Pc Build for 3d Rendering and model making

bryan10025

Hello,

I am considering my options for building my own PC which will be used for 3d model making and rendering as well as Photoshop and 2d Drawing programs. I would also like to use it for some entertainment purposes and a small bit of gaming although this is not as important.

I have the parts selected here on pcpartpicker but its a little bit on the expensive side for me, if you guys could have a look over it and try cut out some of the fat to reduce the price but keep as much of the performance as possible that would be awesome!!

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Bryan10025/saved/2VBL

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!!

srsly78

Ordering in Sterling is bad for starters, basically adds a couple of % onto the price because of foreign exchange.

When using amazon, never ever choose the "pay in euros" option. Your credit card will give you a better rate than amazon will. Still better not to use sterling sites at all.

bryan10025

I just moved to London from Ireland so I have an english bank account so the exchange rate isn't an issue as all my money is in sterling already. Good point all the same though, thanks

srsly78

Aha, yes if you actually have sterling then you are fine.

One more tip, lots of UK suppliers won't deliver to Ireland - or will charge a fortune for it. So parcel motel is really really handy. You can often get the "free uk supersaver" by delivering to parcel motel in northern ireland.

bryan10025

Just saw this on another thread and thought it might help if i filled it out and posted it here too

1. What is your budget? 800-1000 Sterling or 950-1250 Euro

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? 3d Modeling, Rendering, Photoshop, 2d Drawing, Occasional Gaming although not high priority

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? YES

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? NO

5. Do you need a monitor? YES

5a. If yes, what size do you need. 23 minimum

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? NA

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? NO

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes, I am interested in learning more about it and would definitely give it a go

8. How can you pay? Laser

9. When are you purchasing? Not in a major rush

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? In London but i wont need help building it, I would consider myself fairly handy with putting things together and I have read a lot of 'how to' sites online detailing how its done

BloodBath

This is a bit better. Some higher quality parts and cheaper with an ssd included.

If you search for each part on http://geizhals.de/ and select hwvs from the list of sellers you can get a discount. You should save over €100 more doing this. You could even go for a dual monitor setup. It's the way to go for development.

You will have to get the keyboard elsewhere. The German layout is different.

Item|Price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150, ohne Kühler|€217.74
Alpenföhn Sella - 92mm, AMD/Intel|€19.99
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€226.79
16GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-30|€138.61
ASRock H87M Pro4, Sockel 1150, mATX|€73.38
BitFenix Prodigy M - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€81.09
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 500W - bulk -|€55.00
Kingston SSD V300 120GB SATA III|€69.99
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€53.38
LG DH18NS schwarz bare SATA II|€11.96
LG Flatron 23EN43V-B|€135.00
Windows 8.1 64Bit Eng Intl (SB-Version) DVD|€86.25
Sharkoon Drakonia Gaming Laser Mouse|€25.13
LogiLink Gaming & Grafikdesign Mauspad XXL|€3.17
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1216.47

bryan10025

BloodBath wrote: »

This is a bit better. Some higher quality parts and cheaper with an ssd included.

If you search for each part on http://geizhals.de/ and select hwvs from the list of sellers you can get a discount. You should save over €100 more doing this. You could even go for a dual monitor setup. It's the way to go for development.

You will have to get the keyboard elsewhere. The German layout is different.

Item|Price
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 Bx, LGA1150, ohne Kühler|€217.74
Alpenföhn Sella - 92mm, AMD/Intel|€19.99
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€226.79
16GB-Kit G.Skill Ares PC3-12800U CL10-10-10-30|€138.61
ASRock H87M Pro4, Sockel 1150, mATX|€73.38
BitFenix Prodigy M - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€81.09
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 500W - bulk -|€55.00
Kingston SSD V300 120GB SATA III|€69.99
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€53.38
LG DH18NS schwarz bare SATA II|€11.96
LG Flatron 23EN43V-B|€135.00
Windows 8.1 64Bit Eng Intl (SB-Version) DVD|€86.25
Sharkoon Drakonia Gaming Laser Mouse|€25.13
LogiLink Gaming & Grafikdesign Mauspad XXL|€3.17
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1216.47

Thanks Bloodbath, you guys are great! In the above system the motherboard has four memory slots. Is it better in this case to buy 4x4gb of memory instead of 2x8gb to use all of the slots or does it make any difference? That may have been the most stupid question you have ever heard but I am relatively new to all this stuff!!ha

BloodBath

No bother.

It's not stupid. On the boards with 8 slots it makes a difference as they are quad channel but 4 slots is dual channel so you only need to use 2 to make use of this. That leaves 2 free for adding more in future if you need it.

bryan10025

Just one more thing, looking at others who have used this case previously a lot of people have added a couple of extra fans, do you think i would be ok cooling wise or should i try fit in more fans?

