Help to revamp my PC

[Playdo]

I'm looking to swap out a few parts of my PC and make it more powerful for 3ds Max+MR, and later on VRay too. I'd like to future-proof it. I know a bit about computers, but not much, so I'd really appreciate advice on what can be done with this. I'd like to be able to produce highly detailed scenes, ie grass geometry etc. Animations are not much of a concern, I believe I'd be better off with a small render farm for that.

 

Would I be wise to go with 12+ GB RAM and maybe even 8+ cores, or is this really overkill. I'd rather put a bit of extra cash in now rather than needing to change it again at a later date. What would be the best compatible upgrade path with what I have available?

 

Here's what I have at present:

 

- Coolermaster CM690 Case

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=2908

 

- Coolermaster 460W Dual 12V Rail Power Supply

 

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 CPU

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=33924

 

- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro

http://www.arcticcooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1_42&mID=72

 

- Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Motherboard

http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2743#ov

 

- 2 x Kingston 2GB PC6400 DDR2 RAM

 

- nVidia 8800GT 1GB Super PCI-E Graphics Card

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2255[url=http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2255][/url] ?

 

- Creative Labs Audigy SE 7.1 Sound Card

http://uk.store.creative.com/products/product.aspx?catid=1&pid=14257

 

- 500GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive

 

- Samsung 22X Dual Layer SATA DVD +/- Rewriter

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-SH-S223C-layer-Writer-DVD%C2%B1RW/dp/B002YXVX7U

 

I listed a few extra components there just in case there are compatibility issues.

[AJLynn]

Well, first, there's no such thing as "future proof" - the most relevant questions are:

 

-What are your actual needs?

-What are your actually foreseeable needs?

 

E.g., "I've got a copy of Vray 2 on order and I plan to use the GPU feature" would be an actually foreseeable need making me want a better video card in the immediate future" is actually foreseeable, but "At some point I'd like to get into GPU rendering" is not. The reason to not attempt to future-proof by buying hardware you don't need right now is that the hardware industry moves fast and between now and actually using the software new exciting things will develop - Chaosgroup will get the software running on ATI cards and nVidia and ATI will both introduce new hardware and bring down the price of older hardware.

 

But I digress. The problem is that Intel changed the motherboard and RAM requirements when they put out the i7 CPUs, so with a new CPU you'll need a new BM and new RAM and maybe a new PSU depending on what you do, and you can't keep the Freezer 7 either. As a starting point I'd suggest looking at the MB/CPU/RAM combinations in the Midrange and High End systems on 3datstech.com.

[Playdo]

Hi Andrew. Thanks for the link. I want to produce highly detailed (geometry), arch vis, still images, without running into hardware issues later. Would increasing my RAM to 8GB DDR2 and 64-bit software be sufficient, or will I find that I actually needed to upgrade the other hardware? Btw my CPU is overclocked to 3.2GHz. I don't need the workstation to be lightning fast, but I do need it to be able to smoothly handle what I throw at it.

[AJLynn]

Oh, you're in 32-bit? Yes, another 4GB and 64-bit software would give you a substantial performance improvement when working with large scenes.

[Playdo]

Yes I'm running 32-bit at present. So you'd say that 8GB DDR2 RAM and 64-bit would be more than sufficient for work like this where most foliage and details are modeled? :

 

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/show/7901/red-vertex-foliage-tutorial

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/show/7938/making-of-time-under-the-tree

 

I can't compare it as I've never used Max in 64-bit.

 

Thanks

[AJLynn]

You could ask on Evermotion how much RAM was needed for those scene. What I can tell you is that 8GB and 64 bit would much improve the number of polys you can handle - you'd be more than doubling the amount of memory actually accessible by Max.

[Playdo]

I'll do that. Thanks for your help.