Yep! Another PC build thread!

[TheDrummingKING]

First thing I will mention is what my intended uses of my PC will be: 3D modeling with Autodesk Maya (going to University for this in a year), and gaming.

Second is budget: hopefully up to ~$2000.

Third is: any help is greatly appreciated.


Now then, recently I have been looking into building myself a computer for the purposes I have listed. I've been going through the internet to learn as much as I could about what are good parts, and what aren't. But before I make a final decision I would like input from people who really know their stuff. I will be ordering my parts off of Newegg, so if you do suggest parts, I would ask you to make sure they are on there.

Here is a list of what I am currently thinking of purchasing:

-ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS ($220) ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ($150)

-G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL ($47)

-Galaxy 58NLH5HS3PXZ GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card ($475) XFX FX-795A-TNFC Radeon HD 7950 Core Edition 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ($450, comes with Dirt 3 )

-Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I72600K ($330) Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K ($225)

-CORSAIR Professional Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply ($155)

-Western Digital Caviar Black WD1502FAEX 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive ($170)

-Corsair Carbide Series 400R Graphite grey and black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case ($110)

-ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM ($20)


With shipping & handling (and tax) the total price comes to: $1891.78 $1678.09


If anyone knows how I can get more bang for my buck in any way please let me know. Also, if you see any problems (incompatibility etc.) with my list, also make that apparent. My parents will be the ones paying and I don't want to mess anything up! I'm opting for building it myself because I know it is better value for money, I just hope I can get my parents on board with me.

If any other information is needed please tell me, I will answer all questions.

 

[DQuaN]

The only thing I would suggest is an SSD for the system drive. You wont regret it.

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

Why not get a 7950?

 

[Terronium-12]

You can get better bang for your buck with a 2500k, and unless you absolutely need an optical drive - ditch it. I'd also recommend the G.Skill Sniper as opposed to the Ripjaws line, but I'm incredibly biased toward them as they're so cheap, the timings are fairly excellent, they use low voltage, and depending on the revision (and your board), they overclock like mad.

I'd second DQ's suggestion as well: get an SSD.

 

[Rotorist]

Not a 580 man! It's EOLed. Go for a 7950 or wait 2 weeks for a 7870 which is the best combination ever in FPS/W/$ till now...

 

[bevo]

I wouldn't go with a 580. The price over a 570 vs the performance isn't worth it, you can almost get 2 570s for the price of the 580 and they will blow it away, plus ATI has their new line of cards out. Also 1.5 g of ram isn't that much room for future proof. Some game are using more then that now anyway. Go with one of the new ATI cards with plenty of VRAM.

 

[TheDrummingKING]

The only thing I would suggest is an SSD for the system drive. You wont regret it.

I would like to, but they're much higher priced and don't have the amount of storage I'm looking for.

Why not get a 7950?

Based off of videos I have seen reviewing both in them, the 7950 and GTX 580 are very similar in performance—with the GTX 580 being slightly better for the games I actually want—and price (the 7950 is only $30 less). Then again any money I can save is always good. But taking a look at the 7950's ratings on Newegg in comparison to the GTX 580, most of the 7950's have either no rating or a lower rating, (even the ones that go up to the price of the GTX 580) though they're still 4 out of 5.

Actually, after reading the new replies, I went back and took a look, and this seems like a pretty good choice (if not a better one): http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102962

You can get better bang for your buck with a 2500k, and unless you absolutely need an optical drive - ditch it. I'd also recommend the G.Skill Sniper as opposed to the Ripjaws line, but I'm incredibly biased toward them as they're so cheap, the timings are fairly excellent, they use low voltage, and depending on the revision (and your board), they overclock like mad.

I'd second DQ's suggestion as well: get an SSD.

I still need to decide whether or not I need hyper-threading support. If Autodesk Maya, and the programs I will need to go along with that run better with hyper-threading, I will probably stick with the i7. And I need the optical drive if I'm going to play Battlefield 3.

 

[Terronium-12]

Fair enough. 👍

Okay... while I don't share the same opposition toward the 580 (although a 570 is cheaper, and two of thme will stomp it), it'd be best if you at least waited until Kepler hits the shelves any day now. If that's too expensive, then, the 7950 will drop in price as will the 7970.

 

[DQuaN]

I would like to, but they're much higher priced and don't have the amount of storage I'm looking for.

Really?

http://www.newegg.ca/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=Internal-SSD

And they're not used for storage, it should be used as your system drive. You still need your 1.5TB for storage.

 

[TheDrummingKING]

Fair enough. 👍

Okay... while I don't share the same opposition toward the 580 (although a 570 is cheaper, and two of thme will stomp it), it'd be best if you at least waited until Kepler hits the shelves any day now. If that's too expensive, then, the 7950 will drop in price as will the 7970.

