Spec a pc for design work

MG44

MG44

MG44

Associate
Joined
27 Dec 2008
Posts
76
hi all

I am looking to build a new system over xmas and buy my bits in the next week or so, i shall b going home from uni on monday or tuesday (19th or 20th) and i drive past overclockers so can save on shipping!!!

I currently have the following which i am going to reuse
PSU ocz mod x 600w
cd drive
mouse keyboard
win 7 64bit
2 screens, 21" at 1980x1200 main and 17"
500gb Samsung f3 spin point
ati 4850 512mb
and ati 2300 fire pro ( i dont do a huge amount of gaming and the fire pro is used for my cad applications)

I also have a asaka freedom tower cpu cooler but am wondering weather to replace. Will i get more overclock with a water-cooled cpu cooler

What i have so far on my list is
core i5 2500K oem
MSI Z68A-G45-G3 Intel Z68

what i need your help with is for best

8Gb ram combo
60GB ssd to boot windows and main programs from
case,
good cooling and cable management, and dust filters as I have a hatred of dust getting in my pc and i dont have an air compressor to clean.

My main uses are 3d cad, photoshop and photorealistic renders, so lots of ram and max cpu frequency is what I am aiming for, hopefully atleast 4.4Ghz oc

budget around £500 but can push over a bit if its going to give me a performance increase

cheers

mark
 
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black £92.99
(£77.49) £92.99
(£77.49)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £85.99
(£71.66) £85.99
(£71.66)
Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/8GX) Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/8GX) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Sub Total : £414.12
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £85.17
Total : £511.04
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £85.99
(£71.66) £85.99
(£71.66)
Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black Bitfenix Raider Tower Case - Black £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.98
(£66.65) £79.98
(£66.65)
Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £65.99
(£54.99) £65.99
(£54.99)
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
(£21.66) £25.99
(£21.66)

£499.93 exc. delivery

I think 16GB would be benefical esp for a system aimed at CAD work. CPU cooler will easily get you up to 4.6GHz and motherboard gets good reviews despite being at the budget end of the market. Not entirely sure on case choice but it comes with fan filters (although the front is not removable).
 
mickyflinn said:
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
(£149.99) £179.99
(£149.99)
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black £92.99
(£77.49) £92.99
(£77.49)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £85.99
(£71.66) £85.99
(£71.66)
Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/8GX) Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/8GX) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Sub Total : £414.12
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £85.17
Total : £511.04
Click to expand...

change the mb to http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-GI

use the money saved towards http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-112-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

mg44 is the cooler you have 1156 socket compatible? if so then it'll work on this system as 1155 and 1156 use the same cooler mounting, if not you'll have to get a new one if getting the oem cpu.
 
For photo realistic rendering you really really want hyper threading. So a minimum 2600K you're going to spend a lot longer waiting for renders than for your system to boot, so skip the SDD and put the money into a cpu.

For rendering it's all about the cores/threads, and of course speed, so you might even be better off grabbing a nice cheap 1366 setup for a hex core, or even (I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't say it) a bulldozer..... :eek:
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99

Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £81.98

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.98

OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £71.99

Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/8GX) £39.95


Sub Total : £363.24
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £75.15
Total : £450.89

this case fits my bill preety well
dont need 16Gb of ram
i have 8Gb at work and iv never maxed it out even working on enclosures with 10k+ parts
hyper threading dosnt offer much performance increase from bench marks ive seen, so am not keen to spend the money on it.
iv checked and it looks like the asaka will fit on 1156!

Am i gonna get a gd stable oc from the board and is that the best ssd i can get??

cheers for all your advice guys has helped allot!!!!
 
Hyper threading in 3d Studio max can knock 40% of your render times. That's using the mental ray render engine. Did a fair bit of testing on this when hyperthreading was re-introduced with the first gen i7 chips came out, to squeeze as much performance as possible. For most things it doesn't do a lot, for games it's worse, but for rendering it's essential.

Don't know about the bench marks, but for real world application I use it every day and it makes a big difference. If you can shave a minute of a frame of a 600 frame animation, you just saved 10 hours.

Also, I'd get the M4 SSD, they seem to be the most reliable right now, I have a couple and and have had no problems so far.

I'd agree with you on the memory, I used to max out 3gb on 32 bit windows all the time, since 64 bit I've rarely gone over 4gb and never managed to run out with 6gb.
 
i use keyshot 2 and 3 fro rendering which is twice as fast as mental ray any way. Iv never done animations and its nt really my line of work.

If everyone thinks this will give me a gd build then i shall order it all tomorow nite!!

cheers for all the help
 
Im surprised you guys seem to use so little ram, I had to upgrade to 16gb because i was constantly running out.

Thats with 3DMax and Vray, though its animations that seem to need it, not the stills.

Depends what youre working on of course.
 
That'll be Vray. I avoid it myself, it might be easy to set up, but it is so slow and a resource hog.

I know a few other guys in the industry who swear by it, but still have to wait hours for a render. If I have to wait any more than 5 minutes I get rage!
 
Before that I used mental Ray and if anything I'd have said the renders were slightly faster, but like i say i suppose it depends on what youre doing as the stuff i was doing in Mr is far from what I do now.
 
I does depend on the project, I tend to work on design development for agencies and visual presentations for sales, in retail events and exhibitions, so it's more stylized than photo real.

As an example I'm working on a scene at the moment with 19 million faces & 101 ray traced lights, an over all render of the space is taking about 4 minutes with mental ray @ 1920x1080. If I get in close to the deatil on this scene, specifically in amongst some glass with a lot of refraction going on, it can slow down to 7 minutes a frame.

Max is reporting a smidge under 5gb of ram used, and windows shows 7.3gb I have a lot of repetition in the scene with furniture etc, but I haven't bothered to set up proxies or place holders for the geometry because it just isn't slow enough yet to bother.
 
im an industrial designer so most of my work is product design related, consumer products etc nothing huge in size but very detailed in components and fits etc, rendering is only part of what i do its also using pro e/ autodesk and photoshop which i ideal need to be running all at once.

well shall get the m4 sdd 64Gb and i think am set to pick it all up tuesday !!!
shall let you guys know how it goes.
 
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