spec check pls, building a pc for rendering.

something_totally_different · 2 Jul 2008 at 14:16

Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (WD740ADFD) £76.99
(£90.46) £76.99
(£90.46)

MSI ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT OC 512MB GDDR4 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)

Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)

DFI Lan Party DK X38-T2R Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £94.99
(£111.61) £94.99
(£111.61)

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £64.99
(£76.36) £129.98
(£152.72)

Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)

Hiper 580W HPU-4M580 SLi Certified ATX2.2 PSU £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)

Total: £704.84 opinions welcome

Its going to be used for 64bit 3D studio max on 64bit vista.

PhoenixUK · 2 Jul 2008 at 14:50

a lot of random components I see there.

Is it only for rendering/other graphical work or will you be gaming as well ?
If you not gonna game much the newest titles you could do with cheaper GPU and cheaper mobo.

i hope you got another 1tb-2tb drive since the raptor is just 74gb

.
I would rather pick one of the samsung F1s instead of it or 2+ for RAID setup for same price.

I think hiper PSUs were getting bad reviews and I would advise getting an extra 20 quid and taking something from: Thermaltake/Tagan/Corsair/Enermax/Seasonic, heard the PC P&C are good too, never had those myself so i cant say.

I think you could do with the Q9450 for more cache over Q6600 as well if it's for graphics.

MMD · 2 Jul 2008 at 14:51

I think the Samsung F1's give comparable performance vs the 74gb raptors.. so you could save a few pennies there for sure (and have a much larger disk). You could afford to RAID0 them too that way.

something_totally_different · 2 Jul 2008 at 16:45

well im a little set against raid as the last time i used a raid set up, vista decided to do a disk check 3 weeks in and screwed the lot. I cant risk having that happen to several thousand pounds worth of prototype renders. As for the motherboard... i was planning to overclock the Q6600 and DFi have never let me down before but i am open to suggestions.

the system will not be used for gaming but based on experience here in the office of just changing the GPU in one of our systems from a 7300GT to a 9600GT gave a good drop in render times which is what we are after. are the F1 drives really nearly as quick as a raptor ??

ByteJuggler · 2 Jul 2008 at 16:53

something_totally_different said:
the system will not be used for gaming but based on experience here in the office of just changing the GPU in one of our systems from a 7300GT to a 9600GT gave a good drop in render times which is what we are after. are the F1 drives really nearly as quick as a raptor ??

Your rendering software must then make use of the GPU somehow...

Anyway, to answer your question: The F1 is as quick/slightly quicker as the Raptor for linear sustained transfers, however the Raptor still has the seek time/random access time advantage. If your usage pattern is going to mostly linear reads, then the F1 is a better buy. If your usage patters is going to be random access, then the Raptor might still be better simply due to its faster seek time. (But in that case if you're really after seek-time, I would consider an SSD drive, if money's not a problem.) Aside: there's also the Velociraptor of course.

something_totally_different · 2 Jul 2008 at 17:11

well i have found a 32gig sata SSD drive for £90 which i may try. but the max budgets for the base is £700 you see, hence why im looking for clockable options to get the most for the money.

PhoenixUK · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:21

I'm wondering how those thousand pounds worth renders gonna fit on 74gb drive.

Last time I did some totally noob basic explosion animation in 3Ds Max it took like 2gb.

martian_aphid · 3 Jul 2008 at 12:54

i dont remember max using the gpu except for viewport rendering, its cpu/ram based so thats where to focus the cash

something_totally_different · 3 Jul 2008 at 23:26

PhoenixUK said:
I'm wondering how those thousand pounds worth renders gonna fit on 74gb drive.

Last time I did some totally noob basic explosion animation in 3Ds Max it took like 2gb.

indeed but when its done and saved it gets off loaded onto either a secondary drive on the system or the network storage.

martian_aphid said:
i dont remember max using the gpu except for viewport rendering, its cpu/ram based so thats where to focus the cash

i agree but our designer doesnt

he also happens to be a director.