Building a System-Most important specs?
polycounter lvl 7
Hey everyone. First off this is my first time posting here so sorry if this is in the wrong place.
Anyways heres my question: I am currently in school to learn 3d modeling and animation. Ive already done a bit of work in maya and have decided its about time i upgraded from a laptop to work on. What specs are most important to a modeler? i want this computer to last me a good while. I plan to use it for gaming as well but i want it to be optimized for modeling and rendering scenes.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Anyways heres my question: I am currently in school to learn 3d modeling and animation. Ive already done a bit of work in maya and have decided its about time i upgraded from a laptop to work on. What specs are most important to a modeler? i want this computer to last me a good while. I plan to use it for gaming as well but i want it to be optimized for modeling and rendering scenes.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Replies
Im a Beginner jut like you, so dont take my word 100%, but from what ive seen, read, and learned over the past few month is this:
1. CPU: This is probably the most important in max. Im with a Core2Duo and I can barely work once my project gets complex. So id suggest You spend a decent amount on this one.
Id say a i5 3570K IvyBridge, 3400MHz, 6MB, socket 1155, is a good choice. Good for OC and great bang for the price.
2. RAM. Important, but these arent that expensive. 16Gigs should do it, but 8gigs are probably more then enough for learning. Look for some solid stable ones, the choices are unimited here.
3. Mobo. Id say this should be a below average one. try a Asus P8Z77-V LX, Socket 1155. It works great with the Cpu and is amazing from OC.
4. Vidcard. Here I realy dont know. Ppl say Nvidia is the way to go for modeling [if u dont spend the money on a workstation gpu] but probably and gaming card gan do as long as there the good ones. Try the GTX 560?
Again. Im not an expert, but this would be the thngs id consider first when buying a PC for modeling.
PS. An SSD hard gand do wonders with loading time, but dont let SSD's cut your budget from the others.
For GPU, I recommend nVidia. Maya is the only software that plays nice with ATI, other times, and for games, nVidia is better and more feature rich.
An SSD, even a 64gb one, is a must. Crucial or Samsung are the best brands.
Im actually just about to build my first rig. I dont want to swamp GD with another PC thread though, so Ill just post my findings here and maybe youll get some use out of it
As for mobo look for an H77 instead of Z77 if there cheaper and you wont overclock.
Overclocking an I5 is pointless, by the time you put in all the time, effort, extra money on cooling etc to get 15% better performance out of it, you're better off spending the $100 extra and getting 30% better performance with an I7, without the stability/life span issues that your run into with OC'ing. Overclocking an I7 is just excessive/redundant, because they are super fast and OC automatically when needed.
Your CPU should be the most expensive part of your build(exception: monitor(s)).
Then maybe ram, and SSD, as these will effect performance in clear ways. Ram is cheap, and SSDs are getting cheaper so its good news.
Monitor: Don't skimp on the monitor! A quality monitor is hugely important for art and too many people think of this as an after thought and just buy the biggest/cheapest one they can find. Too much for me to say on monitors in one post so look here:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101860
Then probably a video card, the thing with video cards is, for 3d work, unless you're doing something really absurd, even a mid range $150-200 video card will work really well. For high end gaming or doing really complex level editing work in UDK/Crytek you might want to go up to a $300 card, anything beyond $300 is absolutely retarded. For singular 3d assets a $100-150 card will be enough, my 8800GT lasted a long long time without really effecting my ability to do high/low/bakes of high end game assets.
Video cards are very easy to replace and buying a new $100-200 card every 2-3 years is not a bad plan.
Then in no particular order:
Power supply: The most important thing here is efficiency, a 1000w 60% efficient PSU is worthless, but a 500-600w 80+ PSU will power virtually any normal 3d work station(unless you're doing something real specific like SLI'ing beefcake video cards). Modular is a good plus.
