CGTalk - Buying a new PC for games/3ds max

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Northchild

01-25-2003, 11:53 PM

Hi all,

I'm moving some distance away for school in a few months; pretty much leaving a nice, small PC repair shop that I trust behind, along with my current PC that my wife will be using to replace her old system.

I've ordered RAM from Crucial before and built an AMD system from the ground up a year or so ago, but still don't have much of an idea of where to go online to buy components. I'm not necessarily looking for the lowest prices. Good customer service and the ability to return things if I need to is better for me at this point. Also, I don't want to futz around with putting the actual motherboard and processor together and getting them into the case again. I've done this once and may not have the patience for it if I feel like I'm a long way from support that I know won't screw me just in case I break something. :)

Knowing what parts I have and being able to swap them is important to me, which is why (in addition to the expense), I don't want to just buy a Dell.

I'm used to shopping for parts for gaming PCs and general office setups, but I have no idea of what professional 3D artists use. I'm running 3ds max 5.1 on Windows XP Home now - this seems solid as a rock with a gig of RAM and my ti4600. I don't want to stray from AMD/Windows but was wondering if there was a difference between gaming video cards and cards that pros work with.

Any advice for the newbie appreciated. Thanks as always.

dmeyer

01-26-2003, 12:50 AM

You may want to check out Shuttle systems

www.shuttle.com

And their new nForce2 box:

http://us.shuttle.com/specs2.asp?pro_id=163

They are pretty sweet. When you order one you get the case wth the motherboard pre-installed. You will have to drop in the CPU and RAM, etc, but the directions are very clear and it's fairly idiot proof. This may be a good solution becasue it A) performs very well B) is easily transportable C) is easy to build.

It is a bit limited on upgrading though, as you could squeeze up to 2 hard drives and one optical drive in there, and has AGP, but only 1 pci. Great onboard sound though so you may not need to take up that PCI with a sound card.

As far as buying, check out www.newegg.com They are pretty competitive on price but are well known for customer service. I'm sure i wont be the only one to recommend them. Good luck.

Valkyrien

01-26-2003, 02:17 AM

I definitely recommend NewEgg, but another site to point out to you is www.pricewatch.com. Using Pricewatch, i was able to beat newegg's price on my new motherboard by about $20. But generally NewEgg's prices are low enough:)

Northchild

01-26-2003, 08:32 AM

Newegg sounds good, I've taken a look at their site this evening and drooled a bit.

For an AMD system, what are the better processors & motherboards available these days? I'm using an ASUS and an XP 2100+ because that's what was recommended to me a while ago, but I've noticed that there are MP systems and even some motherboards that take 2 CPUs. I'm somewhat concerned about cooling these things. I have a bunch of fans and an alum. case now, but I remember that when I first put this current one together I kept checking up on it at night to see if it was going to burn the house down... sigh. :eek:

If I have 2 CPUs in the same machine, does that mean that I have to buy two copies of the OS, etc? Sorry about the stupid question!

GregHess

01-27-2003, 12:32 AM

If you use a retailer other then newegg.com, be sure to check...

www.resellerratings.com

first. It'll save you alot of frustration.

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