"What computer should I buy" thread for May

[AJLynn]

I've just posted the May workstation recommendations at http://www.3datstech.com and they make extensive use of 6-core CPUs. I don't want to spoil anything, but AMD dropped a bomb on the $200-300 price class last week. If you'd like to discuss those configs, or any other computer configuration questions, fire away.

[MortenOlesen]

Brilliant. Very interesting article as usual. Thanks

[fadi3d]

Hi Andrew those reviews are very helpfull but i've got a question for u if that is not a trouble.

i am about to buy a new pc for home (mainly for max and vray, ps etc) my boss wants to give me an old pc from the office a core 2 quad but i want a better one.right now i work on an i7 920 wich is cool so my question:

-should i go for the 920/940 i7 (wich i hope to upgrade for the new 6 core i a year or so when the price comes down) or the i5

-for the i7 what MBoard do u recommend ?

-is an ati 5850 adequate (my scenes hit the 3 mil poly )

-do u recommend an ssd for the operating system ?

 

ps an Amd or xeon is out of the question.

 

thank u in advance

[AJLynn]

How much can you spend on this? An i7 is better than a Core 2 Quad, an SSD is better (faster anyway) than a regular hard drive, a faster video card is better than a slower one, but as I said you can run Max and Photoshop just fine on a machine under $1000. (Personally I use a Core 2 Quad with regular hard drives and a video card I got four or five years ago.)

 

BTW, for an i7 - for the 9-series, Asus P6T. For the 8-series (which is actually better for Photoshop because its high Turbo Boost numbers make it the fastest CPU in this price class for 1- and 2-thread use) the ASRock P55 Pro.

[fadi3d]

Thank u Andrew for the quick response i really appreciate it.

 

i am reday to pay 1500$ (of course prices here are a bit different then in the US, often more expensive)

the thing is i don't want to change all the pc in a year (just the Cpu if it is justifiable) and my time at home is limited so the faster the render the better.

as i said at the office i use an i7 920 and usually my renders at 1600*1200 take more or less a hour but at home i want to render at higher resolution and maybe fool around with animation. photoshop is only for touch ups and so rendering with vray (maybe Zbrush or vue in the near future ) is my main concern.

so i know what the cpu is capable of but will the ram and the vga be enough (as the 5870 is much more expensive here ) ? i should mention that i'll be using two lcds one 20'' and the other 24''.

thank u again and bless u.

[JamesL]

So are you saying that if you cant stretch to the i7 980x, you should go for an AMD processor (even an i7 930/960?)

[AJLynn]

Fadi: Any 9xx series CPU will be good - better for upgrading to a 6-core later. Get the 920 or 930. Get the RAM in multiples of 3GB. 6GB is a good starting point - get 3x2GB and a MB that has 6 slots, and you can upgrade to 12GB later if necessary. A 5850 is a great card, if you can budget it - if not, save some money and get the 5570.

 

You should be able to get all that into a $1500 system.

[AJLynn]

James: The AMD 6-cores are the best value right now for multithreaded rendering in that price class. The 1090T is a bit faster than the i7-930 and about the same as the 960 but cheaper.

[JamesL]

Thanks...in terms of future-proofing a system (where possible?!) would you still go with the AMD or would it be better to go with an Intel with a view to upgrading when the i7 980x comes down in price? This is for a new build system.

[fadi3d]

Andrew thanxs a lot man i think that's just what i'll do.great system to start with and a good path to upgrade later,

Cheers.

[Scott Smith]

Hey Andrew.

 

Read thru some posts, and looked at your site. No mention of laptops though, so I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

 

This won't be a full-time desktop replacement, but I'd like it to be capable. I figure if I can run MAX/VRay, PS, etc. on my old Acer w/ Centrino and 1GB of RAM (http://goo.gl/CnRB), I don't need the top of the line to replace it!

 

Here's the kicker: I'd love to stay under $1000 if possible. Like I said, this won't be my main setup, but it would be nice if I could work somewhat comfortably on it for those days out of the office.

 

I've seen some HP, Dell, Acer, and others offer variations on this theme: i5-430, 17", 320HD, 4RAM, for about $700. I know the i5 isn't top of the line, but I think that's probably my budget. Any recommendations on specific specs, or machines you'd recommend?

 

Thanks!

Scott

[AJLynn]

Scott: The i5-430M is pretty weak, can you find one in budget with an i5-5xx and a discrete GPU without shared memory?

[Scott Smith]

Thanks for the reply. I'll poke around and see what's out there. Most of the places that sell in this price range don't list a whole lot of detailed specs.

[Scott Smith]

What about AMD? Do they have any affordable contenders these days?

 

Here are a few machines I've found. If you have a moment, see what you think:

Staples - HP

Sams Club - Dell

Best Buy - Vaio

Best Buy - Toshiba

Newegg - Acer

[AJLynn]

I wrote a long reply then my wifi service made me re-login and I lost it. But what it came down to was, the best of those choices are:

 

-Toshiba: Best CPU, but the video card is weak and the screen is low res.

-Acer: Best video card, but the screen is low res.

-Sony: Video card is in the same league as the Acer. Best battery life, and the screen is higher res.

 

I'd choose the Sony.

 

BTW, I don't know where Best Buy comes up with the things they say about products they sell. The Sony doesn't have "4-way processing". It's a dual-core CPU without hyperthreading - that means 2-way processing. The Toshiba isn't 1.8GHz, it's 1.6GHz. (But it's still the best of those CPUs because it's a 4-core with unusually good turbo boost numbers.) I guess this is expected from the people who tell you you need a $120 HDMI cable to use a blu ray player.

[Scott Smith]

Exactly. I can't stand Best Buy. Pulled them up because I was looking for any laptops that might be available in town.

 

Thanks for the advice!

[AJLynn]

Missed one.

 

James: It's a bit hard to tell how the future CPUs will compare, but it looks like the nest Intel 6-core release will be a non-extreme 3.2GHz for about $600 later this year. AMD has an 8-core in the pipeline but nobody's sure whether it will work on current MB's.

[blumentopferde]

Hey!

Does anyone know if the AMD 6-core CPUs are good for overclocking? I usually buy the lowest end Intel CPU (in that case it would be the Intel Core i7-920) and Overclock it to the Max. This way I ran always faster and cheaper with Intel CPUs than i could have ever run with AMD CPUs so far. The i7-920 should - adequate cooling provided - run neatly with up to 3,6 Ghz. Could an (overclocked?) AMD Phenom II x6 1090T keep up with that?

[AJLynn]

I'm no expert on AMD overclocking but I can tell you that that 890FX board is one of the ones OC'ers like, that internet crazy people have been able to get a 1090T to over 5GHz and that while I wouldn't recommend actually doing that, since you're know what you're doing 4+ GHz is realistic and it will be faster than that i7.