3D application capable PC

ajspurs

ajspurs

ajspurs

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Joined
19 Oct 2009
Posts
28
Hi guys and girls, hope this is they right place to post this.

Anyway I'm looking to buy a PC again, after selling my pretty capable £1200 PC, although built a few years ago it was still perfect for what I want now, but oh well. Well back then I wanted to game on my PC too, hence why I spent so much but now I just want a PC to primarily run 3D applications (such as Maya, 3DS Max etc.) very smoothly. Obviously this will involve a lot of rendering.
Is a gaming PC still the best option for this?

I always fall out of touch with PC components and such when I'm not using or in the market for one but would the processor be the most important thing for me?

I want to spend as little as possible, definitely not looking for anything expensive and I won't actually be using it for games. How much can I get away with spending for what I want? Thanks..
 
Any CPU can do it but realistically, to get decent performance, you should be looking at minimum to a Ryzen quad-core with eight threads and B350 motherboard. Once you finalize a spec, consider if you can afford a Ryzen six-core with twelve threads instead.

Get your storage requirements out of the way first, i.e. how big does the SSD and HDD need to be for your work?

Is Windows needed?
 
Danny75 said:
Any CPU can do it but realistically, to get decent performance, you should be looking at minimum to a Ryzen quad-core with eight threads and B350 motherboard. Once you finalize a spec, consider if you can afford a Ryzen six-core with twelve threads instead.

Get your storage requirements out of the way first, i.e. how big does the SSD and HDD need to be for your work?

Is Windows needed?
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for the reply. The SSD doesn't have to be big, I was thinking just a 250GB one and a 1TB HDD and unfortunately I do need windows yes. I haven't really been familiar with AMD for a while, would a Ryzen quad core be equivalent to an i5 or i7?

How much do you think I would have to pay roughly? Its nothing massively intensive, I'm actually wanting to self teach myself certain aspects of 3D work for a career change so although I may not need something overly powerful, I also don't want something that might make me feel I would need to upgrade if the intensity of my work was to increase.

I don't mean to completely ignore the suggestion you've given me or anything but I did dig out a system with these specs, is it something that would be adequate? It's for £840

Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 Kaby Lake CPU, 4 Cores, 3.0 - 3.5GHz
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
Case: Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 Case - Black
CPU Cooler: Intel Stock CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: Standard Thermal Paste
Motherboard: Asus H110M-A/M.2 Motherboard
Memory: 8GB DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 4GB Sticks)
Solid State Drive: 250GB SK Hynix SL301 Solid State Drive
Hard Drive: Seagate 2TB 7200RPM Hard Disk
Power Supply: Aerocool 80 PLUS 500W PSU
Sound Card: Onboard High Definition Audio
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit

Thanks.
 
ajspurs said:
Hi, thanks for the reply.
Click to expand...

You're welcome.


ajspurs said:
The SSD doesn't have to be big, I was thinking just a 250GB one and a 1TB HDD
Click to expand...

That's good.


ajspurs said:
and unfortunately I do need windows yes. I haven't really been familiar with AMD for a while, would a Ryzen quad core be equivalent to an i5 or i7?
Click to expand...

For such a purpose the extra threads on Ryzen 5 CPUs would be better than Intel i5s and in some cases mainstream i7's too.


ajspurs said:
How much do you think I would have to pay roughly? Its nothing massively intensive, I'm actually wanting to self teach myself certain aspects of 3D work for a career change so although I may not need something overly powerful, I also don't want something that might make me feel I would need to upgrade if the intensity of my work was to increase.
Click to expand...

What you've specced looks good other than you want 16GB RAM for editing work, and a more reliable PSU than one with only a 2 year warranty. And obviously a Ryzen 1600 would be ideal. It's possible to include these things for slightly over £840.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £858.51
(includes shipping: £12.60)



​

Swap the case for one you prefer if you like. I can tell you that I've built with the Corsair Spec 01 and it has nothing on what I'm seeing with the CoolerMaster Masterbox Lite 5 which brings PSU compartment and looks a lot more comfortable to build in. The Spec 01 also has a flaw where the tool-less locks for the optical bays actually touch the side panel in some cases, and can make it very difficult to remove and attach the side-panel. You also have to pass through the CPU power cable before placing the motherboard, which is an oversight. Whereas the Lite 5 looks to have a cut-out top-left for exactly this purpose. As a fan of case design, I rate the latter several points above the former, plus it's cheaper.

The RX 460 GPU helps to get the better processor/PSU/16GB RAM in. And it's better to just have one thing to upgrade if you need/want, than all those things. Typically, for editing work, it's Processor > Memory > Storage > Video Card, in that order.
 
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