Help me for good configuration

[MohammedYusuf]

Hi Guys..I need ur help..Till now i am working with i3 core with 4 GB of ram with no external graphic card..Can anybody suggest me the next good configuration for me which shudnt be too expensive also..In i3 i did only interior renderings...but now i want to do external renderings also, and for that i think i3 is not enoigh...One of my friends suggested me i7 4th generation with 16 GB of ram..and he suggested me to go for graphic card of Nvidia series...and he was insisting on Quadro 6000 of 1 GB...I want to take suggestions of more people so that i can have a good machine atleast fr the next 2 years..I am working on 3ds max and V-ray...I would appreciate ur kind help.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Is you i3 home built or from a specific company (i.e. Dell, Lenovo, Acer etc) ?

Is it a laptop computer or desktop?

 

Reason I am asking is of course the ability to - in most cases - upgrade the CPU to a i7 or at least i5, add some RAM and perhaps a decent GPU and not change the system entirely (unless ofc you want to keep the current system for secondary tasks).

Yes, the "4th generation" i7 is the fastest, but if you currently have a 2nd or 3rd gen i3, you might be able to swap to a 3rd gen i7 without too much hassle.

 

Other than the RAM that might impose hard limitations, the i3 is perfectly capable of completing any short of rendering tasks. It is just a matter of extra time over the siblings with 2 or 6 extra threads.

 

The Quadro 600 or K600 are respectable cards, but you could also use a low end Radeon like the 7750 without issues. Offers from nVidia are kinda pale in the sub $100 range, where the 7750 is king. Around $150 you could do a K600 or a GTX 660, but if you were working with IGP that long, even the 7750 will be a vast improvement.

[MohammedYusuf]

Thnx very much Dimitris fr ur detailed explaination..Yes I am using a home built i3 and its a desktop...by the way what is GPU?

[Dimitris Tolios]

Thnx very much Dimitris fr ur detailed explaination..Yes I am using a home built i3 and its a desktop...by the way what is GPU?

 

Acronyms I might be throwing around:

 

CPU: central processing unit

GPU: graphics processing unit (usually used to describe graphic cards)

IGP: Integrated graphics processor (its a GPU, only built into the CPU)

APU: accelerated processing units (AMD's fancy name for CPUs with built in IGPs. In some APUs, AMD dedicates more transistors to the GPU than the CPU, and that is the path intel is traveling on now with its newest IGPs.

 

So, using acronyms, you have been using your i3's IGP as your graphics accelerator, without using an external "card", a separate GPU.

 

So, to the point questions:

 

Which i3 do you have?

Which motherboard do you have?

What kind of RAM do you have (memory module number/capacity/speed).

Power supply - exact model or company/capacity?