On manhattan, need advice on where to get a fast desktop computer for archviz works.

[Sergio Valenzuela]

Hi everyone

I´m a freelancer in 3d Architectural visualization working remotely from Manhattan for some clients outside US.
By now (with huge patience sometimes), i work on my macbook pro (bootcamp, win 7 64 bits) in 3dsmax 2012 and vray and i need to get a desktop computer to speed up my job.

i´m thinking more on a gamer type PC like this that can hold well my type of scenes, like this :

iBUYPOWER Gamer Supreme 921SLCK Desktop PC Intel Core i7 3930K(3.20GHz) 16GB DDR3 2TB HDD Capacity NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 2GB Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

would anyone share any succesful experience on where to purchase it (online or store), in terms of good service, reliability and satisfaction with the machine?
any better idea welcome.

appreciating any help

Thank You!

Sergio V.

www.rendertone.com

[Dimitris Tolios]

There is no doubt that if you are willing to spend the money for such a desktop, the performance increase over any MBP will be tremendous.
Even with a much cheaper i7 quad core for the LGA 1155 socket, and not a hex-core, the gains will be similar or in some cases better, especially with the newer ivy 3770 (K or not).

There are 3-4 threads analyzing do-s and don't-s and giving general to very specific advices when picking components for your build (or choosing a PC based on the pre-configured components alike). If you take some time to go though all the "workstation build requests" etc threads I am sure you will get answers that apply to your case just fine.

I am pretty sure you can get a better bang for your buck than with the system I see - even if we are talking off-the-shelf ready systems, but again much of the above advices just like this guess-timation are subjective. You are right tho that you do need to build something that would be described as a "gamer's" rig: if you describe what you want to do with it, most "experts" in stores will try to give you something with an overpriced quadro that most likely is seriously underpowered in comparison to a much cheaper midrange GTX card. Superior driver support etc have been foobar (for quadros) for 2+ generations now.

[Sergio Valenzuela]

Dimitrios, thanks so much for taking the time to reply.
i will research in the threads You mentioned, and i'm happy
that was not so wrong looking for a gamer like pc.
and yes, doing animation renders with the MBP is a Zen test.

all the best
sergio