December-January Computer Buying Help Thread

[AJLynn]

Well, I don't know how many of you are shopping for hardware during the holiday downtime, but as usual please consolidate any questions and discussion relating to buying computers to this thread, so that we can get it all in one place, and please read:

 

http://www.3datstech.com/ and

http://www.3datstech.com/2010/12/december-2010-workstations.html

 

for recommended configurations for a number of situations. The site will receive an update in January, hopefully after Intel has launched its next generation of midrange CPUs. This month's recommendation include workstations for the entry level, graphic design, several price points for 3D artists, CUDA users, render nodes and render farms.

[alias_marks]

I'm in the market to upgrade ram and wold appreciate any suggestions. My particular situation is that I have 6 ram slots filled with 2GB each, but would like to get upwards of 24 GB.

 

I'm a bit of a novice with ram upgrades and don't know much, so maybe a pointer that direction would be helpful? i.e. is it ok to mix and match different sizes of RAM on newer machines? where's the best place to purchase RAM? Any installation tips/tricks?

 

Maybe not that relavent to many out there, but I'm curious

 

I have a newish dell precision T5500

 

Cheers,

 

M-

[AJLynn]

If you look at Crucial.com and choose you model from the drop-downs it will show you compatible memory. With the 6-slot motherboards RAM goes in sets of 3 DIMMs, but with dual Xeons (this is a dual CPU system, right?) there are six memory channels so you get the best performance when using 6 matched DIMMs. I'd go with two of the 12GB (3x4GB) kits, 24GB for about $740.

[alias_marks]

Ah, great, thanks for the recommendation. Yes it's a dual cpu. Didn't know that 6 same sized dimms is the best speed so thanks for the tip there. Is it a completely bad idea to ... say... mix Three 2gb dimms and Three 8gb dimms? Will this cause other problems besides just speed loss?

 

Thanks,

 

M-

[AJLynn]

I guess that would depend on the motherboard. I don't know whether that T5500 would deal with it well.

[alias_marks]

ok, cheerio.

 

Thanks for the help Andrew, much appreciated.

 

M-

[kippu]

andrew , why did you go with the 6850 instead of a gtx 460 in the budget 3d setup? wont the 460 help in vray more than the 6850?

[AJLynn]

The 6850 outperforms the 460 in most situations and uses less power under load, for about the same cost, and CUDA inclusion on the workstations I'm not calling CUDA editions is only a tiebreaker, so the Radeon gets the win. Also, three reasons this isn't very important, vis-a-vis Vray users:

1. GPU rendering with monte carlo algorithms on a 1GB card isn't going to be so great anyway

2. Video cards have no effect on the Vray production renderer, just the real-time engine

3. When Chaosgroup gets an ATI-compatible version out I have no reason to believe a 460 would outperform a 6850

 

But if you wanted to build a system like that with a Geforce there would be no compelling reason not to buy a 460 (the 2GB version if it's available in your area).

[Dave Buckley]

Ok so it turns out I'm in the market for a new PC buying everything from new.

 

I have a budget of around £3000.

 

I have checked out the 3DATS December Workstations and the high-end seems to fit my budget.

 

Only problem is it's all American prices etc. Now I'm going to want to buy my kit from the UK and have sat on the overclockers page for a while now trying to find all of the parts in the list from Newegg for the High-End spec. The only problem I have is that something isn't available or I can't find something listed then I have no clue what to swap it out for.

 

I would buy from the USA but I imagine the shipping costs to sent my budget through the roof?

 

The major things I couldn't find on the Overclockers website was the recommended FirePro V7800.

 

Would I be able to swap this out with anything. Or do you have an english equivalent website to the newegg one?

[AJLynn]

Disclaimer, I don't really know anything about the UK market. All I know is that a lot of people like scan.co.uk. They have a pretty good selection and apart from VAT the prices seemed to be in line with Newegg.

[kippu]

wondering how the sandy bridge is going to confuse us even more with their release

[AJLynn]

I'm waiting and seeing how that looks before writing any more articles. It looks like it will likely hit the low-to-mid market first (new socket 1155) and not go high-end (new socket 1365 and Xeons) until later in the year.

[kippu]

the new numbers of the i5 2500k is way impressive compared to the i7 980 , and i havent moved to the i7 yet ,time flies