PC for around 1500 mark

[mikrea]

Hello
My spec is for running real time 3d rendering software (twinmotion 2). The difference with realtime is it works more like a game engine, so renders are instant. This also means that instead of a CAD workstation styled spec, I can go for a gaming pc.

I have chosen the 3gb 580 as opposed to a 590 as the main 2 realtime renderers right now can use that 3gb of memory, but would only use half of the 590's (using only 1.5gb)

I did want the next motherboard model up but this stops me from fast tracking delivery, is this important?
Also I wanted lightscribe but this website doesn't give it as an option. But on the other hand it's hard to get quoted a spec with the 3gb model of the 580, so I had to compromise! :winkiss:

Oh and one last thing, I did have a higher powered PSU, but the site pop up advised me I only needed 600w. I assume the people at pcspecialist are right! But I'm just double checking.

Here's the spec:

Case PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-980 (3.33GHz) 4.8GTs/12MB

Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM) 12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
(7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply 600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)

Processor Cooling COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£49)

Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)

USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year
Labour)

Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£39)

Price Ex VAT £1380.83
Price £1657.00

 

[mikrea]

PC build for around £1500 mark?

Hello
I'm buying a pc for realtime rendering. The difference with realtime is it works more like a game engine, so I don't need an expensive CAD workstation, but more of a gaming pc.

I'm going for the 580 3gb as I need that amount of gfx memory, but the software I'm going to be using (twinmotion 2 & lumion) can't take advantage of the 590's 3gb memory (using only 1.5gb of it).
Do you guys recommend the 580 3gb as a strong but reliable card?

Secondly, I was going to get the next mobo up, but this prevents me from fast tracking my delivery. Does this effect me a lot?
Also the pcspecialist configurator told me I only needed a 600w psu, so i bumped it down. I assume this is true, but just checking. Is this okay for my build?

Lastly, I did want lightscribe as a little extra. But other websites that offer it don't offer the 580 card with 3gb memory, and that's the key point of this build for me.

Here's the spec, please answer any of my questions you can or add other input.
Thanks
Mike


Case PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-980 (3.33GHz) 4.8GTs/12MB

Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM) 12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card 3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
(7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply 600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)

Processor Cooling COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£49)

Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)

USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year
Labour)

Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£39)

Price £1657.00

 

[mikrea]

Sorry for posting 2 threads yesterday, didn't notice the mods had to approve at first! doh

 

[Gibbs]

Looks great to me. You have all the bases covered for rendering; strong cpu, lots of memory, and the 580 is a great card.

 

[JSG10]

Np, I'm sure one of the mods will delete your other thread or merge them.

I don't really know much about realtime rendering but if you require more of a gaming setup then the overclocking isn't necessary. (I seem to repeat myself a lot on here :S ) But as I said, I don't know a lot about rendering so it might be beneficial to you. If you're working with a lot of large files you might want to consider a 2nd larger HDD, maybe one of the Greens for storgage?

I would switch the PSU to one of the corsairs, very reliable good PSUs I'd also take out the watercooling and put in a fenrir instead just because I don't fully trust the water cooling units here as we seem to have had a few split recently, but that being said, the PCS warranty will cover you for ANY damage done caused by a split unit. And speaking of the warranty, you really must upgrade to the silver for £5. Its plain daft not to

 

[mikrea]

Thanks for the replies guys
Honestly I don't know much about realtime rendering either, I'm used to waiting a very long time for my stills :yawn: But apparently the 580 is good enough, just wondering if people reccomend it as a card (reliable etc.)

So I won't have any heat issues without watercooling?

I won't bother with the HDD, I don't actually work with very large files, just lots of smaller ones, which after a while I can get rid of (autocad plans + 3d models of people's houses etc.)

As for the CPU, technically I don't need a six core because im using RT rendering now, so that wasn't my logic. I just assumed (in a noobish way) 6 is better than 4! Any thoughts on this? Would one of the quads have better performance and the 6 cores are just for future proofing really? Or are they altogether better cpus?
I'm very out of the loop, last pc I bought was when I got dual 8800 ultras, and people considered that awesome! Those were the days eh!

