New PC tommorow Please check my basket!
polycounter lvl 14
Hi all,
I saw another member ask about their pc build on here and thought as another 3d artist i'd see what the consensus is over my new build. I hope to order it tomorrow morning, unless anyone thinks I should make any changes? Please pass on your wisdom
My uses: 3dsmax, Maya, ZBrush, VRay, Unreal3Engine
I want my system to be fairly quiet as i live in a tiny 1 bedroom studio and the pc needs to render at night so i've chosen a coolermaster case.
I was most confused over the graphics card. Apparently ATI are bad for Max according to 3DWorld and I know stock graphics wont be good enough as i want to be able to use UE3 and spin large environments around with a decent frame rate and use DX Shaders in max. I think the GTX 260 should be a good middle of the road card.
I saw another member ask about their pc build on here and thought as another 3d artist i'd see what the consensus is over my new build. I hope to order it tomorrow morning, unless anyone thinks I should make any changes? Please pass on your wisdom
My uses: 3dsmax, Maya, ZBrush, VRay, Unreal3Engine
I want my system to be fairly quiet as i live in a tiny 1 bedroom studio and the pc needs to render at night so i've chosen a coolermaster case.
I was most confused over the graphics card. Apparently ATI are bad for Max according to 3DWorld and I know stock graphics wont be good enough as i want to be able to use UE3 and spin large environments around with a decent frame rate and use DX Shaders in max. I think the GTX 260 should be a good middle of the road card.
Replies
I7 is fast, but I don't think it's worth the price when for what you'll do will see marginal difference.
Also I personally hate maxtor drives, I've had 50% failure rate on them, I've owned about 8 maxtor drives over the years, various models.
when i specced out a box elsewhere recently, the price difference between core2quad and nehalem wasn't THAT much anymore, really. i was surprised myself
i'd go with seagate drives personally, barracuda-disks have been good to me over the years. from others i usually hear the brand name maxtor only when it's embedded... in curses.
I would stick with the mobo compatible w/ the i7, but maybe a good quad core will still be great for half the price.
does the mobo max out at 6gig ram?
sir-knight: You've made me wonder now. I'd thought it was a good idea to go to the i7 920 as its the bottom of the new range. The price difference between that and a quad core isn't that much and i figured it'd give me a good option for upgrading when i can afford it in a year or so.
breakneck: this mobo maxes out at 16GB. I did some calculations but could be wrong about the PSU. what does everyone else think?
Good to know about the maxtor drives. I've got a warning coming up on my current system saying F1 to continue, but warning of hard drive problems in the startup. So far its ok but think its a maxtor drive. I will change the drive type.
What do you guys think about the graphics card? PSU?
EDIT: Breakneck I just re-read your post, so does the ex 58 mobo accept dual quad core chips? The specs at the bottom of this page say it supports quad core but its a 1366 socket and i'm not sure if i can find quad cores in that format - on scan they all seem to be 775. Excuse my ignorance http://shopper.cnet.com/motherboards/gigabyte-ga-ex58-ud3r/4014-3049_9-33483096.html#info-5
1. tripple channel memory. up to 24 gigs supposedly depending on how many dimm slots that gigabite board has; (if using xp/vista 64) ...any 32 bit OS will cap your memory eons before that. like 3gigs or something.
2. removal of that bottle neck the front-side-bus. On the i7 boards the hyperthreaded (ya and hyperthreading is back on i7 so 4 cores are essentially 8 cores) cpu talks directly to everything on the board, not through a FSB. they use "quickpath" --- cpu > ram / cpu > pci-e / ect ect they removed the FSB entirely.... AMD did this a while ago, i forget what its called, this is intels answer to that, its actually better too.
will all this make your 3D shine more... meh, no not really, but it will help you have max, zbrush, PS, music and everything else open at the same time because you can jam pack the system with buckets of ram.
I agree on the PSU, moar power!
Ive been having some issues with the 260gtx and real time shaders. but I think the problems lie with the max viewport. Ive been using ShaderFX with max 9. Unfortunately shadows are not supported in max 9 through shaderFX but im getting problems with alphas and glow shaders in the viewport. Ive been able to get the shots I want by panning the viewport and clicking shit a bunch of times... its just really flaky. I dont have any issues in Unreal. Mainly I think its just max...
and get a better and larger psu, i would go nothing under 700, and get a pc power and cooling or corsair, or ocz
Microneezia: Awesome. Your post was so informative and makes me feel much more confident about my choices. I too was wondering about the P6T (the Asus board i'm guessing your referring to). I may switch to this as well! Also I know what you're saying about making 3d better or not. The thing is my current rig is a P4 Hyperthreded on an asus p4c800 with 1.5gb ram. I really am suffering trying to both multitasking and rendering I'm thinking of making the leap to Vista 64 home/premium though the last comapny i worked for kept away from it like it was syphillus. I hope my new system will kick this systems ass.
