Crysis and 3DS Max

meridimus

meridimus

meridimus

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Hey Guys,

Already got a couple of machines to take DVD drives from, one already has a Freezer7 and 4GB of DDR2 but am looking to have two machines, both with 4GB (even though I know vista32 only addresses 3.5GB or something). Is it worth going 64 bit, would it give me a real increase in performance?? Can I still drop back to 32-bit mode inside Vista for apps??

Basically, I need to work out the best possible spec for 2 machines capable of playing Crysis (since I have my 360 for all the other games I play). Also, they need to render well in 3DS Max and run Adobe software super fast (since that's my bread and butter).

I'm looking at the 8800GT cards, Q6600 (EE) and another 4GB kit. I'm not really concerned about waiting (apart from the gfx) so what do you think is best to do if I purchase this week?

I already have a couple of 226BW, hard drives etc. My budget is around £1000, I'd also like to have two nice cases in there. Really minimal, quiet no PSU required since already have those as well.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Oh, you can play the games we make on this site http://www.johnnytwoshoes.com so you'll be helping get us the best kit for a new line of games we're working on :) (Comatose should be out in a few days)
 
So you need two machines to fulfill identical purposes, right? You need CPUs, GPUs, 8 GiB RAM, and a pair of cases, that's it.

EDIT: I just reread everything and now I'm more confused than ever. You need the above but you already have 4 GiB RAM so you only need one kit. You already have one CPU cooler so you only need one of those, no?
 
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why is it people always go for a gamer card for 3ds max. 3ds max requires (for best performance) a quadro fx or fire gl card a card like the gt is purely for crysis in my view and if 3ds max (post is a little confusing) is your bread and butter you should not be focusing on the game but on the program that brings you money.
 
There's no way, really, to get two quality cases, two 4 GiB RAM kits, two Q6600s, and two 8800 GTs in 1k. Like Hell somebody could get an equivalent Quadro in that same budget. The best I can do for those eight parts is £1,176.00 inc. tax and postage.
 
he only needs 1 4gb kit and quadro's don't work the same as gaming cards when it comes to 3d packages (obviously more money the better) - even a low end £100 quadro will be better than the 8800gt in 3ds max, it'll be useless at games but thats not what it was intended for.
 
lsg1r said:
he only needs 1 4gb kit and quadro's don't work the same as gaming cards when it comes to 3d packages (obviously more money the better) - even a low end £100 quadro will be better than the 8800gt in 3ds max, it'll be useless at games but thats not what it was intended for.
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Umm, I don't think so. The Quadros are very similar to there "gaming" cousins. They usually have a little extra hardware for rendering in windowed mode but are otherwise cut from the same cloth. You can even use the regular "gaming" drivers on Quadros. Most of the difference is in those drivers. A fancy professional graphics card would certainly be better than its equivalently-spec'd gaming cousin but for the money the GT is definitely the best bet here.
 
Sorry to be confusing, I'm not a full on 3DS modelling guy, I'm just learning it but render times are the only annoyance atm.

My bread and butter is graphics/web work, so obviously Adobe stuff (and a text editor :-) needs to run sweet.

Other than that I'd love to be able to run crysis pretty well, so don't get too bogged down with quadro gfx. If I get into 3D modelling seriously then sure, I'll get a seperate rig for that.

Thanks for you help so far. Just to clarify, I already have a set of 4gb DDR2 and a Freezer7 pro from another machine, also HDD and DVD drives. So just need the rest (2 x mobo, 2 x gfx, 2 x case, 2 x cpu, 1 x 4GB kit, 1 x Cooler).

That's all, you guys are awesome for helping out :)
 
Do the two systems have to be the same? If not you can have one that will run crysis great and one that will still run crysis well just not in dx10 but is still a great rig.... (2 x mobo, 2 x gfx, 2 x case, 2 x cpu, 1 x 4GB kit, 1 x Cooler).


Rig 1:

OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black
Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Rig 2:
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black
Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-5400C5 Dual Channel Vista Upgrade Gold Series DDR2
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

This all comes to around £980... 1100 budget will get u another 8800gt... Hope this helps
 
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They need to be the same. I don't think we need any PSUs though. Hopefully that should be enough budget to allow for the other 8800GT.

Thanks for your help!
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Umm, I don't think so. The Quadros are very similar to there "gaming" cousins. They usually have a little extra hardware for rendering in windowed mode but are otherwise cut from the same cloth. You can even use the regular "gaming" drivers on Quadros. Most of the difference is in those drivers. A fancy professional graphics card would certainly be better than its equivalently-spec'd gaming cousin but for the money the GT is definitely the best bet here.
Click to expand...

I work with 3ds, trust me a gaming card is rubbish compared with a dedicated card. It's not just drivers, the chip has certain aspects enabled which allow it to work better in the 3d environment which the gamer card does not.

Take similar costs (fx1700, 8800GTS/GTX), the fx1700 is based on the same core as the 8500GT from what I can make out yet manages a rating of just under 35 in specperf (3ds max), the 8800GTX manages about 16.5. Thats a substantial difference for just a different driver isn't it.
The GT (£150+) if you're lucky would compare to the GTX while the sub £80 quadro fx 370 manages roughly 25.5 so still superior in 3d programs.
The drivers also allow the quadro to be tailored to your requirements in 3d programs.

However as the op is more focused on games and adobe, the GT will do however, it is not the best value for money when it comes to 3d modelling in my view.
 
This is as good as I think you'll do:
overclockersukyourbaskert8.gif
 
Thanks for the information about the differences between the cards. I'm just starting out so it's not hugely important for now.

Where do you mainly see the performance increase? Is it when you're live testing physics or something?
 
the main difference is when you are viewing the models, quadro's are tweaked to give better viewport (especially when more than one) quality/speed etc. Just allows you to work easier basically, there are other benefits but its mostly to do with image quality etc and adjustments for speed. They also seem to handle larger scenes better in my opinion.
 
It's 2 machines because me and my brother run the site together, we can upgrade them again at a later date so it's no big deal. We just got our first google payout from adwords :)

So, one machine to replace my antiquated 3000 winchester and one to replace my brothers Core2 1.8Ghz. I thought it would be better if we had the same case and stuff if we get an office or something.
 
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