New "What machine should I buy" site

[Andrew Lynn]

Free t-shirt. Nice.

[Chris Ortiz]

Researched custom build shops like ava, alienware, falcon northwest, cyberpower, etc.
ended up choosing ORIGIN PC based on the reviews i found. We were getting down to crunch time and none of us here are hardware gurus but i think this will meet our needs for LUMION.

here it is. Made the order. very good sales experience. very helpful. sounds good so far. i went with the 3gb gtx 580 graphics card because it is the most powerful single core card right now and LUMION only uses one core...or something like that

let me know if u know anything different though. please feel free to scrutinize. i really enjoy learning the details when i can.
8-10 days to build, 4 days to ship from florida.

ORIGIN PC, Genisis:

ORDER DETAILS UNIT PRICE TOTAL
================================================== ====================
QTY 1
SKU DT002
PRODUCT DesktopTech Intel P67
PRICE $1,335.00
Premium Case Charge: None
Case (Chassis): Silverstone Raven 2
CaseExteriors: Case Exterior: No Paint
CaseLighting: CaseLighting: No Lighting
CaseWindow: Case Window
The ORIGIN Difference: Truly Custom PCs. Want a Included
component that is not on our site? Call or email
us and we will include it in your system.
Case Fans: None Included
Motherboard: EVGA P67 SLI B3 stepping (USB 3.0, $19.00
SATA 6Gb/s,)
Processor: Intel Core i5 2500 3.30GHz LGA 1155 $30.00
Quad-Core Processor (6MB L3 Cache)
System Cooling: High - Performance Air Cooling $65.00
Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler
Bay Devices: None Included
Media Card Reader: None Included
Power Supply: 750 Watt Silverstone PSU $54.00
Graphics Card: Single 3GB GDDR5 Nvidia GTX 580 $531.00
Memory: 16GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600Mhz (4x $172.00
4GB) Dual Channel Memory
RAID Controllers: None Included
RAID Configuration: None Included
Hard Drive One: 320GB - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM, Included
16MB Cache HDD
Hard Drive Two: None Included
Hard Drive Three: None Included
Hard Drive Four: None Included
Optical Drive One: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) Included
w/double layer write capability
Optical Drive Two: None Included
Audio: 8-channel High Definition Surround Sound Included
Support
Networking: Onboard Network Port Included
Operating System: Genuine MS Windows 7 Home Included
Premium 64-Bit Edition
ORIGIN Maximum Protection Shipping Process: Included
ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
Warranty: 1 Year Part Replacement and 45 Day Free Included
Shipping Warranty with DVD image and Lifetime
Support/Labor

ADDITIONAL CHARGES
Free ORIGIN T-shirt: ORIGIN T-shirt XLarge


Subtotal: $2,206.00
Shipping Charges: $105.03
=====================
Total: $2,311.03

Good build. I would have went with the 2600k.

I just built a mockup system to see there site. here it is :

Description
Unit Price
Price



DesktopTech Intel P67 $1,335.00 $1,335.00
Customizations:
Premium Case Charge: None


Case (Chassis): Silverstone Raven 2


CaseExteriors: Case Exterior: No Paint


CaseLighting: CaseLighting: No Lighting


CaseWindow: Case Window


The ORIGIN Difference: Truly Custom PCs. Want a component that is not on our site? Call or email us and we will include it in your system.
Included
Case Fans: None
Included
Motherboard: EVGA P67 FTW B3 stepping (USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, 3X SLI capable)
$106.00
Processor: Overclocked Intel Core i7 2600K 4.0GHz - 4.7GHz LGA 1155 Quad-Core Processor (8MB L3 Cache)
$155.00
System Cooling: Asetek 570LC Liquid Cooling,
$45.00
Bay Devices: Lamptron Fan Controller FC-3A Limited Edition - ORIGIN Recommended
$60.00
Media Card Reader: None
Included
Power Supply: 750 Watt Corsair PSU
$57.00
Graphics Card: Single 3GB GDDR5 Nvidia GTX 580
$531.00
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600Mhz (2x 4GB) Dual Channel Memory
$116.00
RAID Controllers: None
Included
RAID Configuration: None
Included
Hard Drive One: 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 - Solid State Drive
$287.00
Hard Drive Two: 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM, 64MB Cache HDD
$197.00
Hard Drive Three: 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM, 64MB Cache HDD
$197.00
Hard Drive Four: None
Included
Optical Drive One: LiteOn 12X Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD/BD)
$96.00
Optical Drive Two: None
Included
Audio: 8-channel High Definition Surround Sound Support
Included
Networking: Onboard Network Port
Included
Operating System: Genuine MS Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit Edition
$48.00
ORIGIN Maximum Protection Shipping Process: ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
Included
Warranty: 2 Year Part Replacement and Free Shipping Warranty with DVD image and Lifetime Support/Labor
$169.00


