What is your System configuration??

[vreb]

Hi there. I think you may find this type of topic has already been well covered in the past so it may be worth searching through previous topics. However, here is my current system set-up for you to compare just in case:

intel i7 965 extreme processor @ factory set 3.20GHz
12GB DDR3 Ram
2 x 1TB Hard drives
2 x Nvidia GeForce 260 896MB Graphics cards - not running in SLi though, as there is no point. The second card was free when I bought my system
Asus PT6 Deluxe Mobo
2 x 22" HP monitors (H-IPS panels)
1 x spacemouse
1 x ergonomic side grip Microsoft mouse (natural wireless laser mouse 6000 - recommended to anyone suffering from RSI as it really helped me

The general rule of thumb for this industry is buy the most powerful processor and graphics card you can afford, as you can never have too much power. However, it all depends on what you intend to do though.

You don't need to spend thousands on your computer system to create decent content, it just helps speed up your production and make the process more enjoyable.

All the best,

vreb

[aeres]

Besides a powerful processor, get more RAM.

[vreb]

Yeah, forgot to mention that :)

vreb

[monarts]

Dear friends, thank you so much for your response. But I am really astonished to see your system configuration. Here my system supports maximum of 4GB RAM. Moreover financially it wont be possible for people like me to get a system like yours. So only solution is to work within the limitations I have got. Thanks again for sharing your valuable information. Keep the spirit.

[vreb]

Don't let this put you off in any way m8. You should still be able to create some decent content with the 4GB limitation on your system, just might take longer that's all. As I said before though, it all depends on the type of content you want to create in the first place.

Take care,

vreb

[cgbeige]

I'm working on a ZBrush model that's 8-million polygons on my MacBook Pro laptop that has 4GB of RAM and it's fine. Mudbox is much more demanding since it uses the GPU (and GPUs and bandwidth are much slower on laptops). It's fine on my Mac Pro but it's noticeably slower than ZBrush on a laptop.

My desktop is a *little* beefier:

- dual quad core 2.66GHz Nehalem Xeon Mac Pro
- 24GB of RAM
- 120GB OCZ Vertex system disk with RAID array working disk and a separate Time Machine backup drive
- 1GB Geforce GTX 285
- OS X 10.6.2 running 64-bit kernel mode

[Remi]

I'd like to know where you guys buy your components. Newegg? or some other place. Also, for a setup that's comparable to what's been mentioned, what do you think a fair price would be for that? I'm looking at getting a new machine and would like to spec it out to be in the 3000USD range with the best possible setup. Thanks for any info.

[Kanga]

Your system sounds ok. The trick you are missing is you might not be retopolizing and you may have an even spread of polys over your model instead of concentrating resolution where you most need it. How your model is broken up is very important.

[BoostAbuse]

I'd like to know where you guys buy your components. Newegg? or some other place. Also, for a setup that's comparable to what's been mentioned, what do you think a fair price would be for that? I'm looking at getting a new machine and would like to spec it out to be in the 3000USD range with the best possible setup. Thanks for any info.

I buy all my stuff through Newegg or NCIX depending on who has the better price. For $3k you could build a pretty badass system... my last uber build "Black Sheep" was around $4500 and looked like this:

EVGA E759 Classified mobo
Intel I7 975 Extreme Edition 3.3ghz @ 4.35ghz
12gb Corsair Dominator 1866mhz DDR3 memory w/ air coolers
2 x G.Skill 64gb Falcon SSD's in RAID0
4 x 1TB Western Digital Black in RAID10
2 x EVGA GTX 285 2048mb
Coolermaster Cosmos S Black Edition

The rest of the cash went into the custom water cooling setup I did for it consisting of 3 radiators, pumps, hoses, heatkiller waterblocks etc etc.

My current rig at home is a little more tame now and would probably easily come in under $2k CDN with current prices I'd say. Of course in the spring this will all be gone and I'll be building my dual socket monstrosity I've been planning since Intel said Gulftown would be out in 2010 :)

EVGA X58 SLI LE
i7 920 @ 3.8ghz
12gb G.Skill DDR3-1600
4 x 1TB WD Black in RAID10
1 x EVGA GTX260 Core 216
Coolermaster Storm Scout mATX/ATX case

[Remi]

I buy all my stuff through Newegg or NCIX depending on who has the better price. For $3k you could build a pretty badass system... my last uber build "Black Sheep" was around $4500 and looked like this:

EVGA E759 Classified mobo
Intel I7 975 Extreme Edition 3.3ghz @ 4.35ghz
12gb Corsair Dominator 1866mhz DDR3 memory w/ air coolers
2 x G.Skill 64gb Falcon SSD's in RAID0
4 x 1TB Western Digital Black in RAID10
2 x EVGA GTX 285 2048mb
Coolermaster Cosmos S Black Edition

The rest of the cash went into the custom water cooling setup I did for it consisting of 3 radiators, pumps, hoses, heatkiller waterblocks etc etc.

