New "What machine should I buy" site

[AJLynn]

Hmm. Interesting idea. No idea how it's implemented

[cupsster]

Should I go for this now or wait a little for something better?

 

ASUS P8P67-M PRO stepping B2

INTEL Core i7-2600K

SAPPHIRE HD 6970

2x KINGSTON 8GB KIT DDR3 1333MHz CL9

OCZ Agility 2 Series 60GB

WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar Black 1000GB 64MB cache

Enermax PRO82+ II 625W

ANTEC One P-183 Advanced Super

Noctua NH-U9B SE2

CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-Fi Titanium

[AJLynn]

It's a fine kit. But wait for a motherboard from the next batch. (See 3datstech.com for some info on the bug in the last batch of Intel P67 chipsets.)

[cupsster]

So that list is ok. Thank you for confirmation. I know about bug. Hope that Intel will move fast cause it's fine piece of HW. This config is priced here around 1 800€. I'm jealous of newegg is not available in europe. Such a shame.

[clasher]

Hello,

 

I have same questions as everyone else planning to buy suitable machine- mainly planning to use autocad 2011, revit architecture, 3ds max design 2011, v-ray, photoshop etc.

Currently planned specs:

 

 

• LED Display (1920 x 1080)
  
• Processor: Intel Core i7-740QM Processor (6M cache, 1.73 GHz)
  
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional
  
• 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
  
• 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
  
• 8X DVD +/- RW Drive
  
• 1.0 GB NVIDIA Quadro FX880M
  
• 10/100/1000mbit
  
• Wifi
  
• Bluetooth
  
• TV-out: VGA out ja Display port (HDMI, DVI)
  
• 3x USB, eSATA, sd-reader, firewire
  
• 6-cell Li-ion battery
  

I read from somewhere that if having 8gb ram, then it is necessary to have 64bit op-sys. Is that correct or does it use 8gm with 32 bit op sys as well?

 

Looking forward to have helpful advice...

[AJLynn]

Nothing wrong wit that computer, though if you don't plan on buying right now, Intel has greenlighted companies selling Sandy Bridge notebooks and you should be able to get one soon. (The motherboards have the problem with the SATA controller that can break down over time, but they have a second controller that doesn't so laptops with up to 2 SATA devices hooked up to the nonproblematic controller are fine.)

 

You do need a 64-bit OS to use 8GB. In general, there is no reason to get a 32-bit OS now. Even my ultraportable has 64-bit Windows.

[AJLynn]

There's really nothing to complain about here, but a couple of suggestions:

 

-I don't see any compelling reason to get an i7-960 at this time. I'd go to a 970 (which is a 6-core) or switch to an 1155 motherboard (the P series) and an i7-2600 series. The CPU is faster, but the drawback is it's not as good if you want multiple video cards.

-The video card is probably overkill. This is a two GPU design, basically two 2gb 6870 GPUs on one board. This is a great card for gamers, so if that's part of your goal here, go for it, and if you want to run Vray RT-GPU, this would be a good option, as would a Geforce 580 3GB. If this is just for Max, I'd get something less extreme - the price/performance is not good, and it uses an awful lot of power. Radeon 6970, 6870, Geforce 560 and 570 are all good options.

[AJLynn]

Free t-shirt. Nice.

[Slinger]

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

[mrcamper]

we use http://doghousesystems.com/

[AJLynn]

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.

[creasia]

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.

Edited September 2, 2011 by creasia

[AJLynn]

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

[kbamba]

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?

[AJLynn]

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.)

[adamf]

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

[AJLynn]

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.

[kbamba]

Hello! I have a dellU3011 and it seems like I cannot get the full resolution of 2560x1600 (the max says 1600x1200)... I bought the AMD V7900 graphics card. Thanks for the help!

[litleboy]

is your monitor capable of the max resolution?

[kbamba]

nvm, i used a displayport/dvi adapter and it works fine, thanks!

[Tommy L]

Hey there Andrew, any recommendations on 'Ultrabooks'? I like the look of the Asus Zenbook line, the U500 coming out soon looks supernice, but are the graphics cards in these any use for 3d stuff? You have an inside scoop?

I REALLY like the idea of the external graphics card/ drive unit like in the high end Sony laptop. That thing weighs about 2.5 pounds and is built bendy to increase durability. I dont mind spending 3k, but its a Radeon... I need Physx!

[nachoangulo]

I think Ultrabooks only have an Intel integrated graphics card. Which is fine for web browsing, but useless in terms of 3d performance.

[Dimitris Tolios]

I believe ASUS Zenbook UX32VD is the only 1080p ultrabook with dedicated GPU (GT 620) - not great, but still 2-3 times better than HD4000.

 

There are more powerful options, like the Acer Timeline M3/M5 etc, but i believe those are 768p...if you can live with that, those are not bad choices.

Edited October 20, 2012 by dtolios

[COLNAGOBOY]

Before I build a render workstation, I would like to hear folks opinions. I primarily run Max / VRay / Revit, etc.

I'm eyeing on ASUS Z9PE-D16/2L SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 with 2x Xeon E5-2630 which can accommodate max. 256GB RAM, or MSI X79A-GD45 (8D) LGA 2011 Intel X79 with single Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition which can accommodate max. 128GB RAM with higher clock speed.

Regardless of other important components such as GPUs, etc., which platform will be better suited for my environment, provided that the costs are somewhat comparable to each other!? Thanks in advance

[Dimitris Tolios]

Before I build a render workstation, I would like to hear folks opinions. I primarily run Max / VRay / Revit, etc.

I'm eyeing on ASUS Z9PE-D16/2L SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 with 2x Xeon E5-2630 which can accommodate max. 256GB RAM, or MSI X79A-GD45 (8D) LGA 2011 Intel X79 with single Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition which can accommodate max. 128GB RAM with higher clock speed.

Regardless of other important components such as GPUs, etc., which platform will be better suited for my environment, provided that the costs are somewhat comparable to each other!? Thanks in advance

 

Actually the X79 platform supports up to 64GB of Ram.

The MSI mobo you've mentioned above has - i think - 4x dimm slots, and even 64GB will be hard to reach as 16GB DDR3 modules are VERY expensive and usually slow. Shoot for a 8x dimm-slot Mobo if you want to go above 32GBs of RAM.

 

The 3960X and the newer 3970X are very very fast, and will easily surpass a E5-2630 Xeon pair in most tasks other than rendering - remember, other than the rendering process in 3DS and/or video editing and transcoding programs, and a few filters in Photoshop, most of the 3D workflow is still single-threaded, so the much faster i7 will be a better choice than the numerous, yet slower Xeon cores.

 

Better yet, the 3930K has almost the same performance as the Xtreme processors, for half the price and it is definitely a much much better value for money proposition.

 

In the long run, I don't know what kind of projects you are dealing with, but rarely more than 16GB or Ram is REALLY required for most projects - unless you go crazy with vegetation or particles etc. At any rate, 32GB or RAM are a very good start for a potent workstation based on the X79 platform. Getting a 8-dimm-slotted MoBo, and 4x 8GB DDR3 sticks, leaves room for a further upgrade to 64GB should that be required in the future.