Newbie spec check please....

Brocky · 13 Sep 2010 at 15:01

Hi everyone,

Firstly many thanks for all of the information that been posted on the threads about pretty much everything that a person would ever need. With all that information I've put together the below spec that I'll be ordering next week. I originally wanted an i7 setup but the AMD one came in closer to my budget.

I'm going to be using this predominantly for 3D modelling and animation work over the next 3 years whilst at uni so need something that'll last. It will also be used for the usual web, Photoshop etc. docs, some games, and so on so it'll get quite the workout. I'd have loved the higher res Dell monitor but financial constraints mean I'll have to stick with the 1920x1200 for at least the next 12 months.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the power supply, but any other suggestions relating to the spec would be greatly appreciated.

"Radon AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 95W Edition 2.80GHz @ 3.80GHz Overclocked Bundle.

Options applied to the above product:
Corsair XMS3 4GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler

Hanns.G HZ281HPB 27.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Gainward GeForce GTX 460 GS 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case

Corsair VX 450W ATX Power Supply

Samsung SH-B083L/RSBP 8x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM

Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive

Akasa Dual 2.5" SSD/HDD Mounting Kit

Microsoft Windows 7 home premium 64-Bit - OEM

stulid · 13 Sep 2010 at 15:12

Not totally convinced you need the 2GB version of the GTX460, the 1GB is very close in terms of speed.

The psu has enough power, but only one pci-e connector, so if your happy to use a molex to pcie adapter(supplied) then cool.

Brocky · 13 Sep 2010 at 15:42

stulid said:
Not totally convinced you need the 2GB version of the GTX460, the 1GB is very close in terms of speed.

The psu has enough power, but only one pci-e connector, so if your happy to use a molex to pcie adapter(supplied) then cool.

I thought the extra memory on the card would benefit programs like Maya and 3Dmax, which I think use GPU memory for rendering, please correct me if I'm wrong

Are there any disadvantages with using molex to pcie adapters?

stulid · 13 Sep 2010 at 15:44

Brocky said:
Are there any disadvantages with using molex to pcie adapters?

not really, just looks unpleasant.

the rest of your spec will work together and is fine, although their may/ or may not be a problem using the samsung F3 drive and the 8 series chipset motherboard.

stulid · 13 Sep 2010 at 15:45

Brocky said:
I thought the extra memory on the card would benefit programs like Maya and 3Dmax, which I think use GPU memory for rendering, please correct me if I'm wrong

its the amount of processing cores the actual gpu has.

coldfused · 13 Sep 2010 at 16:01

The extra memory will become handy when playing at high resolution such as 2560x1600.
But seeing as 2GB memory won't cost you that much more, I don't see it as disadvantage.

Brocky · 13 Sep 2010 at 16:08

stulid said:
its the amount of processing cores the actual gpu has.

In that case as they all have the 336 cores I'll opt for the Gigabyte 1Gb which hopefully will still be available at that price on Monday.

stulid · 13 Sep 2010 at 16:10

Brocky said:
In that case as they all have the 336 cores I'll opt for the Gigabyte 1Gb which hopefully will still be available at that price on Monday.

its that price till wednesday