rig for 3d work and gaming

1. What is the purpose of the computer?
A: primarily 3D software and moderate gaming (enough to run tf2 at 1280x800 and 4xAA)

2. Are you open to alternate ideas/products giving similar better performance but offering more VFM/ sellers? If not- why?
A: yeah

3. What is your MAX budget?
A: 25k (its a bit flexible, i'll update when possible)

4. Planning to overclock?
A:yes, i will need to, i think

5. Which OS are you planning to use?
A: windows + linux

6. How much hard drive space is needed?
A: i have a 1 tb hdd, im thinking of raid (the one without duplicate data)

7. What resolution will the screen run at & whats the size of the screen you want? If you already want have one and want to use it, mention its resolution and size.
A: as large as possible

8. How would you rate your hardware knowledge from the count of 1-10? (1 being the lowest, 5 being you are somewhat in sync with the current performers and 10 being the highest)
A: 8

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
A: yes, i have done it before, many times, but never an amd one, and never installed a gpu

10. When are you planning to buy the system?
A: 1 month

11. Are you one of the types looking out for "future proof" configurations?
A: prolly, 2-3 yrs at most

12. Are there going to be any components that you don't want to include in this new rig? If yes, do mention.
A: i dont want :
psu vx450
case iball carry
mouse/kb
speakers <fsck speakers, i use iems

13. Which city do you live in and are you open to buying from shops from other city/states?
A: noida

14. Mention any other points if deemed necessary
A: must have audio ports in front.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE @6k
Asus 880G Chipset AMD Motherboard Model-M4A88T-M @ 4.2k
Gskill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9S-4GBXL @1.6k
LG DvD RW Drive @ 0.9k
Dell IN2030M 50.8cm (20 inch) W HD Monitor with LED @5.8k
SAPPHIRE HD 6770 1GB GDDR5 @ 7k

Total = 25.5k

I didnt added a HDD as there is currently an HDD price hike going on you should better wait for the prices to come down and then buy the HDDs as you already have 1TB HDD.

hmm, ok, thanks buddy. but why the hike? they lost their stocks or what?

Read this:

HDD Prices are Increasing Rapidly; 50% in One Week

For 3D work, Nvidia Quadro or ATI FireGL series will be better.

im not going to be a full time dev, man :grin:

im thinking of putting off buying it till southern islands in dec. how about that?

also, im concerned about the monitor, and mobo. monitor must be good, and large, and mobo must be oc'ble and not too expensive.

tell me, for 3d rendering, is cpu cores more important or gpu?

Southern Island will get a paper launch in December. Don't expect to get them in India before February.

For 3D rendering, I think both CPU and GPU are important.

noooooo!!

specs changed : going for just the cpu, mobo, ram, cooler right now, just the core components.
will buy monitor, gpu and hdd later.

budget 15k.

AMD phenom II 955 BE @ 6k (should i go for the 1xxx series?)
mobo ???
ram ???
cooler ???

Do you have a spare HDD? Otherwise how are you going to use the system?

Anyway the cheapest X6 is close to 8k, so stick with that CPU. Rest of the config is as follows:-

1) GIGABYTE GA-880GM-USB3: 5k
2) Corsair XMS3/GSkill Ripjaws 4gb DDR3 1600: 1.7k
3) CoolerMaster Hyper 212+: 1.9k

Skud said:
Do you have a spare HDD? Otherwise how are you going to use the system?

May be he is stock piling his system.

i have a hdd, from my old system

i also have a case, psu.

and yeah, please mention a good optical drive.
thanks

ASUS DVD Writer.

and yeah, please mention a good optical drive.

~~LG,~~ Sony, Asus drives are the better ones. If all of them are available, then go with Asus, otherwise, go with any one of these three.

Avoid LG. Lots of problems with them.

i had an lg drive in both laptop and computer. now i know why i had to remove both of them

Every optical drive gives problems. Fact.

doomgiver said:
tell me, for 3d rendering, is cpu cores more important or gpu?

For rendering Cpu is most important, Gpu has no role in Rendering until now but heard-read they are working on it for future.

Gpu is mostly used for Display purpose. alternate for it is you can hide some elements. but it will be problematic if you made a whole environment + if you have few character in it.. Gpu handles all this .

Mostly Gpu will be required for Mudbox and Zbrush type of Software's. sculpting softwares

Look For Gpu which has Higher Bit rate(memory interface) at least 256 bit. and if you are going to use windows 7 Don't go for less then 1 Gb card

I have used Lg Cd-rom,Writer,combo And still using Dvd writer never faced any problem till now.

what is your purpose of your rig, Learning or Pro.. If pro better user Pro cards(ati fire or Nvidia Quadro) because this pro cards will only give exact Lighting, Depth, shadows. I am using Gts 250 For learning purposes.

Also you are building new rig so better get 2 HDD's for your system. One main and another you can use for scratch disk (to get better performance)

all this from my personal Experience.

ico said:
Every optical drive gives problems. Fact.

But special cases exist there. I have an old PATA Sony CD writer from my first rig, and still using that with my present rig with the help of sata to pata converter & its age is 10-11 years or so and still working fine.

clmlbx said:
Mostly Gpu will be required for Mudbox and Zbrush type of Software's. sculpting softwares

Look For Gpu which has Higher Bit rate(memory interface) at least 256 bit. and if you are going to use windows 7 Don't go for less then 1 Gb card

what is your purpose of your rig, Learning or Pro.. If pro better user Pro cards(ati fire or Nvidia Quadro) because this pro cards will only give exact Lighting, Depth, shadows. I am using Gts 250 For learning purposes.