Efficiency means how much power the PSU has to draw to get to a certain wattage. If your system needs 300w to run, and you have a 500w 80% efficient PSU and a 1000w 60% PSU; the 500w will draw about 380Ws and the 1000 will draw about 500Ws, this can make an impact on your utility bills, not to mention generate more heat and noise(to combat the heat).
Motherboard: Biggest thing here is by FAR; stability. Then size and features. I like to go with smaller MOBOS so I can use smaller cases, often times what you pay for is extra shit you don't need on mobos, advanced OC'ing features, triple sli, a million pci/usb slots, 8 ram slots, etc etc. A lot of microATX boards offer all you need and more out of a motherboard. Long gone are the days when you needed 4 add in cards just to build a PC, Mobos today come with lan, audio, sometimes wifi, etc so you don't need a lot of ports. 4 Ram slots means you can install 32-64 gigs of ram if you really need to.
Having the latest standard USB and Sata ports is important, but only if you have devices that will take advantage of them!
Case: I like to go with smaller cases, and in general cases that are tool-less and easy to setup. Skip the huge "gamer" cases with the blinking lights and plastic windows. Skip the massive "built like a tank" cases, unless you regularly kick your computer down the stairs, these are just annoying to move around.
Secondary drives, optical, etc. Yeah
Mouse, keyboard. Ergonomics! But probably another topic. I'll just say this: Logitech MX500 and MS Natural 4000(if you like ergo keyboards).
SSD for:
OS
Program files
Working art files- archive these when you're done
Secondary standard HD(s) for everything else.
I don't think anyone here would advocate going with ONLY SSDs.
This way your OS, apps and important art files load up quickly and run as fast as they can. Your mp3s aren't load dependent so its really moot what sort of drive you keep them on. You can even install a game or two on the SSD if its something you play a lot for faster level loads.
Hence external HDDs which anyone will already have full of their stuff anyway. No need to duplicate it all again on a new HDD. Until you can afford a new one that is. You dont put music on your SSD. No need for it. OSs, programs and your steam library go on there.
I fully agree with EQ and am also building a space concious rig. I will post the parts I am using in the morning when I am at a computer, some components may interest you OP
Yeah and even the smallest cases usually have a space for an SSD and a HDD. So you can do your 120-256gb SDD and a 1TB HDD without any issue. But sure, even if you somehow only have 1 slot for a drive you can do external storage.
I want to echo this sentiment. So many people worry about components. No matter what you buy right now, it will be obsolete in 3-4 years. A monitor is one piece of equipment that will last through 2, 3, even 4 upgrade cycles. Don't skimp; spend the money on the right monitor and it will outlast any components you have.
http://uk.asus.com/Display/IPS_Monitors/PA238Q/
As system I picked a stock Dell studio XPS 3 years ago. Upgraded the video card once. Works still good. Very very stable system. Got maybe 1 blue-screen last year.
For extra SSDs... they're so light and don't vibrate - I put some adhesive velcro tape on the bottom and some on some empty part of the case and attached them there. Just don't block any air flow when you do this
Get 1 SSD (OS + current work), get 2 regular HDDs (1 for storage, one for backup, so if one dies, nothing is lost). Remember to set up an automated backup solution though (e.g. MS Synctoy, Robocopy, Second-copy, etc).
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It's a great case for features but it is actually too big and square to travel internationally IMO, unfortunately. But it's one of the only mini-ITX cases I found that'll fit a full GPU. Plus you are also restricted to mini-ITX mobos. I'm getting this beast;
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z77I_DELUXE/
Expensive, but necessary because any other mini-ITX mobos I've seen have the processor in an awkward place for a cooling tower (i.e. in the way of the GPU). Will be buying it on payday.
The case is also quite heavy cause of all the steel. Still a great case though.
Apart from that I have bought an i7 3770, a 2GB Asus 660ti, Crucial M4 256GB SSD, and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LP 1600 Mhz RAM. So just the PSU and mobo left. Will most likely be using the stock Intel cooler on the CPU, not sure how great an idea that is, but anyhoo.