My current rig at home is a little more tame now and would probably easily come in under $2k CDN with current prices I'd say. Of course in the spring this will all be gone and I'll be building my dual socket monstrosity I've been planning since Intel said Gulftown would be out in 2010 :)

EVGA X58 SLI LE
i7 920 @ 3.8ghz
12gb G.Skill DDR3-1600
4 x 1TB WD Black in RAID10
1 x EVGA GTX260 Core 216
Coolermaster Storm Scout mATX/ATX case

NCIX huh, never been there, i'll have to see what that's all about, I was hoping the 3k could be used for an uber BAMF system, now I just have to go and spec it all out and get approval from the boss(read wife):) thanks for the info Shawn!!!

[BoostAbuse]

Yeah NCIX is pretty good, they're my main stop as it's super cheap shipping for me and I only pay 5% taxes instead of the usual 13% thanks to ordering out of province :) You could build a wicked computer for $3k easily.. if you need any help ping me on FB or drop me a PM and I'll look at putting something together.

[Jettatore]

My computer is aprox 3 years old, and aside from my video card upgrade is exactly the same as the day I first built it.

Vista x64 (works great, initially it did not work well at all and disappointed me thoroughly and I instead ran XP64 for the first several years, am now looking forward to Windows 7)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz (never over-clocked)
EVGA GeForce GTX 260 (used to be Radeon x1950xt 512)
8GB RAM (4x2GB, was a lot to have 4 years ago)
3x 300GB SATA disks, non-RAID
DVD-RW
Corsair 620W Modular PSU
Antec Black Mid-Tower ATX Case with many fans
2x 22" Widescreen consumer end monitors from Chimei
Wacom Intuos 3 6x11 Tablet
Razer Diamondback Mouse
Logitech Back-lit Keyboard

Every piece of software I run is working flawlessly on this machine. It is and has been very stable for it's entire lifespan. My preferred applications are Softimage, Photoshop and Mudbox. The machine can run games like Crysis and the like, not as perfect as a newer dedicated gaming build but quite well enough to play and enjoy if you like that sort of thing, which I find now-adays I do not enjoy and tend to avoid. When I do game, the machine is perfectly capable for my needs.

I plan to keep this my primary machine for at least another year and a half if not longer. Hardware wise, I would like to get a new Camera/Camcorder. And I would say if I had to do it all over again, I would have gotten less and cheaper RAM from the start, upgrading to what I have now or similar later on when it became much cheaper and would have saved me money in the long term. As well, I would have started with a different video card but the original was cheap and was highly compatible with OSX Hackintosh, an idea I have since abandoned. The new video card has been a huge improvement, in particular for stability and compatibility.

I bought everything except the Tablet, Keyboard and Mouse from Newegg and as always their service is absolutely stellar. Since your curious about Mudbox and ZBrush. Your going to want at least 4GB and fast RAM for ZBrush and your going to want a good Video Card for Mudbox. Hope that helps.

[cgbeige]

I buy a lot from ncix but less so since I started using shopbot.ca to search for the best price. They are usually in the middle and so is newegg for most stuff. I do buy a bunch of things from them though since they generally have everything in stock (like this hard to find SSD 2.5" to 3.5" sled I just got).

[johncena]

Well get asus motherboard, amd athlonx2 processor, 2gb transcend ram, lg dvd writer this will be the best configuration for high end gaming and medical purpose too.

[meleseDESIGN]

My curently rig with what i´m working right now has the following specs:

Board: Asus Z8NA-D6
CPU: Intel Xeons X5570
RAM: 48GB DDR3 1333MHz ECC Registered (6 x 8GB module)
PSU: CP 750W
GPU: GTX260


Don´t get confused because the 48gigs of RAM i´m using, it´s probably not necessary in your case to put this much of RAM in to your box, 16gigs will do it for most peoples in production.

