Building a PC, specific help needed!

[Fahad]

what's your budget?

[daraeill]

yeah budget is a big question...can't really reccomend a good build effectively w/o knowing how much you are able/willing to spend on it

[StuntMan]

$3000 or cheaper :) thanks

[daraeill]

well i'm looking at this build all from newegg for about 2k

2GB ram, dual-core athlon processor, 7800 GT...all in all not the best system ever but certainly good for those on a somewhat limited budget...like me :)

PROCESSOR------------- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz FSB 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

$473.00



MOTHERBOARD-------- ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

$164.00 check on this:Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge chipset heatsink.



MEMORY------------------- CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory x4

$181.00



HDD-------------------------- Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM x2

$106.80



CD/DVD DRIVES-------- PLEXTOR Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 6X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 8M Cache IDE DVD Burner

$144.50





VIDEO CARD------------- eVGA 256-P2-N537-AX Geforce 7800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card with Battlefield 2 full version - Retail

$395.00





SOUND CARD----------- Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24bit 70SB041000000 8 (7.1) Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail

$39.99





CASE----------------------- Antec Solution SLK3000-B Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

$49.00





POWER SUPPLY------ OCZ PowerStream OCZ520ADJSLI ATX, BTX, SATA, P4 and EPS12V 520W Power Supply 100~120Vac / 200~240Vac 10/6a - Retail

$139.99





KEYBOARD-------------- Logitech Elite 967234-0403 Black 104 Normal Keys 19 Function Keys USB + PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard

$32.00





MOUSE-------------------- Logitech Optical Mouse 931145-0403 Black 3 Buttons 1x Wheel USB + PS/2 Optical Mouse

$12.00





TABLET------------------- already purchased***



SPEAKERS-------------- Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 Speaker

$149.99



MONITOR---------------- ENVISION EFT920 Silver 19" Pure Flat CRT Monitor 0.25mm Dot Pitch D-Sub x2

$148.00

[SatoriGFX]

Ok. Some suggestions. You've got a decent budget so you have room to move a bit.

Get the Asus A8N-Sli Premium or A8N32-Sli Deluxe. Both are fanless (quiet). The new A8N32-Sli Deluxe is better but really only if you ever intend to go SLI. If not, the A8N-Sli Premium is fine.

Dump the Antec SLK3000 and the OCZ PSU and get an Antec P180 case and an Antec TruePower 2.0 550W PSU. The P180 case is quieter and sexier (rubber gromets for hard drives, triple layer panels, 2 front mounted washable fans etc...). The OCZ PSU you selected is an EPS12V unit meant for server setups (though it probably would work fine with a desktop system too). The Antec PSU is cheaper and a very good PSU.

Unless you need the surround sound etc... dump the sound card. The motherboard has onboard sound which is perfectly fine for listening to music, watching movies etc... Even music software like Reason works well with my A8N-Sli's onboard soundcard.

You are going to need alot more than 80GB of hard drive space. I have a 74GB Raptor for system and apps and a 320GB Caviar for data and although they ar not close to being filled, they are more filled than I thought they might be when I got the system about a month ago. Get yourself at least a 200GB drive. Only a few bucks more than the 80GB.

The Plextor burner. Is that the PX-116SA SATA burner? I have one, great drive, but pricey.

Buy yourself a better monitor if you can. Maybe an NEC or Samsung. Not much more money ($50ish).

[daraeill]

umm thats actually 160GB in RAID 0....maybe i should've made the little x2 and x4 a bit more obvious...the prices do reflect the total number of pieces of hardware though...also the ocz has a much higher amp for the 12v rail...better for SLI gfx cards...actually i chose that based on asus' recommendations for 12v rail power suplly for dual gfx's (antec is rated at 19amps, vs ocz's at 33 amps

[novadude]

@ daraeill:
drop the 4200 and get the 3800 X2, switch the 4x 512MB sticks out for some Crucial valule 1GB sticks, drop the RAID 0, swap the plextors out for two BenQ 1640's, and as already said drop the case and PSU and grab better screens.

The antec PSU also has two 12v rails, not just one

[daraeill]

@novadude

why go with the lower-end processor?

also as for the memory...the config/model i chose is what the mobo says works...i've read a few reviews that say alot of different memory out there doesn't neccessarily work in a certain configuration...also 2x1GB sticks are actually more expensive than 4x512MB sticks



and why drop the raid 0?

hmm benq...thats an interesting little drive.....

