PC upgrade for 3D modelling/illustration work

Mark TW · 16 Jun 2021 at 12:53

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my PC, I mostly use it for 3D modelling and texturing, Photoshop and occasional not too demanding gaming. I'm looking to get a touchscreen tablet too which involves a GPU with 2 HDMI ports as my current monitor already uses one of them.

It's dated from 2014 and am wondering if I should maybe get a new one built instead? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to building or upgrading as all I've ever done is installed some RAM and a new HD but could probs fit a new GPU or SSD myself, maybe get someone else to do a CPU install. I don't have a massive budget maybe up to £800, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Specs:

Case: Zalman Z3 Plus

Intel Core i5 4670K Haswell Processor 3.40 GHz (No Overclocking)

Asus Z87-K Motherboard - Haswell CPU only

8GB Corsair/Crucial PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (2 x 4GB sticks)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650Ti Boost 2048MB Graphics Card

WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive

Corsair Value Series VS550W PSU

Thanks for looking :-)

Mark TW · 16 Jun 2021 at 23:17

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I've read a little about it being a bad time to buy a graphics card.

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 10:09

3DS max, but have also stated to use substance painter, modelling mostly non organic stuff like cars, furniture ect. Haven't had the need to nicely render out images yet. My PC is running things 'fine' in general but does have the occasional slow down, I haven't ascertained yet where the bottleneck is.
Tetras yeah, I see what you mean about GPUs having read a little more about it! :-S

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 10:30

mickyflinn said:
8gb of ram is probablly not enough and the lack of a ssd .

yeah, might need to look into cloning my HDD as I dread the idea of having to install everything again :-)

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 15:06

Great, thank you all for your replies :-)

lots to think about, an SSD and some more RAM might be the option for the meantime until those GPUs start going down in price again.

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 15:14

....also a new PSU looks like it might be a good idea

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 21:51

Kurgen said:
have you checked what quadro cards are supported by 3dmax, price inflation hasnt effected them, and plenty of 2nd hand ones around

No I haven't , good tip though, thank you

Mark TW · 17 Jun 2021 at 23:34

Nirurin said:
Increasing from 8gb of ram should be a good step. 16gb will immediately be a big improvement, but I'd probably suggest aiming for 32 (I currently run 64). If you have an ATX system then you can forward-plan a bit by getting 2x16 sticks now, and then you have the option to get 2 more sticks sometime in the future (as long as you match brand/speed you shouldn't have an issue). Or you could save money by getting 2x8gb sticks now, and then 2 more sticks later, but that would limit you to a max of 32gb (which is probably fine tbh).

8gb of video ram is pretty much a necessity. I was hoping to get a 12gb/24gb gpu this time around, but due to the whole... situation... I'm still on an 8gb gpu, but it would still be a big improvement compared to what you have now.

Also yeh slowdowns during viewport use would be a CPU thing...

lol yeh you pretty much need newer everything. However you don't need bleeding-edge CPU to get big improvements. Get something a couple generations old (maybe a 9700k? Or a 3800x ryzen?) Which you can probably pick up used for under £100.

If I was you, I'd probably trawl ... I'm not sure if this counts as 'competition' as OC don't sell used systems?.. lets just say the well known used selling site - for someone selling their old system as a single bundle. I just found a recently sold full system, with a 1070ti and a ryzen 2700x, 16gb of decent ram, £800 total. That system would pretty much be night and day compared to what you have now.

Great, thank you for that comprehensive answer, now if I can only figure out what well known used selling site you're on about :-D