13 replies to this topic

[Reece.c]

I am currently getting a new computer and was wondering if there were any good brans or models on the market at the moment. My current aim is to get a origin custom made pc. With the stuff i do in mind would have to be in the high performance category( high quality graphics and audio card). Any suggestions?

[eggcarton]

<br />I am currently getting a new computer and was wondering if there were any good brans or models on the market at the moment. My current aim is to get a origin custom made pc. With the stuff i do in mind would have to be in the high performance category( high quality graphics and audio card). Any suggestions?<br />

<br /><br /><br />

http://www.scorptec....au/systems/all/

This is where I got mine from a bit over a year ago. I bought it in my 'break' from keeping with whats new in terms of hardware. Its a very good machine but not all that much room for upgrade with DDR2 and LGA755. I still get 80-90fps at full res and quality on Test Drive Unlimited, 30 fps Arma Full quality/res (with dual screens) 60 with one screen and 600+ Fps on Age of Empires 1.

From what I have seen, Origin seem to be a bit of overkill. What kind of things are you doing?

Edited by eggcarton, 11 November 2010 - 08:56 AM.

[Reece.c]

High end animation/ modeling, Graphic design and gaming.

[Xplorer4x4]

Whats your price range?

Depending on your budget, a quick run down:
Intel Core i7 930
MSI or Gigabyte Mobo(socket 1366)
6 GB DDR3 RAM - I would go with Corsair XMS series
Video Card - depends on what games you play. I would go with an ATI/AMD 5700 series card or 6800 series with out question, but I cant tell you what would be a good card based on "gaming" alone.
PSU - Depends on the video card mainly. Go with a Corsair brand PSU. Id say soemthing in the 600-700 range to be safe, but you might be able to get buy with a 500+ Watt Corsair depending on the video card. Corsair makes the best PSUs on the market, hands down, and this is one area you do not want to cheap out on. A cheap psu runs the risk of frying your parts, wasting all the money you spent on parts, or worse yet, can cause a fire, and obviously you could loose more then just your PC in that case..

Monitor wise, last I checked, Dell and Acer were about top of the line. I have a Dell2208 and it absolutely kicks ass!

Now a rig like this is going to run you a bit over a $1,000 USD so it may need to be scaled back. In which case swapping out the cpu,ram,and mobo could help out:
Core i5 720
Gigabyte or MSI Mobo with 1156 Socket
4 GB Corsair DDR3 RAM

However keep in mind for something like modeling a Core i7 is really the way to go, and really if your going to be doing complex animations to high polly models, I would say it is the better choice. You could always go cheap on the GPU for now, and upgrade it latter if needed, but in the long run going all out to being with would have been cheaper. Something like a ATI 5670 will give you decent gaming ability. Your not going to be playing GTAIV on high or anything, but its a good value card for descent gaming.

[Reece.c]

Thanks Xplorer i was thinking of getting a Alienware laptop or a origin desktop. And for money, that isn't much of a problem.
For a desktop i was thinking along the lines of.
Processor - OverClocked Intel Core i7 980X 4.0-4.5GHz
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage III Extreme
PSU - 1.5 Kilowatt Silverstone Strider
Graphics - Dual 2.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA Quadro 5000
RAM - 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz
Audio - ASUS XONAR XENSE

Does that sound like a good layout?

[ShaneGreen]

Thanks Xplorer i was thinking of getting a Alienware laptop or a origin desktop. And for money, that isn't much of a problem.
For a desktop i was thinking along the lines of.
Processor - OverClocked Intel Core i7 980X 4.0-4.5GHz
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage III Extreme
PSU - 1.5 Kilowatt Silverstone Strider
Graphics - Dual 2.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA Quadro 5000
RAM - 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz
Audio - ASUS XONAR XENSE

Does that sound like a good layout?

Hi reece.c,

Just recently received delivery of an Alienware Laptop M17X10 with i7 x 940 (2.13), 8 Gb RAM and dual ATI Radeon 5870's in crossfire.

I am still loading up programs at this stage but so far everything I try to run on it, runs like a dream on max graphics (would want to for the pricetag).

I am just loading up Emergency 2012 at the moment, will see how it goes.

So if you are considering one of these, I would certainly recommend it.

Good luck with your decision

Take care

Shane

[Reece.c]

Thanks shane,
Thats exactly the laptop i want lol. With the features such as alien sense and the fx lighting do they run smoothly? i am seriously considering buying this computer seems bang on buck for worth.

Thanks,
Reece

[MikeyPI]

*sighs I know ram sounds pretty and all that, one must remember alotta software/apps, aint 64 bit compatible, so ensure your software IS 64 bit before you waste the money on god-awfully high quantities of ram, otherwise it's kinda useless to have it.

[Reece.c]

Thanks for the reminder almost forgot about compatibility issues. Had them before not the best experience.

[MikeyPI]

Most 32 apps work on 64 OS, but the ram boost that 64 permits is not accessable by them, so unless you're talking really old software, most the time it works. I've had one app that refuses to install b/c it's 64, the rest still install in spite of it, but they can't access the extra ram that 64 makes possible; Given the cost increase in the ram that only the OS and a few other things use, unless one of your goodies really makes positive use of it, I wouldnt waste the money on overkilling the ram.