[StuntMan]

So far great help guys, I'm sure that there are plenty of CG artist looking to do the same rendering tasks (or already are) that can use this information. I forgot to mention I needed a monitor as well, but a few have mentioned some already. I am slightly concerned about LCD screens because of the fact most cannot reach pure black... and rumors of some "burn in" that occurs when pictures are paused on the screen for long periods of time (ie: rendering?)

Do dual processors, or video cards help that much when rendering or working with CG? I know that they really only are used fully with games if the software supports it (which arent many games at this point) I just wondered how that effected general 3d work. ALso if anyone has any idea of how the 512 meg video cards fair with CG work and rendering that'd be very useful!

THanks though daraeill, SatoriGFX and novadude!

[daraeill]

video cards are a MUST when doing DCC...otherwise you wouldn't be able to do much actual CREATION...anything more than animating a bouncing ball and you'd either go nuts or have the comp crash due to insufficient hardware....as for the 512mb ones...well...from everything i've heard the software doesn't fully utilize that much memory very well yet...so for now it's a bit overkill but i'm certain it will be most useful in the future


also one other point that is just a general statement---i used to work at best buy a couple years back on the tech bench and also in pc sales....now we weren't commisioned or anything so i was a very successful salesman as i wouldn't try to BS the customer into buying more of a machine or accessories than they actually needed based on what they told me they wanted to be able to do with the comp...now i've ALWAYS recommended at least a cheapo video card as opposed to integrated video...even if they did nothing more than surf the net and do a few word docs. the reason is a comp with even a cheapo video card will be noticeably faster than one without even when doing some of the more basic tasks...integrated graphics modules are built into the mobo...and "share" the system memory with the processor...which means that you really DON'T actually have that 512MB of ram the comp says you do...at least 32MB of that is reserved for the crappy little integrated graphics processor...now when all is said this is actually a very severe bottleneck in system performance...think of a car...turn the AC on ande horsepower drops noticeably...now think what would happen if you had a second small engine built ONLY to run the AC...no horsepower loss

it's the same thing with a computer-

so yes you DO want a video card (even an ancient $30 piece of crap will work wonders with low-end usage)...and when it comes to doing anything with 3d...whether it be games or 3d animation you HAVE to have a good one...oh and yw :)

[novadude]

@novadude

why go with the lower-end processor?

also as for the memory...the config/model i chose is what the mobo says works...i've read a few reviews that say alot of different memory out there doesn't neccessarily work in a certain configuration...also 2x1GB sticks are actually more expensive than 4x512MB sticks



and why drop the raid 0?

hmm benq...thats an interesting little drive.....

Because the 3800 can easily and very safely be overclocked to 4600+ speeds, and is much cheaper. With the extra money you'll save on the CPU you can get the 2x1GB sticks and leave room for future upgrades (and with two sticks you'll also be able to run the RAM at 1T, which will give ~5% performance boost in memory intensive tasks over four sticks at 2T). You'll want to drop the RAID 0 because actual realworld performance gains aren't worth the added risk of data and time lost when one of the drives dies. You'll see similar gains running the OS on one drive (with data in a second partition on this drive to protect it from Windows' death) and the programs on another drive. Plextor's new 740 drive is actually just a rebadged benq 1640 with a sizeable markup for the plextor name :)

@stuntman, you're looking at a machine with similar specs. I'd say a X2 4800 with an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, an EVGA 7800GTX KO, 2GB DDR kit from OCZ/Crucial/G.Skill, 74GB Raptor, one+ of the new 400GB WD drives and a PCP&C 510W PSU. Pick a case that you like that has good expansion options (Antec P180, LianLi V2000, CoolerMaster Stacker etc) and reconsider tweaking the system.

[MasonDoran]

I got a Dual Opteron 270 (quad cpus) with 2GB Ram and Nvidia 7800 all for $3700...its about the fastest PC you can have on the market (unless u get Opteron 275 or better) and still use WinXP (more CPUs needs Server OS)

I know it is overbudget...but the diferance of 2 cpus and 4cpus is considerable for performance....especially when you want to do complex CG

ohh....and Zbrush supports mult-core CPUs, and when you get another spare $500 you can hook up a second 7800 on your comp...and you will be screaming fast (unless u want to buy expensive Quadro Cards)


if you spend all or your money now on motherboard, CPU, and hardrive....its a simple matter to update the other stuff when you have the cash. It is a wise idea to have a comp with a solid foundation that you can tweak and easily upgrade later. Things like Ram and Grafx Card are changing every 6 months in quality and price and are easy to change.

