Hardware for AM

#1

Hey folks, I’ll be attending AM this upcoming term, and the time is just about here to order my hardware components and get thing thing up and running. However, as this is my first time building a pc(I will however have a friend who has put a good number of them together, assist me) and I’m not all too tech-savvy, I would like some lookovers of the parts I have chosen out.

My budget was around 1,000 USD, but was willing to go over to make sure I don’t sacrifice quality, and also needed a monitor/keyboard/speakers/ and even snuck a Wacom Bamboo in there.

CPU: i3-3220 OR i5-3570k, I’m not sure on the difference, especially considering that Animation Mentors assignments shouldn’t be too demanding. And seeing as the cost of everything is already at 1,200. I would like to save the 100$ if I can, provided the i5 isn’t a massive improvement over the i3.

Besides for animating, I’ll be doing a decent amount of gaming, nothing too demanding I’m sure. And from what I gather, few games are designed to take advantage of quad-cores. (Or so it was 1-2 years ago, I don’t know about today, honestly.)

GPU: GTX 660 2GB, SUPERCLOCKED

MotherBoard: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

PSU: Corsair Enthusiast Series, 650W

Case:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WE9WQY/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (4X2) 1600 MHz

My main question however, concerns the Processor. Would you strongly urge me to whip out an extra 100$ for the the i5, or should the i3 serve me justice just fine? My budget on this is growing rather tightly.

Also, in terms of where to buy from. Does anyone recommend against amazon? I know newegg is usually the go-to, but I have Amazon Prime, and the free 2 day-shipping would be nice. However I’ve heard a small amount of complaints of parts not working on arrival, but that amazon was good about returning.

#2

Hi there,

The difference between those CPUs is pretty significant. And even though you’re going to spend most of your time animating, you’ll be wanting to render those animations too. Also, some complex rigs might push your CPU quite a bit as well. That, combined with your gaming, leads me to recommend a quad-core i5. Fortunately the 3570K isn’t the only one, and since you’re not tech-savy, you won’t need a K version for overclocking. You can get the i5 3470 instead. It’s around 30$ cheaper and slightly behind in terms of performance of the 3570K, but you won’t notice. I only recommend it to people who absolutely won’t do any OC, because if you do, the 30$ are well worth it.(http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/702?vs=701)

Continuing with the idea that you won’t be doing any overclocking, that choice of motherboard is not ideal. It’s leaning towards the high-end and pretty much overkill, I don’t think there is any feature that you really need on that board. You can go with one of the more simpler models like the P8Z77-M PRO or from ASRock the Extreme 4. That should save you another 50$ or so and make the system more sensible. You can even go lower, there are some cheap but solid motherboards that would still suit your needs perfectly, like the ASRock Pro3. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z77-express-ivy-bridge-benchmark,3254-35.html)

As for RAM, nowadays I recommend 16GB. It allows you to use your computer fully without having to worry about slowdowns and hiccups.

The 660 is a good card. But if you want to shave a few more bucks off your total you should take a look at both the 650Ti Boost and the AMD 7850. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-3.html)

And lastly, in my opinion that case is just a waste of money. You don’t need a full tower unless you plan on installing a bunch of hard drives, have a giant GPU and a big-ass cooler. Also, you’re going to be working on the computer, not looking at it, I always stay away from useless flashy cases. The Antec Three Hundred or the HAF 912 (if you want something more impressive) are great cases that don’t break the bank and perfectly fit the rest of your hardware.

I apologize if I was assuming too much with all the “you don’t needs”. Hope I was of help. :slight_smile:

#3

You’ve been EXTREMELY helpful, Will be making those changes for sure, thanks plenty mate. Greatly appreciate it!

#4

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