And thanks for pointing out the warranty. This company is really growing on me

 

[Tracker]

Thanks for the replies guys
Honestly I don't know much about realtime rendering either, I'm used to waiting a very long time for my stills :yawn: But apparently the 580 is good enough, just wondering if people reccomend it as a card (reliable etc.)

So I won't have any heat issues without watercooling?

I won't bother with the HDD, I don't actually work with very large files, just lots of smaller ones, which after a while I can get rid of (autocad plans + 3d models of people's houses etc.)

As for the CPU, technically I don't need a six core because im using RT rendering now, so that wasn't my logic. I just assumed (in a noobish way) 6 is better than 4! Any thoughts on this? Would one of the quads have better performance and the 6 cores are just for future proofing really? Or are they altogether better cpus?
I'm very out of the loop, last pc I bought was when I got dual 8800 ultras, and people considered that awesome! Those were the days eh!

And thanks for pointing out the warranty. This company is really growing on me

Watercooling and such are only really for overclocking your pc, if you don't plan on overclocking then a triple copper cooler will be enough to keep your pc nice and stable. Even a fenrir is more than you need to be honest, though they are a very nice cooler.

for CPU power, todays quad core processors (Current gen, the i7-2600) is pretty comparable to last generation six core processors (such as the 980) in most respects, you have to bare in mind that both have hyperthreading, so theoretically, you're comparing 8 threads of processes versus 12.

Now when all those cores are fully utilised, the 980 will outperform the i7-2600 (in app's such as video encoding or running true multithreaded applications). If you run anything that isn't multithreaded to take advantage of 12 cores at once ( and not much is past the aforementioned cases, especially when it comes to things like running games, which you seem to be basing your system performance around), then having fewer, faster cores is much more beneficial. It all revolves around the exact piece of software your running and how well it's optimised to multiple cores ( and again, from a game engine perspective, most are just about optimised for 2 threads, let alone quad or above). Consider looking at the i7 second generation of cpu's, in some cases they're cheaper too.

gfx wise i'd stick with the 580, the performance isn't a terrible loss (it's around 66% performance of the 590, as the 590 is downclocked to fit it all on one card) and if you're rendering lots of textures and such you'll find that having all 3gb video memory available will be far more useful to you (bare in mind that when the 590 says it has 3gb of memory, thats actually 1.5gb for each of the two Graphics processors on the card, both cards need to have all the textures and such loaded individually so 1.5 + 1.5 doesn't mean you can run anything requiring 3gb for example).

Back when everyone was getting their 8800 ultras was when i got my dell lappy, twin 8800 GTX's (mobile variant), still could only just about manage crysis at 20ish frames at full blast!

 

[mikrea]

Thanks for the great reply trackeri. I'll have to think about that one, as six cores may be useful if I want to do some non real time stills. I'll definitely loose the water cooling. I'm not gonna be experimenting with OC'ing on my work machine
And thanks for clarifying the gfx card for me, I should really focus on getting the 3 gig, also I've heard a few bad things about 590 stability atm so ill have to not risk it.
Haha strangely I could completely max out crysis with my ultras with a half decent dual core overclocked a bit and 2gb ram, but could barely run warhead!

 

[Phoenix]

I suggest changing the RAM to 1333mhz (you won't notice the difference unless you're planning to overclock) and changing the cooler to the triple heatpipe one (to save some money, the ECO ones are for overclocking) then upgrading the power supply to a TX650 and picking up the silver warranty. A 600w power supply will probably be ok but it would definitely be worth getting the TX650 for the setup you've chosen.

 

[mantadog]

You would benefit from an overclock for your intended usage, do you plan to? If you don't intend to overclock then you might aswell swap the ram for the 1333Mhz stuff. You could also drop to the tripple copper heatpipe. It might not save that much on your build but their is little point in paying for things you don't need!

You can then use the money to upgrade to the corsair 650w power supply, its not much more and is of a higher quality.

The montherboard should be fine without bumping to the next one up.

Finally if your spending £1657 on a pc your might aswell pay a £5 for an extra 11 months collect and return warranty!!!!!!!

 

[mikrea]

Sorry guys I had two threads! other people been replying to the other one. Hopefully the mods will merge them, thanks for replying though still good stuff.
I have no idea about overclocking so I'm unsure yet :/