Update: I looked at the Asus P6T and there's a v2 version which has removed SAS (whatever that means). I may switch to that one. DOnt know if there's any need for the OC Palm thing. Also I wonder with my choice of RAM is it a good idea to get 3 sticks of 2gb... will that leave me with enough slots to upgrade in the future or would i be better of getting higher RAM and less sticks to leave more room free.
Once again Thank you so much to all who are/have helped. It is a great resource to know there's others out there in this industry willing to pass on their knowledge and experience.
You need to read the minimum power requirements on the graphics card and get a power supply that exceeds those requirements. I think that graphic card needs a minimum 36 amps on the +12 rail.
It's a shame you can't use Newegg, but they only ship in the USA.
'edit'
About the ram. The motherboard supports triple channel ddr3, so you need to get either 3 sticks or 6 sticks (correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think you need to do it in sets of three sticks). Getting 3 sticks of 2GB means you can add 3 more later for more ram. I think that motherboard supports max 24gbs.
According to http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gtx_260_us.html the min psu for the gtx 260 is 500watt which means my selection should be ok, no?
also the non-OC palm has a software install that does the same thing on the desktop. go P6T dude, it rocks... ive seen people post cpu-z stats with 4.2gig overclock using the "auto" method at low temps... im not that balszy as it doesnt matter that much to our work, but its still nice to see out of a 920.
just get the cheapest P6T, its an awesome board. gigabite is a solid name and is all crazy colors ect, but my personal taste is towards the asus bios and software addons, like the ai-nap I use all the time it rules... so quiet i can sleep right at my desk.
I also agree about maxtor, ive replaced hundreds of those drives at work... western digital is a better 'el cheapo drive than maxtor.
in terms of ram, just make sure your ram amount is divisable by 3 or whatever since its tripple channel or you will loose functionality there. 3 slots of 2gig is fine... your upgrading future is up to you really...
EDIT: ya 8FT knows what hes talking about, i just saw that, you can put memory in like 1 gig, but it wont be fast or reliable, your system will most likely run, maybe not, but unless its 3/6/9 ect you wont get the tripple channel pumping at the correct speeds and may cause issues...
You really need to be sure that the +12V rail carries enough amps. Logically, it should, but if it doesn't you'll get artifacts during gaming.
Also: has anyone ordered pc parts from the US here in the UK? The prices there are about half (the same in dollars as pounds here). Is it possible/worthwhile? I'm guessing if they ship to the UK then there's still postage and Tax which may or may not be worthwhile. Any experience here?
I'm still thinking of sticking with the i7. Also i may get a cheaper gpu like the radeon 4870 as they are much cheaper than the gtx 260 and more powerful by the look of it.
UPDATE::
I'm so excited I just bought my new machine
here is what i went for
take your conclusion matey,
also take note new i7 precessor use new socket and the old 775 is gonna be dead really soon.
definitely the 550 ps is gonna blow up you need a better one, suggest you also a good brand (tagan, enermax etc) and this wont matter if you get a c2quad or an i7, you need more power.
if i were you i would had wait some more weeks (new i7 version coming out and probably a price drop for them as well).
in the end i think the difference between a good core2quad system and an i7 based system is around 150/200, and it is all well worth considering future upgrades.
I'd switch to the Asus P6t over the Gigabyte board (as you have done). You don't necessarily need the deluxe version which is about $100 buck more.
Reviews, Gigabyte: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/gigabyte_ga_ex58-ud3r_review/
Review, Asust P6T (NON-Delux): http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/asus_p6t_review/
That should be a sweet machine
Thanks!
I also have to look at what 64bit operating system i use. I'm guessing vista is the way to go?
Yep i've bought it. On its way!!!! So happy.
What operating system?
XP 64?
Vista 64 ? which one ? ultimate?
Windows 7 beta build 7068 ?
I want max render speeds really when using max/vray/maya/MR
I was presented with this same dilemma in december when I built my system, low end i7 or high end c2q? In the end I chose the older more mature stable solution in the c2q and it hasn't let me down in any of the work I've used it for. I'll probably roll on this system for another year or two and decide if I want to go further to i7, but at the time, I set my price limit at 1300$ cdn for the system, I believe an i7 would have been 1500 or so at the time. I'm not sure how the pricing works in the UK, you guys always seem to be more expensive.
btw, i'm neither for nor against going i7, I'm just trying to be a voice of reason to make sure you've thought the choices through.