[zapper1998]

"I got a Dual Opteron 270 (quad cpus) with 2GB Ram and Nvidia 7800 all for $3700...its about the fastest PC you can have on the market (unless u get Opteron 275 or better) and still use WinXP (more CPUs needs Server OS)"


What MotherBoard and ram did you buy ???

[lots]

Most everyone that buys 2xx Opterons will have a K8WE.

Anyway, here's a few things that should be cleared up...

Dual CPUs, or more are very good (at least in rendering) for complex CG scenes. In many cases the rendering engine of your chosen 3D app will utilize each CPU in the system to 100% by either rendering half a frame on one CPU and the other half on the other, or rendering two frames at the same time. To expand on dual CPUs, having more CPUs in the system will break down the scene even more, allowing for more parallelization. Of cource scenes that will benifit most will be the big complex ones, since thier times will be cut nearly in half by a dual CPU system, let alone one with 4 or more CPUs/cores.

Of cource alot of this depends on how multithreaded the scene can become. Some tasks, like physics calculations, are not multithreaded, and cannot be multithreaded. Thus, you will not see an improvement in speed in that. But generally it will help.

Dual graphics cards in SLI, at the moment, does NOT help improve UI performance in the majority of 3D apps out there. This will change, one day, but as of right now, I'd buy just a single 7800GT or GTX and leave it at that until SLI is fully supported.

64bit: This may be useful, especially if you have very big complex scenes. With the added memory space of 64bit computers, you will be able to load more of your scene into memory during rendering, and not have to risk thrashing (accessing the hard drive while rendering). Thrashing will completly kill your render times. Of cource this only works if you have large quantities of RAM. 4GB or more for example. This also assumes your 3D app of choice is 64bit (like LW or XSI).

I dont think you can get dual dual core Opterons (the best solution for the job :P) for under $3000, but you can get a VERY nice X2 based system for less than $3000.


BFG Geforce 7800 GT OC 256MB
$380

Pioneer DVR-110DBK Dual-Layer 16x8x16 DVD±RW 8x DVD+R DL (Black) (OEM)
$55

Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Silent CPU Cooling Kit
$35

2 GB (2 pcs 1GB) DDR (400) PC-3200 OCZ (OCZ4002048V3DC-K) x2 (4GB)
$410 total

Seagate (ST3400832AS) 400 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA x2 (800GB RAID0)
$471 total

Western Digital 74 GB SATA 10K Raptor
$175

PC Power & Cooling SLI 510W ATX 2.01 Power Supply (overkill? Maybe :))
$218

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual-Core
$497

Asus A8N-SLI Premium nForce4 SLI
$179

Lian-Li PC-V1200B Plus
$199

Total: $2,625.99

Not bad... considering I went rediculous on some parts :) *cough PSU *cough and the case :P It is a nice case though..

[deathman20]

Ok this is a system I ordered last week, only thing is missing on here is the video card which you can chose which ever brand you like better. This was just over $1200 shipped from newegg.


OCZ PowerStream OCZ520ADJSLI ATX, BTX, SATA, P4 and EPS12V 520W Power Supply - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817711002) (got a $20 mail in rebate with this also)
Item #: N82E16817711002 $139.99
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152)
Item #: N82E16813136152 $128.00
THERMALRIGHT XP-120 Heatsink - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835109118)
Item #: N82E16835109118 $68.99
Thermaltake A2018 120mm 1 Ball 1 Sleeve Blue LED Light Case Cooling Fan - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811999122)
Item #: N82E16811999122 $12.99
HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 0A31636 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145087) (2 drives)
Item #: N82E16822145087 $207.00
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562)
Item #: N82E16819103562 $338.01
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model BL2KIT12864Z503 - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146578)
Item #: N82E16820146578 $307.00
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835100007)
Item #: N82E16835100007 $5.89

As you can see its a decently nice setup. If you want more processor right out of the box with the extra cache get the X2 4400+. But with above I was able to pull off 295Mhz with 3-3-3-8 timings on the ram @ 2.8V, 8.5x multi on the CPU for 2,507.5Mhz CPU @ 1.488V in windows. It runs 28C Idle and 39C full load. Not bad for a non-water cooled system. I've taken the V-Core up to 1.6+ V (forgot what the exact voltage was) but Max load temp was only 42C. Not bad for air cooling I'd say.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.