budget workstation spec pls...

dmx07 · 8 Jan 2008 at 09:48

Hi all,
Im just about to put together a spec for a work machine:

Q6600
Asus P5K
2Gb Ram (Geil PC2-6400C4 or similar)
160Gb SATA II (I have other drives already)
Corsair VX450W PSU

The pc will be used daily for multi media work, flash animation, photoshop, no games whatsoever but will be using 3ds max so I wondered what graphic card would suffice - I dont want to spend money unnecessarily and would rather get additional RAM if u think I can save on the GPU.. I was thinking about a 8600 GT 512Mb or similar (around £70).. any thoughts? Does anyone know if Max would benefit from a better card?

I already have Vista 32 so although Id like 4Gbs RAM dont really want to shell out for Vista 64 - or is it worth it even with Vista 32?

oh, and Id like to keep the entire rig including case & dvd burner as close to £500 as possible!

thanks in advance... :cool:

dmx07 · 8 Jan 2008 at 12:07

anyone?

ergonomics · 8 Jan 2008 at 12:50

you dont need anything superior for 3ds max, although it does depend on the scenes you'll be working with. if youve got millions of triangles on the screen at once you might want something with a bit more power.

if you can, try to find a second hand quadro card. those are designed for workstations, and second hand shouldnt be too much.

dmx07 · 8 Jan 2008 at 13:14

many thanks ergonomics..

manoz · 8 Jan 2008 at 13:15

tbh I wouldn't get any less then 4gb of RAM but sadly that means getting windows x64, you need it if you want to work on large scenes and render large images and also multitask between multiple 3ds maxes, photoshop, illustrator. I regularly use more then 3gigs of RAM when I have all that stuff running. GFX wise go for a quadro or firegl card like mentioned but if you can't afford that then get a top end nvidia gaming card.

dmx07 · 8 Jan 2008 at 13:27

manoz said:
I regularly use more then 3gigs of RAM when I have all that stuff running. GFX wise go for a quadro or firegl card like mentioned but if you can't afford that then get a top end nvidia gaming card.

I think I will get a 2nd hand Quadro as suggested. I'll most likely run 4Gigs of RAM on my existing 32 bit Vista (since 4Gbs is so cheap at the moment) and maybe upgrade to Vista 64 bit later in the year.

thanks!