BloodBath

If you want to improve airflow then sure. It's never any harm

CatOfTheCanals

Seeing as most 3d Modelling software uses multithreading I would recommend going for an AMD FX-6300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX6300-Edition-4-1GHz-Socket/dp/B009O7YORK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385566066&sr=8-1&keywords=fx-6300
Or the FX-8350
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-FX8350-Edition-Processor-4-2GHz/dp/B009O7YUF6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385566126&sr=8-1&keywords=fx-8350
The latter outperforms the i5 3570k and the i7 3770k when using vray for 3ds Max and works out at around 174 euro, cheaper than both of the options above. Take the delivery cost in to your esitmates as well, as sometimes you can get the super saver deliver in amazon which makes it cheaper than some of the other options. Keep and eye on pixmania as well.

BloodBath

The xeon above has hyper threading and outperforms the 6300 and 8350 in just about everything as well as using less than half the power. 1/3rd the power of a highly overclocked 8350.

The 8350 is not cheaper either when you take into account the higher cost of a good board for overclocking, a good cpu cooler and a higher wattage psu. Not to mention the higher electricity costs.

CatOfTheCanals

OK, I see. my understanding of the xeon above was that it was the server equivilant of the i7 3770k, only you can't overclock it, and there's no integrated graphics card (which is irrelevant), but I didn't know non server motherboards would support the xeons. The stock clock speed of the fx-8350 is 4GHz, so it's pretty good without overclocking and you're locked at 3.3GHz with the xeon, but I agree it's power hungry, and you'd need a better cooler for overclocking for sure. The FX-6300 is better in that department, so I think it still deserves a mention as it runs cooler and more efficiently, and is only 100 euro, for decent performance in multithreaded applications and an unlocked multiplier. I would choose it over the i5 for 3D modelling in any case!

BloodBath

It's the latest Haswell xeon so it's the server version of an i7 4770 without overclocking or integrated graphics. It's a great processor for the money though considering you can get a cheap board and the power requirements are low.

The haswell xeon at 3.3ghz (3.7ghz turbo) is still faster than the 8350 at 4.5ghz in the majority of tasks.

The 6300 is a good budget option but he has the budget for a xeon so why not.

bryan10025

Finally actually going to get around to doing this. I ended up moving to New Zealand for a year and a bit but I am on my way back to London again in a couple of weeks.

Just wondering if there have been any good developments in the last year in terms of parts I should get, Also I can probably stretch my budget out another couple of hundred pounds so would love to know if you guys would recommend any improvements?

Cheers

Digital Solitude

Fairly similar. Buying in euro or sterling? Throw up a final budget.

bryan10025

Would be looking at 1200 sterling, going to take me a couple of weeks to get the money saved up but that would be what I could justify spending.

bryan10025

Another thing to mention was when I first posted this I was keen on the small form factor of the bitfenix prodigy case but if a larger case would make for a better system the size doesn't matter to me as much now as I will have a bit more space.

Digital Solitude

Duuno sterling prices off the top of my head
Xeon 1231v3
16gb ram
ASRock Pro4
R9 290/280X
250gb SSD
2tb HDD
Nice Corsair or Antec case
500w PSU

Windows is $25

Comes in at under €1000 so should be fine in sterling. Do you still need a monitor and other peripherals? I'll link all tomorrow

bryan10025

Yes still need all the extra bits too, I would like to get one decent monitor and in a few months get another, I use two monitors in work so I have gotten very used to it now.

bryan10025

Thank you by the way, I am always astounded by how helpful you guys all are on here.

Aka Ishur

Consider an ultrawide like the LG UM95 for photoshop and modelling. Great real estate on screen

Digital Solitude

I'm no good with monitors but I'll try to leave you about £300 on the budget if that's enough for a tidy one. As close to it as I can manage.


We're actually just 'Thanks' whores :pac:

bryan10025

The ultrawide screen does seem like a very good option, maybe I should hold off and save enough to get that straight off instead of buying two screens.....who wants bezels in the middle of your display anyway!!

Digital Solitude

https://www.alternate.co.uk/Intel(R)/E3-1231-v3/html/product/1129073?
CPU

https://www.alternate.co.uk/Crucial/Ballistix-Sport-16-GB-DDR3/html/product/1008052?
RAM

https://www.alternate.co.uk/ASRock/H97-Pro4/html/product/1139184?
Motherboard

https://www.alternate.co.uk/XFX/R9-290A-EDFD/html/product/1118718?
GPU (And a damn good one at that)

https://www.alternate.co.uk/Crucial/BX-100/html/product/1179484?
SSD

https://www.alternate.co.uk/Seagate/2TB-SATA-HDD/html/product/965390?
HDD

https://www.alternate.co.uk/be-quiet!/Pure-Power-L8-500W/html/product/1085986?
PSU

https://www.alternate.co.uk/Nanoxia/Deep-Silence-1-Rev-B/html/product/1193667?
Case

Total is £845. Only possible change I'd made is an i7 but probably not worth it. Throw remaining budget into a good monitor or two, get a mechanical keyboard if you type a lot, and get a good mouse.

Alternate dont stock the Bitfenix.

Windows

bryan10025

Thats awesome, thank you. Hopefully I can get started on this soon! Will cut down on the beers and try save some money!