[Reece.c]

The only reason i was getting it because i was talking to one of my art/animation teachers and said that 3ds and maya could use all the ram they could get.

[MikeyPI]

Ensure Apps you use are 64Bit enabled, if they are then by all means it makes sense, if the version you have is not, then it isnt worth the investment imo.

[Xplorer4x4]

Thanks Xplorer i was thinking of getting a Alienware laptop or a origin desktop. And for money, that isn't much of a problem.
For a desktop i was thinking along the lines of.
Processor - OverClocked Intel Core i7 980X 4.0-4.5GHz
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage III Extreme
PSU - 1.5 Kilowatt Silverstone Strider
Graphics - Dual 2.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA Quadro 5000
RAM - 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz
Audio - ASUS XONAR XENSE

Does that sound like a good layout?

Alienware has gone down hill in quality over the years. They were originally there own company but were bought out by Dell, and now there just a high end Dell.

Secondly, I would recommend a desktop over a laptop any day(if possible). Laptop CPU and GPUs are scaled down versions of there desktop counterpart. Not to mention they are more likley to suffer heat damage.

Now moving on to the parts you reference, these sound like desktop parts despite mentioning an Alienware earlier on.
Processor - OverClocked Intel Core i7 980X 4.0-4.5GHz - If you can afford this bad boy, go for it. Now they come stock at 3.33GHz, and I dont know how well they OC, but being an Intel chip, I imagine 4.0-4.5 shouldnt be an issue.

Motherboard - ASUS Rampage III Extreme - Crap. Asus quality has went down hill over the past 2-3 years. Nor do you really need a high end mobo like this for a good OC. A solid low range Gigabyte mobo will still let you hit 4.0 easily.

PSU - 1.5 Kilowatt Silverstone Strider - Killowats? That alone sounds like a gimmick. Keep in mind, it isnt the Wattage thats important. What's really important is how many amps it has on a 12+V rail, and ideally 1 rail is better then two. Corsair PSUs may be slightly more expensive, but again this is by far the most important part, and Corsair offers a 5 year warranty on most of there PSUs, and they work like a champ.

Graphics - Dual 2.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA Quadro 5000 - Not a fan of NVIDIA cards. There inefficient power draw wise to there ATI counter parts, and usually suffer heat damage much easier then ATI. Well I guess thats AMD or ATI now(ATI was owned by AMD, still is actually but AMD has now rebrnaded the 6000 series cards to AMD rather then ATI).

RAM - 12GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz - Kingston makes good cheap ram, but in the grand scheme of things, there memory isnt all that great. Also, you need to make sure you Mobo is capable of handling 1600MHz ram. I made the mistake when I purchased this mobo, and while it does support 1600 MHz RAM, it doesnt support it to its full speed. 1333 MHz(I believe) is the safe bet. Oh and 12 GB is likley over kill. I would stick with 6 GB(3x2GB sticks) and then iff needed, grab 3 more sticks of RAM to bring you up to 12.

Audio - ASUS XONAR XENSE - Question is are you an Audiophile? Unless your trying to achieve absolute premium sound quality, then no need. Almost all mobos today come equipped to handle surround sound.

The only reason i was getting it because i was talking to one of my art/animation teachers and said that 3ds and maya could use all the ram they could get.

With in reason yes, as Mike pointed out, it does depend on the app. 3DS and Maya are not cheap. I think both cost over $1,000 USD and are high end 3D modeling apps capable of using the 64 bit architecture. 64 bit OSes do have a memory limit, but I forget what it is, so it may not even be relevant. Now just because an app is 64 bit compatible, I think the app itself can still have limitations how much RAM it can use. In the case of soemthing like Maya and 3Ds, I imagine the devs are thinking, if your spending over $1K on software, hardware costs likley wont be much of a factor, so I am sure the limits are quite high.


Another thing to keep in mind, if your seriously considering modeling, you might consider a Workstation GPU. These cards are for the most part, similar hardware wise to there gaming counterpart, but have specially designed drivers. When it comes to 3D models in apss like these, a Workstation card will dominate a gaming card in terms of performance, by that same standard, Workstation cards pretty much suck in terms of gaming, and a game gpu based card will demolish it in terms of game performance. If money really isnt an object, get a gaming card and a workstation card. However, I do not recommend getting 2 gaming cards for Crossfire/SLI. First off, not all games work with this set up. Well correction, they will work, but some games cant utilize both GPUs. Secondly, keep in mind, that they do not scale to 100% so essentially your not going to get double the performance. You are looking at about 80% performance out of each card rather then 100% as the GPUs then have to dedicate them selves to instructing each card how to work. I believe this drops even lower the more cards you add.

You never mentioned HDD either..stick to Western Digital or Seagate. The Segates tend to run a little hotter, but are still a good alternative to WD. Now Samsungs, there cheap, and I dont trust them. My buddy had a RAID set up with 3 Sammies, and while RAID is a great redundancy option, when all 3 drives fail at once, like in his case, well your screwed.

If you have any more questions just ask.

[FDNYpower]

i have a toshiba labtop its a very nice labtop it has a big screen great for watching movies and many othre things but it coasts $600 but i love it