[vreb]

Don´t get confused because the 48gigs of RAM i´m using, it´s probably not necessary in your case to put this much of RAM in to your box, 16gigs will do it for most peoples in production.

48gigs of ram?? Seriously, that's insane but quality m8.

One day maybe!

vreb

[cgbeige]

haha - ya, and those 8GB modules must have cost a fortune. Are you rendering the planet?

or maybe you fell for the Best Buy salesman's pitch and bought a lot of RAM "so you can multitask" :p

[meleseDESIGN]

haha - ya, and those 8GB modules must have cost a fortune.

Actually not.
I haven´t spend much more money for those 8GB modules.
Each 8GB module cost me 125€.
Would i buy 24 x 2gigs or 12 x 4gigs module i probably would spend the same amount of money.
:shrug:

[vreb]

Are you rendering the planet?

or maybe you fell for the Best Buy salesman's pitch and bought a lot of RAM "so you can multitask" :p

Lol, that's funny man. I wish I could render the world. 48gigs of ram just sounds cool.

vreb

[cgbeige]

is that ECC RAM?

Mac Pros use server-grade ECC and temperature-monitored memory so it costs that much for 4GB modules. 24GB cost me $1100 US from datamem.com.

It's expensive but it's nice knowing your RAM is bad just by checking from the memory status list in the system profiler. There's nothing worse than hunting for problems caused by memory chips. memtest is good but it's slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

But even rendering print spread-resolution 32-bit EXR files and having Photoshop, Nuke, Maya, Mudbox, etc open, I've never needed much more than 16GB. But all those will be 64-bit on OS X soon (presumably) so I will expect that to change a bit.

[InfernalDarkness]

Each 8GB module cost me 125€.

Cheapest I've ever seen them was 400 pounds... Not sure how that converts to Euros. Feel free to point us to your vendor, my friend!

Kingston cheap 1x8GB (http://uk.streetprices.com/Computers/PC_Hardware/Memory/DDR2/PC2-5300_667Mhz/8GB/1x8GB/Kingston-KVR667D2Q4F5-8G-SP37233038.html)

Great price on some garbage RAM there, especially compared to other vendors...

Most overpriced RAM ever (http://www.getprice.com.au/HP-8GB-1x8GB-ddr2-533-Ecc-Memory-GT808AA-Gpnc_25--41726853.htm)

[vlad]

is that ECC RAM?

Mac Pros use server-grade ECC and temperature-monitored memory so it costs that much for 4GB modules. 24GB cost me $1100 US from datamem.com.

It's expensive but it's nice knowing your RAM is bad just by checking from the memory status list in the system profiler. There's nothing worse than hunting for problems caused by memory chips. memtest is good but it's slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

But even rendering print spread-resolution 32-bit EXR files and having Photoshop, Nuke, Maya, Mudbox, etc open, I've never needed much more than 16GB. But all those will be 64-bit on OS X soon (presumably) so I will expect that to change a bit.

I thought the 1366 socket systems didnt need registered ram anymore??

[meleseDESIGN]

is that ECC RAM?.

Yes, those 8gigs module are with ECC.
Most Dual Xeon socket 1366 Boards even doesn´t handle non-ECC Rams.
As far as I know the Asus Z8NA-D6 is the only Dual Socket 1366 Motherboard which will support both, ECC and non-ECC memory mudules.


But even rendering print spread-resolution 32-bit EXR files and having Photoshop, Nuke, Maya, Mudbox, etc open, I've never needed much more than 16GB.

If you ever tried to render tiles in C4D to a res. of 16K or even higher in other apps like Maxwell, than your maximum rendering res. will be limited to 10K or something near that. Same is for stitching Gigapixel sized images in PS. With 16gigs it´s allmost hopeless to work with really high resolution images in PS.
:rolleyes:

[meleseDESIGN]

Cheapest I've ever seen them was 400 pounds... Not sure how that converts to Euros. Feel free to point us to your vendor, my friend!

Kingston cheap 1x8GB (http://uk.streetprices.com/Computers/PC_Hardware/Memory/DDR2/PC2-5300_667Mhz/8GB/1x8GB/Kingston-KVR667D2Q4F5-8G-SP37233038.html)

Great price on some garbage RAM there, especially compared to other vendors...

Most overpriced RAM ever (http://www.getprice.com.au/HP-8GB-1x8GB-ddr2-533-Ecc-Memory-GT808AA-Gpnc_25--41726853.htm)

You´re pointing to DDR2 RAM, not DDR3, my friend.
:wavey:

My Vendor is no company, ít´s just a good friend i know.
If you like to get those 8gigs DDR3 module for 150€ send a pm to me.

