Budding designers PC spec

bigron10

bigron10

bigron10

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Joined
17 Jan 2008
Posts
19
Hi,

I need to put together a PC for my girlfriend who is studying design at Uni as the current machine is struggling with the more intensive work. I've specced out the below and was just wanting your thoughts/advice on what I've gone with. I've already got a 7900GTX that i'll reuse along with an AC7 Freezer Pro.

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000C5 1000MHz ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPX10004GK) £62.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £59.99

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £129.99

Pioneer DVR-115DBK 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99

Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £109.99

Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £78.99

She will be using stuff like Pro Engineer CAD package, Photoshop, Alias etc and doing lots of image rendering and the like.

What do you think?
 
I would have though that you couldnt go far wrong with that spec really, though if there isnt gonna be any overclocking i would have gone for PC6400 stuff as opposed to PC8500 as it may be a bit overkill.

On the other hand with RAM being so cheap at the moment it may be worthwhile going for the faster stuff, as there would only be a maximum of £20 difference in the price.
 
Woah, I was just about to go buy the quad core as you mentioned 129.99!

You might want to re calculate your overall price as it doesn't seem to include VAT as the processor should be £152.74 and the hard drive £70.49.

But that's a pretty decent spec!
 
Graphic design or engineering design?

The latter used with 3D programs such as solidworks etc. are pretty poor on 'gaming' cards.

you're better off with a 'CAD workstation' certified card, ATIs is firegl i think and nvidias are quattro.

I've had personal experience where 3D cad applications have performed worse on an nvidia 7800 than a cheaper CAD certified card.

No idea about 3D Max etc. just food for thought, unless it's graphic design, in which case, ignore me :)
 
Just built a design pc myself m8, like your girlfreind i do design, i use all the abobe master collection products and 3d studdio max

I went with the abit ip35 pro (great for ocing and as all the features u can ask for)
q6600 (added a tuniq tower as the stock cooler is pain in the butt to fit and not very good cooler really)
ocz pc6400 ddr2
western digital AAKS 400 x2 and one 500 gig for storage.
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2

the rest of the componets imo matter less andd its up to you what you pick.
This pc runs like a dream for me and even when working on a 7m x 20meter banner at over 300dpi it handled it very well indeed.
 
The echo what Ethics said :

If it's for the sort of work that Pro Engineer or SolidWorks is needed on then invest in a proper card for the job. Ati Fire GL or nvidia Quadro. I don't think oCuk sell both. Have a scan around the internet, I'm sure you'll find someone that does.

Apart from that - nice spec. If you need to keep the cost down the can replace the HX620 with the HX520.

Cheers.
 
Thanks for the responses,

I'll definitely have a look at the fireGL and Quadro cards although thats not a priority as we've been running on the 7900GTX for a while with little issue (the missus also wants a 2nd monitor....so more money).

Rendering times in Alias Imagestudio are very poor on our current machine so it's that I was looking to improve at the moment. I'm assuming that more cores + more RAM = faster rendering?
 
It won't hurt to increase your RAM yeah, but more cores isn't neccesarily better.

It depends if the application in question has been coded for more than 1 core. If it has then yeah, more cores are better, if not then 1 single core @ a high clock speed is better than several at lower speeds (since it can only use 1...). So in your spec, a single core of 3.0GHZ is better than a quad core of 2.4GHZ IF the application is not multi threaded.

Dont use the application myself, but googling or contacting tech support should help you sort it.

In strict terms of rendering the CPU is more important than the RAM. More RAM will help performance for caching and avoiding using a page file (either the OS or application one) and keep the CPU supplied with data to render.
 
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Thanks Ethics,

On the subject of gfx cards I've seen that certain ATI cards can be soft modded to make the fireGL.

Has anyone got any experience in doing this and if so what were the results like?

I'm specifically interested in the 2600XT as it can be had for £65 and apparently modded to a FireGL V5600. Would this be good enough for ProE, Alias ImageStudio etc?
 
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