Getting an iMac for 3D rendering. Suggestions?
polycounter lvl 7
Hey friends!
I'm thinking of buying an iMac mainly for 3Drendering, but I'm not sure if it will be able to serve my needs. I do some work in Maya. It's not that heavy at the moment, but I suppose I'll get more advanced as time progressess. I'm also planning to do some work in Zbrush and who knows what other software in the future.
You good people have been so helpfull in the past so I thought that maybe I can yet again use your brilliance to my advantage.
The computer I'm looking to buy is the 21.5-inch 2,9GHz model on their website. The specs are:
I'm thinking of buying an iMac mainly for 3Drendering, but I'm not sure if it will be able to serve my needs. I do some work in Maya. It's not that heavy at the moment, but I suppose I'll get more advanced as time progressess. I'm also planning to do some work in Zbrush and who knows what other software in the future.
You good people have been so helpfull in the past so I thought that maybe I can yet again use your brilliance to my advantage.
The computer I'm looking to buy is the 21.5-inch 2,9GHz model on their website. The specs are:
- 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i5
- Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
- 8GB (two 4GB) memory
- 1TB hard drive
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB
Replies
Macs are fine for 3D work, but sure I'd recommend a mac for rendering.
I don't know about recent ones, but at least the ones from a couple of years ago had terrible overheating problems (we had to use them at uni) whenever you threw any sort of 3d task at them.
Even more so now that they are using single piece aluminium bodies.
It's rumoured that apple will be introducing new/replacement mac pros soon, you may want to wait on that.
Also have you looked into a hackintosh? I ran one for almost 2 years with no major issues. As long as you choose the hardware correctly its very smooth..... But always has the risk of an update completely killing it so always have backups.
You could make a cheap headless render box with the same internal specs for half what you would pay for the imac. Just defer all your renders to that box on your network.*
*EDIT: NM "Install Backburner and Maya in the same folder location on each of your render farm nodes. Therefore, you cannot mix Windows render nodes with Linux render nodes or Windows render nodes with Mac OS X render nodes and so forth. "
http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2013/en_us/index.html?url=files/GUID-788EB610-5A7E-41C4-BD0C-1099FB9E72AF.htm,topicNumber=d30e626826
Is there something you would consider extra important that I should look for/look out for chosing the right computer?
I realize that this is not a simple question and I will do my to orientate myself in these matters. If you have some simple advice it would be apreciated.
Thanks!
Concurrence is so high, that theres not much you can do wrong. The more expensive the better. You can always do a 5-10% better deal somewhere else, but take it as is.
Do not buy from retailers. You cant top Internet prices. Do not buy a mac.
It sounds stupid, but everything above 1000 will be fine and have only quality parts where you cant buy anything wrong. You can only do wrong with the cheap ones.
Id suggest you something, but I guess you live in the US or something and we have different shops in Europe.
Can't say I agree with this... plenty of total rip-offs out there waiting for the uninformed. Plus, he could build himself the equivalent for much less that $1,000.
As well as all the other questions I posted OP let me know how quickly you need it. There are new intel chips coming relatively soon that you might as well hold out for if you're in no rush.
Is a self build possible for you or definitely not?
As ridiculous that may sound, but you really wont get ripped off on the internet (Has that ever been said before in history ? lol)
Atleast not in Europe. All internet shops are kinda the same, with the same prices and similar specs. The only traps lay within the low price range.
Some are little better, overclock and give bascially free water cooling, but essentially you cant do anything wrong. Just try getting an i7 if you go for an Intel CPU.
Here is a german shop, dunno where you live:
http://www.xmx.de/shop/product_info.php?products_id=7872
16 Gigs and 8 Core should do really fine with rendering.
Since that the render engines take full usage of CPU cores, I imagine the AMD 8 cores to be better there than the stronger 4 Cores of the Intel ones.
That's not exactly true. The 27" iMac has a great IPS display which costs upwards of 700 dollars alone. The bulk of the pricing is in the monitor.
Also, you get a great quality product. The build quality is a pretty big deal, especially when you need to rely on it every day. When something does go wrong you have an actual human to talk to and the your computer to.
The OS is also great. Very quick, stable and not bloated or annoying....especially when comparing to windows 8.
Just like any computer manufacturer you do pay a premium for convenience. To some people that's worth it.
$400 http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=9579&seq=1&format=2
It's the same panel, but it has a crappy enclosure/stand
Still, a good chunk of of the cost in an imac.
Not really, depends on what he uses his PC for.
SSD's have plummeted in price; I don't think PC's should be built without at least a 60GB SSD these days, as a boot drive, maybe a game or two. Then of course another HDD for main storage.
But $1800 for a 27in mac with GTX 660M
or $1100 for a handbuilt pc with a 660TI and 27in monitor.
Accesorieswhole on ebay is your best bet for buying the cheapest but best quality possible LG panel online.
I meant from an online store, I don't really count ebay because sometimes you have issues returning products and of course you have to deal with foreign sellers.
I wouldn't get any other than the new i5/i7 cpu's, they're like 50% faster than their AMD counterparts in single threaded applications.
CPUwise, yes, definitely go for an i7 or i5. Personally I'd say a highish end i7 which you can ride down for the next 6 years, so you only swap out the GPU once or twice and not have to buy a new CPU/Mobo as well. GPUs depreciate in price much faster, they have faster performance advancements, and they tend to last a bit shorter in terms of build quality too. So while you can buy a somewhat pricey CPU and use it until you buy a whole new PC, you're going to have to upgrade the GPU regardless - hence I reccommend not buying the toppest-top-end videocard. Especially if you plan on doing offline (non-realtime) rendering, which is CPU intensive stuff.
I'd also recommend going for intel/nvidia because of driver stability and longevity issues. AMD are great value for low-mid systems, but they're budget choices for a reason. I also noticed that intel CPUs generally use less power/have a lower TDP, so they save a bit of electricity but more importantly they give less heat issues. Intel/nVidia have also been sort of the de-facto standard for professional machines for quite a while and as such Autodesk and such spend much more effort in bugtesting for those chips compared to AMD chips.
RAM is mostly important to buy it as fast as your mobo can handle (which means you should not be buying the superdupercheapest mobo, btw) rather than having much of it, IMO. If you buy 8 GB fast now you can easily buy another 8GB fast later at a lower price, but if you buy 16GB slow, you will have to replace that with 16GB fast later on - RAM strips get their speed clocked down to the slowest strip in your PC.
A case needs to be solid, but not several hundreds of dollars worth. Honesty, even a $25 case will get you by (I do), but you might want to look around $75 instead for slightly better manufactured ones, which also tend to have a bit better airflow and less rattling. Plus some smoother edges which is nicer when you're working on the rig but otherwise unnoticed. And of course, a higher budget gives a bit more choice in what you find aesthetically pleasing.
If you're worried about building it yourself, you can always ask a friend to help (there might even be a polycounter near where you live), or spend $100 or so on a we-build-it-for-you-service that some places offer.
Yeah, dem dam foredners!! :poly124:
Online is online. That seller I mentioned, and many others, offer returns and after sale support. There are 40+ page threads on overclock.net for pretty much all types of those screens that confirm this; issues are infrequent but when they do occur they have been looked after. :thumbup:
It's an honest concern, I've had shady dealings foreign sellers on ebay in the past - if I wasn't tech savvy I would have been robbed. Anyone want to buy my used Miorcsoft BOXX360 vga cable from China?