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View Full Version : looking for a computer recommendation (dell xps 435?)

RedFish
06-20-2009, 09:38 PM
Hi, I am looking for a computer recommendation.
I intend to use it for 3dsmax and zbrush primarily.
So far I am looking into getting a dell studio xps 435 with

Intel® Core™ i7-940 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.93GHz)

12GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs

1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive


ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB

is this a decent setup for running max and zbrush? or is there something better out there for around the same price (2000$)?

thanks for any help and feedback
AtmaWeapon
06-21-2009, 01:00 AM
Nope, that's a pretty bad ass system. Your probably not going to find any much a price difference unless you go with a less supported brand like cyberpowerpc or something.

If you want to use ZBrush though I would actually aim to get more memory on my graphics card. Also I'd stay away from ATI consumer grade hardware for serious work. ATI's workstation cards are great, but if your going with a consumer level card I'd personally go with the nVidia chipset based cards.

Also I hope your running 64 bit because all that memory is going to be wasted otherwise :p
AtmaWeapon
06-21-2009, 01:02 AM
Also as someone who works for Firaxis you should totally know to stay away from ATI hardware... Civ 4 was totally broken for like months on ATI stuff after it was released ; :p
RedFish
06-21-2009, 01:39 AM
Hi AtmaWeapon

thanks for your quick reply.. dell is only offering ati cards in this machine for some silly reason. I think I am going to call them up and see if I can get them to chuck in an nvidia card instead. Do you have any recommendations as to what Nvidia card to get (preferably a gaming and not a workstation card, the price difference is substantial).

Thanks again
AtmaWeapon
06-21-2009, 05:26 PM
Fortunately for graphics cards the price usually matches it's capabiltities.

The reason for getting an nVidia card is usually the graphics drivers for them are a bit better especially for OpenGL. With that said you want something that has both horse power as well as a large memory store.

You probably want a 200 series card. The 280 Series is a really good value because it supports a gig of grpahics memory. If your really on a budget, try the 275. It's got the same chipset and lower memory requirements.

If you've got a capped budget I would actually take a bit off of the system memory and pour it into the graphics card. You'll notice more of a speed boost for high texture count scenes. Maybe try a 8 or 10 gig configuration and get a beefier graphics card.
eaclou
06-22-2009, 02:55 PM
The 260 GTX is probably the best price to performance nvidia card right now. Tom's hardware recently had a good article on them:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-radeon,2326.html
BOXXlabs
06-22-2009, 04:15 PM
BOXX also offers cost-effective i7-based workstations with Quadro graphics options.

;)