Yet another help Viper pick some PC parts thread

Viper007Bond

Viper007Bond

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Hello and welcome to the 4th installment of "Viper is too out of the loop to figure out what PC parts to pick" !

In this month's episode, we'll be discussing parts for my other sister's new PC. She currently has a P4 3.0GHz with an ATi 3850. While we replaced her old ATi 9800 Pro to give her PC a bit more life, the CPU is now just too much of a bottleneck for working with Maya, Photoshop, etc.

Desired / required specs:

  • A decently fast CPU. She'll be doing rendering and stuff, so a proper C2D is probably best here. Doubt a quad core is worth the money.
  • A NVIDIA video card (we're very tired of ATi and it's drivers). My 8800 GT seems to be okay, so in that ballpark of performance.
  • 4 gigs of RAM (lots of multitasking)
  • A new PSU
  • A new mobo (obviously)
  • Stuff I'm forgetting?

Basically the entire guts for a whole new PC. Budget is $600, maybe $700 I think. She just graduated from college with a buttload of loans, so the more inexpensive the better.

+rep and cookies to all that help! <3
 
Have a look of the spec of my new build, seems to tick all of your boxes. I would say that Quad is worth the money but it depends what you use it for. :)

Maybe that will cost a bit too much, in which case a decent dual core would be better.
 
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Not really into that stuff anymore, but i've heard good stuff about the new generation of socket AM3 AMD Phenom processors. Supposedly they're on par with C2D performance, and give a better bang for your buck.
 
Recently had to upgrade myself. The best bang for the buck system would look like this imho:


CPU: Phenom II X3 720 or Phenom II X4 955 if it fits in the budget
MB: MSI 790GX-G65
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (replace with Nvidia card if you really have to, but atm it get's my budget crown)
Ram: 2x 2GB DDR3 (1333 is pretty affordable by now, I picked Corsair TW3X4G1333C9)
PSU: SeaSonic S12II-430, good efficiency, low noise

Power consumption probably isn't high on your priority list, but this system will do pretty well in this regard, Cool and Quiet works even if you decide to overclock.
 
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Suedschleife said:
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4770 (replace with Nvidia card if you really have to, but atm it get's my budget crown)
Click to expand...

NVIDIA is a must. ATi drivers don't play well with Maya, but we just both dislike the drivers in general.
 
* A decently fast CPU. She'll be doing rendering and stuff, so a proper C2D is probably best here. Doubt a quad core is worth the money. Rendering? Quad core is the way to go especially if you use Adobe Premiere and other pro apps. They utilize all 4 cores and you'll get the most from your money from a quad core. Invest in a Core i7 if budget permits. If not, a Core 2 Quad would do fine.

* A NVIDIA video card (we're very tired of ATi and it's drivers). My 8800 GT seems to be okay, so in that ballpark of performance. It depends what LCD/monitor you have. For a 22incher, a GTS250 would be more than enough (it's a faster but rebadged 9800GTX+). For 24-30inchers, I'd get nothing less than a GTX275. If you want that dual core GTX295 (fastest video card out right now), then by all means.

* 4 gigs of RAM (lots of multitasking) Don't spend too much on these. A "normal" non-OC'D ram would do. You'd be wasting money on high-performance rams while offering only 5% additional performance...at BEST. DDR3 or DDR2 would depend on your motherboard. But if you want 4gb, make sure you install the 64bit of Windows vista.

* A new PSU - Google: "PSU Calculator" and input all the parts you will be powering. You'll get an idea how much you'll need. But as a rule of thumb, get something 40-50% more powerful than that as PSUs work their best (efficiency wise = hence saving you electricity) @ 50% load. (i.e you system needs 300w, get a 550-600W PSU). Best brand to get is PC Power and Cooling. Other good brands are: Enermax, Antec, etc.

* A new mobo (obviously) - If you get a Core i7, then you need an X58 motherboard. If you won't be tweaking or anything, Intel's X58 is more than enough. It offers SLI too in case you need to double your video cards as the need arises. If you will do some overclocking, then best X58s to go for are either Asus or EVGA.

* Stuff I'm forgetting? $700 budget... I just laid out your options... but with this budget, you can get:
Core 2 Duo E8400
4gb RAM DDR2
Asus P45
nVidia GeForce GTS250 (don't go beyond 1gb. 2Gb is useless)
Corsair HX520/620 PSU

That would be around 600$
 
Yeah a 520W is more than enough, I'm running the HX520 now with no problems at all.
 
Funny... I just spec'ed out an upgrade right in that price range yesterday.

Newegg has this mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387
in a combo with a Phenom II X4 940 for $270.

You should be able to do that w/ 4GB RAM and a GFX card close to 8800 GT performance for close to $400, leaving you plenty of budget for a PSU. Even if you need a HDD(s) that would still put you under $600.
 