Additional Charges:
Free ORIGIN T-shirt: ORIGIN T-shirt Large


Cloud Power: Steam (The Ultimate online game platform)


Cloud Power: Microsoft Windows Live Essentials 2011 - ORIGIN Recommended


Cloud Power: Dropbox - Online Storage



Product Subtotal: $3,399.00

[pat c]

we use http://doghousesystems.com/

[Andrew Lynn]

Some companies like that are good, but I don't really love them for these business / professional PCs. You pay a premium for them and they're configured with gamers in mind, so if you want a high end brand you might as well use Boxx - they also charge a premium but they know CAD and 3d apps and provide a good level of support.

[Shaun Cahoon]

Thanks Brian and Andrew for posting this. I just purchased a modification of the Highend system. Had most of it ordered already and noticed this thread and it confirmed my decision. I almost went with the Phenom X6, as benchmarks for rendering in Max showed that it almost matched the i7 980T. I got a great price on the 980 processor, so I dove in...

i7 980
Sabertooth Mobo
12 Gigs 1600 ram
HIS Readon 6950 2GB
Caviar Black HD
Antec 300 Case

I am leaving a slot or two open for nvidia 580s or 590s once the next generation of cards come to bring the prices down.
Looking forward to the arrival of Unlimited Detail (see CGA news) in the next 5 years, so perhaps we wont need these same video cards.

[Andrew Lynn]

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2011: I am no longer maintaining the 3DATSTech site. Instead, I'll be maintaining the recommended configurations as lists on Amazon.com. Amazon.com has the advantages of easier to maintain lists, better prices and selection (they've really upped their game on computer parts lately) and a better affiliates system than Newegg.

Click here for the recommended configurations.

As many of you know, I've gone back to school, so if you do buy these configurations and want to use Amazon, please use that link and help me out with books

[Kanae Bamba]

Hi,

If I was to swap the Intel Core i7 processor of the "High End 3D Artist" to one of the Xeon processors, will I have to change the motherboard (and the case) too?

[Andrew Lynn]

Unless you have very unusual needs, I wouldn't build a system with a single Xeon CPU. It offers no advantage over a comparable i7 unless you need a particular feature set that isn't used by any arch vis software. (And the i7 CPUs in the High End configs on my Amazon page are a newer generation than the currently available Xeons. So if you used one you'd need the older generation MB with the appropriate CPU socket.)

[adam flack]

Hi, I'm afraid I don't have much computer knowledge but we are about to get a new render farm in the office and my boss was looking at the new AMD Opteron 4284 and 6238 which I think have 16 cores. Does anybody know much about these chips as they seem to be good value when comparing to Xeons. Are there any benchmarking tests for Arch Viz out there using these chips?

Thanks

[Andrew Lynn]

Good information on those is a bit thin. The 6328 is a 6-core 2.4GHz with AMD's answer to Hyperthreading. The 4284 is an 8-core 3.0GHz. They're not from the same line so you can't compare cores and GHz directly, so I couldn't tell you which is faster.

I can tell you that a test system with dual 6276, which is an 8-core, 2.3GHz from the same family as the 6328, gets a Cinebench score of 14.8. A dual Xeon X5670 in the same review got a 15.3 and a dual Xeon X5650 got a 13.4. The dual 6276 box has a total GHz (cores x GHz) of 36.8 and a dual 6328 would have 28.8 total GHz, so I'd expect it to be about an 11.5 in Cinebench. So that's a couple points slower than the dual X5650 but the system is probably about $1200 less expensive so it might be better value. OTOH, in a Maxwell benchmark (Maxwell is less like mental ray and Vray than Cinebench is) the 6276 was slightly faster than the X5650, so YMMV.

There's just too many Opteron models out there! Nobody's testing them all.