From a quick google search I can't find when the GTX 690 (or is the 680 the GK110, it's all so confusing! ) is scheduled to be released. Do you have any idea on the time frame I could expect?

Really?

http://www.newegg.ca/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=636&name=Internal-SSD

And they're not used for storage, it should be used as your system drive. You still need your 1.5TB for storage.

I know they're faster, but I'm used to—and totally fine with—the speed of normal HDDs. To be honest I don't know much about SSDs other then them being faster for loading and saving, is there anything else I should know?

 

[nick09]

Why not have two machines? I know that since you will be working with 3D you will need a good workstation video card. Then you could have one machine do 3D work and a second for gaming. You could spend $1K on the 3D machine and spend the rest on the gaming PC. You can use a KVM switch to switch the monitors and keyboard and mouse between them. The reason why I'm saying this is because workstation cards are designed to render 3D objects according to what I've read online. You could build the 3D machine with this GPU or this GPU if you need to cut on the price. And to price cut you could use i5-2500K's in both of the machines since that is still a perfectly good CPU to use. You can also cut down on the size of HDD since these are two computers. So perhaps two 750GB HDD's, one for each computer. Also downgrade to this GPU(recommends 600w PSU) for your gaming machine. Not giving a full list of parts here but I think you should really have two computers for each purpose.

 

[bevo]

I


I still need to decide whether or not I need hyper-threading support. If Autodesk Maya, and the programs I will need to go along with that run better with hyper-threading, I will probably stick with the i7. And I need the optical drive if I'm going to play Battlefield 3.

Battlefield 3 won't run right with hyper threading turned on. To turn it on and off everytime you switched from BF3 to your Autodesk would be a real pain. You have to go into the MOBO bios to do it. It makes the game stutter really bad, to the point of being all but unplayable. I had to turn mine off to be able to play it. I don't think the new intel CPUs use hyper threading anyway. Mine is an i7-950, and I was thinking the newer ones didn't implement it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[TheDrummingKING]

Why not have two machines? I know that since you will be working with 3D you will need a good workstation video card. Then you could have one machine do 3D work and a second for gaming. You could spend $1K on the 3D machine and spend the rest on the gaming PC. You can use a KVM switch to switch the monitors and keyboard and mouse between them. The reason why I'm saying this is because workstation cards are designed to render 3D objects according to what I've read online. You could build the 3D machine with this GPU or this GPU if you need to cut on the price. And to price cut you could use i5-2500K's in both of the machines since that is still a perfectly good CPU to use. You can also cut down on the size of HDD since these are two computers. So perhaps two 750GB HDD's, one for each computer. Also downgrade to this GPU(recommends 600w PSU) for your gaming machine. Not giving a full list of parts here but I think you should really have two computers for each purpose.

I have a feeling that two machines would get a lot more expensive very quickly. And I had no idea that there was GPU's for 3D model rendering. What if (even though it would be very inconvenient) I bought both types of GPU's and switched them out as needed?

Battlefield 3 won't run right with hyper threading turned on. To turn it on and off everytime you switched from BF3 to your Autodesk would be a real pain. You have to go into the MOBO bios to do it. It makes the game stutter really bad, to the point of being all but unplayable. I had to turn mine off to be able to play it. I don't think the new intel CPUs use hyper threading anyway. Mine is an i7-950, and I was thinking the newer ones didn't implement it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Well the processor on my list does have hyper threading, but I suppose if it's not all that useful there isn't a point to it anyway, and that I'm better of saving money with the i5.

 

[thechosenwonton]

Battlefield 3 won't run right with hyper threading turned on. To turn it on and off everytime you switched from BF3 to your Autodesk would be a real pain. You have to go into the MOBO bios to do it. It makes the game stutter really bad, to the point of being all but unplayable. I had to turn mine off to be able to play it. I don't think the new intel CPUs use hyper threading anyway. Mine is an i7-950, and I was thinking the newer ones didn't implement it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

You are incorrect. This should be switchable via software available for the motherboard on most boards.

I don't know a thing about BF3 thing though.

 

[thechosenwonton]

I have a feeling that two machines would get a lot more expensive very quickly. And I had no idea that there was GPU's for 3D model rendering.



Well the processor on my list does have hyper threading, but I suppose if it's not all that useful there isn't a point to it anyway, and that I'm better of saving money with the i5.

i5 is the best bang for the buck; if you're going to be doing a lot of encoding/decoding audio/video, hyperthreading makes a huge difference (there are other applications to, but those you'll notice a big jump). Otherwise, i5.

 

[Icarus25]

How important is it to get things up and running quickly? If you can stand to wait, the Ivy Bridge CPUs should be out in a month to 6 weeks and they'll give you around a 8-10% increase in performance at the same price as the current i7/i5. Plus, the full line of AMD video cards should be at retail by then and the new Nvidia cards should be out or at least close to it.