[cgbeige]

With 16gigs it´s allmost hopeless to work with really high resolution images in PS.
:rolleyes:

haha - I've been a professional retoucher for 15 years (I did it before I ever got into 3D) and that's a *slight* exaggeration. When I was between desktop machines, I worked on a couple of these (http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com) giant 1.2GB art photographs (that's 1.2GB with no layers) images on a MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM. It wasn't snappy but hopeless is far from how I would describe it - unless you're accessing the entire image with memory-heavy filters like radial blurs, you can retouch (clone, paint, layer, mask, etc.) a giant image pretty painlessly, even with a 2GB RAM limit. Most Photoshop work isn't filters, so that's pretty much 95% of all work done in PS. If you have a fast RAID array for work and separate a swap drive, which I did, it's only painful during saves. 64-bit is nice for sure (cough) but unless you're working on layered 32-bit images, it's pretty hard to feel the RAM ceiling.

For the record, I know PS quite well. I'm a beta tester for Adobe and I've written extensively about it:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/08/mystery.ars
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/10/mystery-2.ars
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/01/mystery-3.ars

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/adobe-cs4-review.ars
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/04/photoshop-cs3.ars

I'm also using 64-bit Maxwell 2.0.1, which does use a lot of memory if you enable colour multilight. But I've rarely seen it take more than 7GB of real memory for average large renders (LP covers) with multilight.

[meleseDESIGN]

haha - I've been a professional retoucher for 15 years (I did it before I ever got into 3D) and that's a *slight* exaggeration. When I was between desktop machines, I worked on a couple of these (http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com/) giant 1.2GB art photographs (that's 1.2GB with no layers) images on a MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.

I was talking about Gigapixel sized images not Gigabyte sized images.
For Retouching, doing TV comercials, Magazine stuff or LP covers it wont be a problem with just 8gigs of RAM. Working with house wall sized or Gigapixel sized images is far beyond from what you´re talking, so for that kind of products we need that much of RAM.

[cgbeige]

ah - sorry, I misunderstood. What is the resolution of those images? Normally for poster-sized art printed on inkjets (even art prints that are to be scrutinized), 130-180 PPI is the max needed. I've done big storefronts and those are even lower - 30 DPI is usually fine. Does Gigapixel push resolution? Are they 16-bit? I'm not aware of it as a product but I haven't been near an Encad or large format printer for years.

[meleseDESIGN]

ah - sorry, I misunderstood. What is the resolution of those images?

During the hole work procedure the resolution is allways 300dpi, just in the end when it comes to the printer it will be 72dpi. 300dpi we use to have the option to scale the final result if we need to later on. So why we go for 300dpi isn´t because it is needed, it´s more to be able to have the flexibility to make some changes to a later point of time without to get in trouble because we haven´t used the right resolution for that. But 72dpi will do it most of the time at the end.

[cgbeige]

Sorry for derailing the thread but is Gigapixel a distinct product? Or is it just a company that makes "big pictures" and prints them?

I used to work as a retoucher/designer at a place called "Big Photo" - back when the 144MB of RAM in my work's machine cost $10,000 and the Radius video card (with whopping 8MB of VRAM) cost another $5k. Anyway, it was the worst company name ever (we printed Encad stuff for bus shelter/backlits/car ads). It was like making a restaurant called "LONG STEAK" or "GENEROUS PORTIONS." Gigapixel would have been a much better choice.

I remember this program called Live Picture (that still lives on as a web tech I think) that my boss was thinking of getting since it would load large docs as a proxy and then work on portions that you zoomed into:

http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/live-picture-v-photoshop.html

Then RAM got cheap and that's why you never heard about Live Picture. So funny.

[meleseDESIGN]

Sorry for derailing the thread but is Gigapixel a distinct product?

Sure, Gigapixel images are distinct products and are very well rewarded!
:thumbsup:

[Jettatore]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapixel_image

[Remi]

Yeah NCIX is pretty good, they're my main stop as it's super cheap shipping for me and I only pay 5% taxes instead of the usual 13% thanks to ordering out of province :) You could build a wicked computer for $3k easily.. if you need any help ping me on FB or drop me a PM and I'll look at putting something together.


Will do, i'm looking to upgrade in March so i'll wait until then to hit you up probably:) Thanks for doing that.

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