Also you are building new rig so better get 2 HDD's for your system. One main and another you can use for scratch disk (to get better performance)

thanks, im just learning. being pro will take a long time.
i've used zbrush before, on a pentium D

im not making a new rig, per-se, im just going to replace the core components, the cpu, ram, mobo, and maybe add a gpu.

i intend to use maya, 3dmax, photoshop, mostly. also, if this makes it clearer, i intend to make hats and maps for team fortress 2. i hope that helps.

so, in light of all this, do tell me what to go for.

(i see from your gpu, that it is a mid end card, so i can make-do with such cards?)

tentative setup :
hex core AMD/oc'd i5
4-6 gb ram
<mobo> (my mobo knowledge is woefully inadequate)
a fast hdd ( should i keep non-essential stuff on an external drive?)

edit : or maybe go for a 2nd hand quad core/extreme processor?

^^ For learning Mid range card is also Good,, I forgot to tell You most important thing Buy Nvidia Card only for this work..because of two advantage . great compatibility and Second Cuda.(If ever rendering goes to gpu it will definitely use Cuda,).

Well what I had bought. that is best I could buy(in time) and imo. you should not buy any thing lower then this. But my freinds have used without Gpu, with very low end Gpu that Cost around 2K. while learning it was like So-So but they faced problem when they needed output from it.(only maya and max).also they use XP and 2008 version of maya and MAx

Well between Intel and Amd, For cpu intensive Work Like this Intel is Best But If you think cost wise then Amd will do to. I am using it But cores are very important.. buy quad core at least.

about that Zbrush, yes it can be used in low end systems too because of it's "Pixol" Technology.. But Mudbox Will Not. It can not run on Low end systems.. Even Zbrush will fall when you Exceed Levels on it(Add millions of Polygons in it.)

yea, thanks.

stick to xp for 3d work?
i5 has to power, while a thuban has the cores and oc potential

which gpu to go for then?

clmlbx, currently there is no such compatibility issues with AMD drivers and they are as much stable as the Nvidia drivers. I know not before long time, AMD cards used to suffer from poor driver support but right now they've improved a lot and are on the same level of their competitors.

And regarding rendering, AMD cards do have support APP (previously known as ATI Stream), AMD equivalent of CUDA, which is supported by most of the rendering software like 3D Studio MAX, Maya, all the adobe products and they also offer nice speed up.

^^ well can't much comment on it as I never used AMD Cards.. Well I am using Nvidia & I am satisfied with it. .so I will recommend that. :neutral:

@ op :- I can't tell you exact Graphic card model but any thing Which has 256bit or higher memory interface, supports openGl as high as possible. Get it. and in IMO Nvidia . Don't buy Palit cards

clmlbx, just to inform you, at a price range of 10K, only a two or 3 cards are available with 256 bit BUS. They are GTX 460 1GB SE, HD 6790 and HD 6850.

But even today's 128 or 192 bit cards can beat previous gen 256 bit cards because of the advanced architecture and use of GDDR5 memory. using high bus width is not cost effective the solution is using high speed GDDR5 memory which can send data at 4 times the speed of its memory speed instead of using high bus width.
A HD 6850 with 256 bit BUS but armed with GDDR5 memory can provide more memory bandwidth (128 Gbps) than an older GTX 260 with 448 bit BUS (111 Gbps) but armed with slower GDDR3 memory.

so what to go for?
an i5?
p67?
ram?
cooler?

also, i'll be buying the gpu later, like december or jan.

Get I5 2400 and Intel DH67BL-B3 board, more than enough for your requirements.

Cilus said:
clmlbx, just to inform you, at a price range of 10K, only a two or 3 cards are available with 256 bit BUS. They are GTX 460 768 MB, HD 6790 and HD 6850.

But even today's 128 or 192 bit cards can beat previous gen 256 bit cards because of the advanced architecture and use of GDDR5 memory. using high bus width is not cost effective the solution is using high speed GDDR5 memory which can send data at 4 times the speed of its memory speed instead of using high bus width.
A HD 6850 with 256 bit BUS but armed with GDDR5 memory can provide more memory bandwidth (128 Gbps) than an older GTX 260 with 448 bit BUS (111 Gbps) but armed with slower GDDR3 memory.

Thanx for info. Right, Memory is also important with memory interface. and a correction GTX 460 768Mb has 192bit while GTX 460 1Gb has 256bit.

will i be able to overclock it much?

thanks, both of you.

Since i5 2400 is a non K processor, you can't overclock it. But you don't really need to overclock. At stock it can beat the higher end phenom quad cores like 970 or 980 and even the 6 core 1090T.

well, if it goes faster, its better, yeah?

and congrats, you got made a mod!

At your budget it is the best solution. If you wanna overclock Sandybridge procesor then the cheapest K series processor is i5 2500K which will cost you almost 11K. Then you need a decent P67 or Z68 based mobo. The cheapest P67 mobo from intel is around 6.5K. But P67 does not have onboard Video output, so you have to invest in a Video card right now. Cheapest Z68 will come atleast at 7K (from Intel) and good mobos from MSI, Asus or Gigabyte will cost you over 8K. So for just getting CPU + Mobo + onboard Disply you need to spend 11K + 8K = 19K here.

The remaining 6K can be used as
Gskill Ripjaw 4 GB 1600 MHz @ 1.65K
LG DvD RW Drive @ 0.9k
Dell IN2030M 50.8cm (20 inch) W HD Monitor with LED @5.8k

Total 27.35K excluding Gfx card.