probably stick with a 650. If its 650 or higher go with the 700 rather than cut it close and stress things out being right at load.
You really want to plan for the future (within reason) or you're going to forget you're right at capacity, order some upgrades like a new HDD, plug it in and wonder why it won't post or worse it does pass the post check but then fails while you're working because the load increases (typically the video card starts sucking more juice while working or playing a game).
Memory:
Mr_Paris brings up a good point about the ram.
That's a good solid amount to get you going, at some point you might want to stuff it full. Keep in mind... When you upgrade memory you want to get the same brand, you don't want to mix and match speeds (it typically will run at the lowest speed installed and some mobo manuals state to only run one speed of ram in certain slots) so you do run the risk of not being able to find the same ram 6mo-1yr from now.
Its generally a good idea to try and order it all at the same time so its all as similar as possible and ages and wears at the same rate. It's kind of like car parts they wear together and when you start putting new parts with old things don't always mesh as expected.
So if you can afford to get it all now, or 3mo from now awesome, just don't miss your window and end up later having to buy a full set of ram again because its out of stock or discontinued, which happens pretty often.
HDD:
SO glad you went SSD. You might want to check some reviews for that particular drive, not all SSD's are equal and I'm not familiar with that drive so I can't say one way or another.
GPU:
I typically don't buy pre-overclocked hardware unless you can underclock it back to factory specs. But this comes with a 3yr warranty so might as well go for it since that's the typical lifespan of a video card. Making sure it stays frosty will be key to keeping it up and running.
CPU Fan:
Most CPU's come with decent fans and you don't really need to worry about it cooling unless the case has bad air flow. It could be slightly more noisy than you want. I suggest using it if its noisy replace it. Most systems have a way to monitor the CPU temp either through the case or through software so keep an eye on it.
Case:
I personally recommend using a steel case with as little plastic as possible, nothing worse than an case that rattle and steel has better heat dissipation than other lighter metals. Remember that the backside of your motherboard is also trying to defuse heat and often its relaying on the metal of the case.
For me QUALITY sound proofing material (ie not crappy heat trapping foam) and QUALITY cooling/airflow design are king.
For me that case is the Cosmos.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119138
It's a beast check its dimensions and weight. But I can push it down a flight of stairs while running and I would be worried it would do more damage to the stairs. It's a dream to work on screwless cases with enough room, the cooling is prefect and the airflow is amazing.
At every intake and outtake area it has mesh screens which keep the inside free of dust. They easily pop out, spray them off and your off again. It's all about keeping the air flowing over the bare metal of the heat sinks, dust can be like a blanket so watch out. Also dust begets more dust.
I also plan to hang onto this case for a few systems, like good monitors they'll stand the test of time and are worth dropping a little more on. But that's my rational, go with whatever works best for you. At $1,800 already I'm not sure you want to drop too much more cash, but if you dropped the extra drive and waited until later to get it, you could probably afford it...
So yea, good specs, good parts, a few things to consider and overall I think you're well on your way to a great new system!
I'm working fine on win7 home edition too. Worth checking but I got the Gigabyte P67A-UD3 because it was cheaper but didn't miss any features I needed, I think its easy to compare on the gigabyte webpage.
My motherboard supports 4 RAM cards, 2 in each of its Dual Channels, so by buying only 8GB in 2*4 format I'm using 4GB in each channel and the other slot in each channel goes unused.
To upgrade this system I would want to keep the RAM array symmetrical by adding another 2 of the same RAM cards, one in each channel, giving me 16GB. I would not be able to upgrade to a 12GB system by adding another single 4GB RAM card.
Correct so far?
Newer RAM cards come in DDR3 format which is designed for 3 channel systems, therefore, in a 2 channel system they are less effective, but still an improvement on DDR2 and subsequent formats.
So is that all correct?
Thanks for all the info on everything Mark, and thanks Mr_Paris for making me think more carefully about my PSU decision, I'll be looking into the PSU calculator quite thoroughly next,
Powerbored
I'm not seeing much discussion on AMD here. The best CPU AMD makes is only 230 bucks, and you'll get somewhat close to the max performance Intel offers. Or at least that's what I've assumed. I would think going AMD if you're on a budget would be a no-brainer. Would you guys agree or am I missing something?