First Post Prospective Uni Student Needs Help!

wiplash

wiplash

wiplash

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Manchester or Berkshire
Hi there I saw a similar thread to this futher down the page but didnt think i should jack his thread so i'll start my own :)

Staring Uni in september. Doing game design (visual design not coding).
Would like to play high quality games and also be capable of working with programs like 3DS Max etc.
I also am an avid film fan, and would consider a blu ray drive - although I do also own a ps3 and could easily use that to play my films.

I need a lot of hard drive space :) im stocking up on tv shows etc. and was considering getting 2 or 3 TB maybe more? I can always upgrade this in future.

I currenty have a laptop (Sony Vaio - fw21z) with a dual monitor set up with an LG 20-something inch. I am going to sell my laptop but keep this monitor and buy another to keep the dual set-up. possibly the same monitor again.

Would like a TV card. Although i do have a USB tv connector atm so that is only for. Or instead of buying a second monitor i buy a small TV and use that as the dual set up.

I have had a crack at building a PC before - only with minor parts, never from scratch. But my neighbour is an "IT Guy" so i shouldnt have too much trouble.

So how much should i be looking to spend? :P or am i aiming too high?

Thanks in advance

Rob
 
Hi there and Welcome :D

As for how much to spend, its a tough question. You could tick all your boxes with a £700 spec (Athlon II X4, 785G, 4GB, Win 7, 3TB storage), however, if you could afford £1000 then you could get an i7, X58, 6GB system. Obviously, the i7 would be a good deal faster in 3DS max (there are quite a few 3DS Max benchmarks there if you click on the drop-down menu), but the Athlon II X4 would get the job done and cost a good deal less (more to spend on beer).
 
Price?
Also, a lot of these 'IT guys' know there software but have never set foot inside a PC! At least some of them anyway!
 
Gundog48 said:
Price?
Also, a lot of these 'IT guys' know there software but have never set foot inside a PC! At least some of them anyway!
Click to expand...

I'm the opposite lol, know the hardware side like the back of my hand, however, software, scary lol.

ags
 
he helped build my last PC, hes a good guy.
I was thinking £800 but depending on how much work i can cram in over the summer would change this :P
 
If I was you I'd have a look at that cracking i7-920 deal in this weeks offers, for £779 inc vat its a great price, if another job comes in I'll be buying it to add to the render farm :)
 
Wont need that much cpu grunt for game detail assets. I big chunk of ram for zbrush is nice, shame ram prices are so high. Maybe see if you can get by with 4gb and buy more later when it's possibly cheaper. Tbh I have no complaints running 3d apps on my system. Infact having a nice fast data drive and maybe a small ssd (the new corsair ones are very well priced) for system and apps is very helpful. photoshop and 3ds max can take an age to load.
 
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decent cpu ( cheap quad) lots of ram, good gfx card :) (i do game design at uni too, ive an i7 and found 6gb of ram to be a good number to have for zbrush work)

ssd would be a nice idea too but not needed really.

oh and get a wacom tablet :)
 
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Psypher5 said:
decent cpu ( cheap quad) lots of ram, good gfx card :) (i do game design at uni too, ive an i7 and found 6gb of ram to be a good number to have for zbrush work)

ssd would be a nice idea too but not needed really.

oh and get a wacom tablet :)
Click to expand...

bought my A4 wacom intuos 3 last year ;)
as for a processor using this site (thanks cmndr_andi) and using overclockers as a pricing guide the Intel i7 860 seems to perform very well whilst also keeping under £250 - or if i need too keep the price a bit lower the Intel i5 670 seems like the best option at just under £200

as for SSD i know they will run things faster etc but what is actually placed on the drive? do you put the large programs like 3DS Max or Crysis or do you put part of the program on there? or do you put the files on there?

So looking at the Krypton Intel Core i7 920 D0 2.66GHz @ 4.00GHz Overclocked Bundle with Asus Motherboard and Akasa Fan what would you reccomend as graphics card and housing?
 
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