Put this together real quick, these are belgian ripoff prices though :)
You should be able to find them much cheaper.
Went for a AMD quadcore setup with AM3 for moar futureproof.
Provides plenty of bang for the buck.
 

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Here's the list of items when I did a rebuild back in November '08:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Wolfdale 2.66GHz LGA 775 Dual-Core Processor - $148

ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - $119

SAPPHIRE 100255L Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - $95

Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - $55

That's what I initially bought, so it came to a total of $461 (Canadian, with $24 combo discount, incl. ship/tax). I think I got a seriously good deal for all that from newegg.ca.

I later bought a new PSU: OCZ GamexStream 600W, for a total of $108.50

Then, more recently, I bought a new WD Caviar Black 500GB 32 MB Cache for around $100 and a LG DVD burner for around $30.

So my grand total for everything was $700 which I think is a pretty good deal. If I got someone else to build me that PC, I would probably have to pay around $2k for it. Some of that stuff is cheaper now, or even defunct, so equivalents should still be priced well and will be better.

If you're looking to save money, look for combo deals (at newegg), and I'd say that my build is pretty close to your requirements, except the ATI video card.

Good luck! :D
 
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Yea, I would go for some Core i7 goodness if I were building a system right now. Fortunately my C2D EE is still fine for what I do (media serving/transcoding, browsing, the occasional game)
 
I personally would forget Core 2 architecture already. It's ooooold. Modern CPUs (Phenoms and Core i7) can communicate with the motherboard and devices (including memory) much faster. With the newer architectures DDR3 is actually benefical and the prices have dropped enough already so I recommend to get DDR3 instead of DDR2 if you choose to go with AMD. AMDs offerings at the cheaper end are much better currently, Phenom II X3 would probably be a good choice.

As for GPU. Maybe GTS250, if you want cheaper something from the 9-series.

As for mobo I would go with something from ASUS, Q-Shield and Q-Connector = :heart:. There isn't much choice in AM3 mobos, so shouldn't be too difficult to choose one.
 
CPU : E8400 or AMD X3 720

Mobo : P45 or 790GX / FX

GFX Card : Even though I know you said you don't like ATI drivers, I just want to mention that ATI card runs really great with Maya, besides it will be a brand new product that warrants the price tag. The new HD4770 is a cracking buy, while nVIDIA is basically selling old cards with new pricetags.. If you really insist, 8800GT, 9800GT, 9800GTX, 250GTS are effectively all the same 8800GT design, so any one of those above mentioned card should do the trick, even though you are paying more money for the roughly the same 8800GT you got.

The only type of nVIDIA gfx card that I will consider buying are the GTX 200 series. But I'm not too sure if your sister needs that much firepower. Yes it will run Maya smoother, but you are better off either softmodding your desktop gfx card into a workstation one, or.... bite the bullet and go big on a proper workstation card.

Ram : DDR2 800 2 x 2 Gb, last chance to buy DDR2 ram while it's still dirt cheap.

PSU : 430~550W should be ample for this application


INTEL + DDR II
--------------------------------------------------
Ram : $46 (Corsair 2x2gb)
PSU : $40 (450w)
Mobo: $90 (Any P45)
CPU: $167 (E8400)
GFX: $120 (HD4770)
TOTAL : $463



AMD + DDR III
--------------------------------------------------
Ram : $60 (Kingston DDR III 2 x 2Gb)
PSU : $40 (450w)
CPU: $139 (X3 720)
Mobo:$140(790)
GFX: $120 (HD4770) or $120 (9800GT) -> really a no brainer, ATI option is so much faster and the design is newer.
TOTAL: $499
 
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Thanks guys. I'll give all that a look.

And no, she doesn't need a new hard drive or anything as a part of this build.

unbreakable said:
Rendering? Quad core is the way to go especially if you use Adobe Premiere and other pro apps. They utilize all 4 cores and you'll get the most from your money from a quad core. Invest in a Core i7 if budget permits. If not, a Core 2 Quad would do fine.
Click to expand...

Maya and it's multi-core compatible. It uses both of my cores on my C2D when I render stuff for her.

unbreakable said:
It depends what LCD/monitor you have. For a 22incher, a GTS250 would be more than enough (it's a faster but rebadged 9800GTX+).
Click to expand...

Yes, she has a 22" LCD @ 1680x1050.
 
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I know the older Core 2 Duos (e6750 e.g.) were 4x faster that the equivalent AMD dual cores when rendering a scene in maya, I don't know about their newest processors though.

On a related note my roommate's Imac (core duo) is laughable when it comes to rendering times, I said something about it once and he got very defensive about it though, I'm pretty sure he now takes his projects to school to render them.
 
Susurrate said:
I know the older Core 2 Duos (e6750 e.g.) were 4x faster that the equivalent AMD dual cores when rendering a scene in maya, I don't know about their newest processors though.
Click to expand...
All I know that Phenom II X4 940 is about the same speed as Core i7 920. So X4 955 is probably roughly on par with i7 940.
 
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