PC build for Animation use - Advice needed please

Listy

Listy

Listy

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18 Aug 2006
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66
Hello forumites,

A friend of mine texted me earlier for advice on building a rig for his GF that would be used for animation purposes (for her Uni degree work) but as I've only ever built gaming rigs I'd like some opinions/advice please.

Many thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to reply :)
 
Have you got a budget they wish to stick to as ideally you would want an i7 920/6Gb Ram however if there is a budget involved an i5/4gb ram would be more appropriate
either of those pairer with an ATI 4870 should be more than enough power
 
AcidHell2 said:
Budget, what software is going to be used? rendering?
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I agree. The software you use will define the spec. I teach people how to animate, and I personally have 2 massively different machines to work on. My primary CGI machine is an Ultima Eliminator I bought from OC, and my 2D machine is an old Dual core AMD 6000+ that is now almost 4 years old, so it really comes down to what you want to use the PC for.
 
from current experience in animating ( am at uni and been doing it a few months prior) i have found its processing power that determing ow fast an animation can render / play back.

we need a budget but i would recomend I5 as a bare minimum I7 920 if you can, as for GPU it doesn't matter it can be old and crappy but if she is wanting to play games then it alters price.

hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. She uses Autodesk 3D Studio Max & Photoshop, and the budget is £1000 - £1500.

Cheers again
 
What Monitor does she have?

EDIT:

Providing you have a Monitor and case ready here's what I got, it's £1265

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swap out the mobo for an asus p6t se, the ram for 6gb of patriot viper pc3-12800, swap the hdd up to a spinpoint f3 1tb, swap the ssd out for the 30gb version and add in a cm690 case and a titan fenrir and you've got essentially the same build for £200 less
 
MonkeykingZX said:
swap out the mobo for an asus p6t se, the ram for 6gb of patriot viper pc3-12800, swap the hdd up to a spinpoint f3 1tb, swap the ssd out for the 30gb version and add in a cm690 case and a titan fenrir and you've got essentially the same build for £200 less
Click to expand...

OK the ASUS is a better board, I was just looking at what most users had with stability, apparently that UD5 is a very good board.

I don't see a problem with the RAM.

The SSD... I was thinking of a bit of a large space on that, rendering could make it that much more faster rather than waiting for a mechanical disk.

But they are good suggestions none the less
 
never had a problem with my asus board haven't really tried pushing it yet either, but then again haven't really needed to lol

well the ram i chose is £100 cheaper, i don't see the point of them spending money they don't need to
 
I'd just like to chime in with my experiance.

My GF did a 2D animation degree and while things like Flash and Toon Boom arent hugely resource intensive it still had to be edited together in Premier and things added in in After Effects and rendered/encoded out so still needs a fair bit of grunt.

Don't assume that if it's 2D it won't need a lot of RAM and fair CPU power.

EDIT

Just seen you say she does 3D, oh well, my points still stand.
 
She wants a new monitor aswell, and will be wanting a 24" good (non TN) panel I assume. Also are the 5850, SSD and 750w PSU really necessary? She wont be gaming and I run my rig's 5850 off of an Enermax 620w totally fine!
 
Listy said:
She wants a new monitor aswell, and will be wanting a 24" good (non TN) panel I assume. Also are the 5850, SSD and 750w PSU really necessary? She wont be gaming and I run my rig's 5850 off of an Enermax 620w totally fine!
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Get a DELL U2410 IPS Panel

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-036-DE&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

As for the 5850, SSD and 750w PSU, I was just thinking a 5850's processing power will be useful here and it runs cool, the SSD for obvious fast file processing and the 750w just there, it can be put lower.
 
Hmmm I think I'm going to rule out an SSD to be honest as they're just not cost effective yet. Raiding two Samsung F3 1Tb's might be a better idea IMHO and I'm still not sold on the 5850 for this lol

Seriously though, cheers for helping (that goes to everyone else aswell) I really appreciate it :)
 
I USE 3DS MAX............. same stuff she is doin here is what you need to consider:

I7 920 is a must really and well capable of purchasing in your build

RAM is not all that used in 3ds max when rendering, if you have my spec (Q9550) on DDR 2 vs DDR 3 at same speeds, no decerease in rendering times, so you can go for cheap DDR3 ram, 6gb is fine too

the graphics card on hte above list would be useless if she won't be gaming, like i said anything relative to an 8800GTS or cheaper if you wish is all you need saving you money for an aftermarket cooler making the processor run faster and aloooot better when rendering

the SSD option could be good although i don't have one i may consider one in a future build as it means she can save and load work sooner which could be a benafit but i am not sure how much quicker animation rendering is with an SSD over a standard HDD....

personally i would go with this:

I7 920
Antec 902 (think thats what its called, its one up from Antec 900)
Corsair H50 cooler
Asus P6t mobo
8800GTS gpu or equivelent
6 gig DDR 3 RAM you chose but i would go OCZ
550W antec modular psu
500GB HDD
Cheapest DVD drive

i think all that will come under £1K easy enough and then you can pickup a 24" monior for arround £130 i believe on competitor sites, not sure of OC...

hope that helps out, like i said, IN 3DS MAX ITS MORE ABOUT CPU OVER GPU BY a lot!!! :)
 
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