I don't think workstation graphics are worth it at this point in time. There's no reason to go that far on a home machine until you really get deep into modeling. If you find yourself needing the benefits down the road then you can grab one, but until then a normal video card will get the job done.

 

[TheDrummingKING]

i5 is the best bang for the buck; if you're going to be doing a lot of encoding/decoding audio/video, hyperthreading makes a huge difference (there are other applications to, but those you'll notice a big jump). Otherwise, i5.

I've switched to the i5. 👍

How important is it to get things up and running quickly? If you can stand to wait, the Ivy Bridge CPUs should be out in a month to 6 weeks and they'll give you around a 8-10% increase in performance at the same price as the current i7/i5. Plus, the full line of AMD video cards should be at retail by then and the new Nvidia cards should be out or at least close to it.

I don't think workstation graphics are worth it at this point in time. There's no reason to go that far on a home machine until you really get deep into modeling. If you find yourself needing the benefits down the road then you can grab one, but until then a normal video card will get the job done.

Well I'd like to get things going quickly because I would like to get a head start on using and understanding Maya before I go to University.

And so far reading up on workstation GPUs, it seems only the $1000 and higher are really worth it for 3D modeling. The lower priced ones seem to not be all that great. So I will be sticking with a normal GPU until the need comes for a 3D specific one.

 

[Terronium-12]

From a quick google search I can't find when the GTX 690 (or is the 680 the GK110, it's all so confusing! ) is scheduled to be released. Do you have any idea on the time frame I could expect?

I don't know the exact date, but it should be this month unless it's release is moved over into Q2.

 

[nick09]

I have a feeling that two machines would get a lot more expensive very quickly. And I had no idea that there was GPU's for 3D model rendering. What if (even though it would be very inconvenient) I bought both types of GPU's and switched them out as needed?

Well one of the things I could suggest is the FX-4100. It's cheaper to buy and it's still a quad core to help with your 3d machine. You can easily get a cheap AM3+ motherboard(Something like $55-$65) along with 8GB of memory. Only suggesting it for the 3D machine and not for gaming. You can also price cut on the Intel motherboard.

 

[bevo]

I honestly have no idea how useful the hyper threading is. I don't use anything that needs it. It just didn't work with BF3 so I turned it off and never looked back.

 

[Azuremen]

The only major appeal to workstation cards, generally, was how they handled OpenGL instruction sets.

So really, just look at the version of OpenGL Maya wants to use, and then compare various OpenGL support bits between workstation cards and gaming cards. Last I checked, they tend to support similar versions.

Also, rendering is rendering, regardless of the application. It really does just depend on the instruction set.

 

[nick09]

It's honestly a topic I need review on. Well time to read about instruction sets.

 

[TheDrummingKING]

Well one of the things I could suggest is the FX-4100. It's cheaper to buy and it's still a quad core to help with your 3d machine. You can easily get a cheap AM3+ motherboard(Something like $55-$65) along with 8GB of memory. Only suggesting it for the 3D machine and not for gaming. You can also price cut on the Intel motherboard.

I've switched over to this motherboard. 👍

The only major appeal to workstation cards, generally, was how they handled OpenGL instruction sets.

So really, just look at the version of OpenGL Maya wants to use, and then compare various OpenGL support bits between workstation cards and gaming cards. Last I checked, they tend to support similar versions.

Also, rendering is rendering, regardless of the application. It really does just depend on the instruction set.

I wasn't aware of that, thank you.

 

[thechosenwonton]

Not a 3D guy here, just a lowely sysadmin - but would having more threads for rendering speed things up, or is that primarily the task for the GPU (I'm guessing the later)?

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

Well one of the things I could suggest is the FX-4100. It's cheaper to buy and it's still a quad core to help with your 3d machine.

I want to puke..... Why would you suggest the FX, when the i3 2100 can beat it?


As for the 3D modelling, 3DS MAx 2012 has this new Nitrous rendering thing that uses the GPU power too.. it works with my 6770. I'm not sure however if Maya uses it too.

 

[nick09]

I want to puke..... Why would you suggest the FX, when the i3 2100 can beat it?

Because it's still better at video rendering at the price range against an i3 2100 and many programs could use the extra two cores. I recommended it because it was cheap and did fair performance for what it is.

 

[Azuremen]

I want to puke..... Why would you suggest the FX, when the i3 2100 can beat it?

Melodramatic much?

 

[NissanSkylineN1]

Melodramatic much?

LOL. Yea... I might have exagerated too much there/

 

[TheDrummingKING]

I'm only getting one machine guys. I'll be updating the OP with my new list of parts.