new build for cad

Jonnycarter

Jonnycarter

Jonnycarter

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Joined
27 Jun 2009
Posts
28
hi i know how great you all are at specing builds :) so i thought ill come here for some freindly advice on what is due to be my machine for cad purposes.
my curent pc is almost killing itself rendering what can only be thought of as simple modles (brembo calipers) so its time for me to put some muscle behind me.
i have heard great things about the 6 core i7 processors when it comes to render times and that they are even quicker that a pair of 4year old xeons at rendering.
i want to leave space to upgrade to dual graphics cards in the future so a big cpu is needed plus i only need a ssd and a 1tb drive as i have a home server with my files on.
my total budget is a grand but i cant seem to squeeze it down into that price range :S
you help is greatly apreciated :)


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 970 3.20GHz (Gulftown) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £434.39
(£361.99) £434.39
(£361.99)
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 £199.98
(£166.65) £199.98
(£166.65)
OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive £169.99
(£141.66) £169.99
(£141.66)
Asus X58 Sabertooth TUF Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £154.98
(£129.15) £154.98
(£129.15)
Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 1000W Power Supply £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB SATA-II 64MB Cache - OEM (WD10EARS) £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
Sub Total : £1,074.41
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £217.63
Total : £1,305.79
 
Looks like a decent enough build there tbh.

Only chage I would make is to drop the GTX 480 and stick a 6950 in there (modded to 6970), but thats just personal preference really. Less heat output and will scale better in crossfire then the 480 will in SLI, if you decide to go dual cards at a later date.
 
Oh, you have not added an aftermarket cooler though, if your intending on overclocking the processor to get the most out of it then you should factor in an extra ~£45 for a decent cooler.
 
The i7-970/980x/990x are very good for rendering with their extra cores.
Saying that you can get a i7-2600K for cheaper and will actually perform better than the 970 and keep up with the 980/990.

I'd swap the the CPU, mobo and RAM with the following:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £274.99
(£229.16) £274.99
(£229.16)
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £77.99
(£64.99) £77.99
(£64.99)
Sub Total : £410.81
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £84.06
Total : £504.37

The mobo will allow SLi if you need another 480, (which is a top choice for modeling) and you could put the saved ££ towards this Vertex 3 SSD instead of the vertex 2.
 
farmer said:
Looks like a decent enough build there tbh.

Only chage I would make is to drop the GTX 480 and stick a 6950 in there (modded to 6970), but thats just personal preference really. Less heat output and will scale better in crossfire then the 480 will in SLI, if you decide to go dual cards at a later date.
Click to expand...

Nvidia GPUs are more efficient when it comes to rendering etc due to CUDA
 
you wont be able to get a 6 core intel + high end gpu and a bigger size ssd etc for under a grand, without skimping a lot on other bits like the case. Id use something like this myself, more RAM, only quad core but ive seen how well a normal I7 does on CAD and Flac3D etc and its pretty nice, so just OC this cpu to 4.4ghz and leave it at that.

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get a slightly bigger one if you are deffo going to go SLI, but remember you are likely to end up just getting a better single card if you wait too long.
 
Yea, so you would want a bigger PSU like I said. Get a 1KW or something. Be aware that a lot of programs dont use more than one card when they use GPU rendering, not sure on CAD though as I dont use it on my main rig much. Should point out that this is only what I have heard on these forums, and not something I have read.
 
The full load includes the whole system, but it will depend if the software is going to max the cards fully Furmark does.
 
RJC, I doubt it will, since my system uses fsk all using CAD compared to furmark.
But, what if he ever wants to test stability using furmark/prime etc? I know I would want a PSU that can handle every component at 100% and not just give up if I get some sort of 10 second spike of use :/

Would have said get a 900w, but there never seems to be many.
 
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