Spec Me - VFX PC

verbal_ie

verbal_ie

verbal_ie

Associate
Joined
14 Jan 2011
Posts
41
Hi,

I'm hoping to build a PC that I'd be using mostly for VFX work with programs like Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Houdini, Maya, 3DS Max etc.

Would need the following:
  • High-end processor (i7 up)
  • High-end graphics card that's OpenGL 2.0 compliant
  • Dual-monitor setup (I already own one monitor)
  • Lots of RAM!!

I'm a newbie at this, so I'd appreciate any tips! :D
 
how about this?


YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD 2560MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Corsair Dominator 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMP32GX3M4X1600C10) £269.99
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £233.99
1 x IIyama Prolite XB2472HD 24" Widescreen LED Business Monitor - Black £179.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.98
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £85.99 (£171.98)
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74.99
1 x Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £64.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro Extreme Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £26.99
Total : £1,567.00 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
verbal_ie said:
That's a small bit over budget for me. Sounds amazing though!! The i7 processor can handle 32gb?? Fantastic!
Click to expand...

Just take away one of the 1TB HDDs and that should be under, also reduce the the 128gb SSD to a 64gb.

Also i had no idea what inch your current monitor is so i just went for 24"?
 
ok this should be pretty sweet no i7 but within your 1500EU or £1250 budget.

if u went for less ram or no SSD or maybe a 560ti vs the 560ti 448 you could get the i7.

I have the same CPU cooler and mobo, and i can get a 4.1ghz OC and still be under 60c even at 100% load, so tbh i dont think you would "need" the i7 this comp would still be pretty dam fast at what you want it for.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Dominator 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMP32GX3M4X1600C10) £269.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" *** 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (012-P3-2066-KR) £201.95
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £112.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £69.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro Extreme Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £26.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £17.99
Total : £1,277.95 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
Last edited:
WD Black is overpriced, you can get a 2TB for that price.

change RAM to low profiles, it may not fit under the cooler.
 
this should work, less ram but faster, more HDD space, for less


YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" *** 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (012-P3-2066-KR) £201.95
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £113.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £69.98
2 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A2000C9) £59.99 (£119.98)
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro Extreme Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £26.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £17.99
Total : £1,128.94 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
wozzsta said:
this should work, less ram but faster, more HDD space, for less


YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" *** 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (012-P3-2066-KR) £201.95
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £113.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x XFX Pro 750W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £74.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £69.98
2 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A2000C9) £59.99 (£119.98)
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro Extreme Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £26.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash - Retail £17.99
Total : £1,128.94 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Click to expand...

hi mate, dont take it like im picking on your spec but, Ram timings/speed has little to no effect on Sandybridge,
2 sets of these are would be cheaper
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-KS

also, i would pick the Corsair A50 over the Arctic Freezer

edit: completely forgot about the Gelid Tranquillo, i would pick this over the A50 :D
 
Last edited:
Jony27 said:
hi mate, dont take it like im picking on your spec but, Ram timings/speed has little to no effect on Sandybridge,
2 sets of these are would be cheaper
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-KS

also, i would pick the Corsair A50 over the Arctic Freezer
Click to expand...

Not at all, im by no means an expert i just saw this thread had no replys and tried to help him :)

Then yeah ide go for them over what i suggested. I cant say about the cooler, i have the Arctic Freezer and it was easy to install and does a great job. but it looks to be the same price so its up to the guy to decide i guess.

EDIT: wait, that ram runs @ 1.65v i had always thought that the SB needed or work best with ram that runs @ 1.5v

EDIT AGAIN: Im blind disregard my first edit
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the replies guys.

I'm kinda new to this, so was wondering a few things. Why i5 instead of i7? Do I need Windows Ultimate to run 32gb RAM on the i7? Is there any drawbacks to 32gb? I.e. might I overload the processor by maxing the RAM it can handle?

Is a 64gb SSD enough for my programs (my current PC is dead, so I can't check a ballpark size)? Is it possible to boot Windows from the SSD drive to speed the whole OS running?

Cheers for all the help! :D
 
you will be able to boot from the SSD + install some if not all: Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Houdini, Maya, 3DS Max.

then they will run faster and then u save what ever files to your normal HDD.

i put i5 cuz its still a very good cpu but costs less plus with an OC it will run as fast as a stock i7. and yeah u need win 7 ultimate to run with 32gb of ram. but tbh ide stick with 16gb for now and then if u find u need more then go for more, but tbh unless your doing some really intense stuff i think you will be just fine with the 16gb
 
Personally i'd be seeing if you cant work an i7 3930k into your budget possibly with a motherboard like this one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-197-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2174

it has 8 dimm slots and comes with a reasonable cooler, the fans are noisy, but you could replace them later on with quiet 120mm fans.

to make it fit your budget you'd need to drop the ssd, its nice to have but if your using a lot of apps they wont fit on your ssd, also you will have to be carefull and make sure you install them to a second drive, and make sure any caches and working space required by the apps is on your second drive, nice to have, but an added complication and something you could add later.

Also a couple of these kits would be a good start, and with the mobo having 8 dimm slots you could add another couple kits later if you find you need it.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-328-CS

If your not using the pc for gaming i'd question if you need to spend £200 on a gfx card, i'm guessing the nvidia 560 is being reccomended because of cuda support in some of your apps, thats not something i know anything about though, so cant make a suggestion there. I use a ati 6950 driving three screens and do mostly 3d moddeling/rendering and its great as i also game, i dont feel you need a powerfull card for most 3d apps, but i dont do a lot of video editing so dont know what benefits the right card might bring to that.

I do think the thing that will benefit you most is a fast cpu and plenty of memory though so i'd concentrate the money there, i feel making some sacrifices elsewhere over what others have suggested could bring more benefits in terms of the software you have listed.
 
Ok, I'm pretty convinced. I'm def gonna build me a PC.

I'm hugely interested in this i7-3930K processor. 6 core?? Right, my main issues are this. I know how to build a computer in a very basic way - I know what components I need, what goes with what etc. But I've never done it and I'm a bit clueless about compatibility issues and such between different components. I.e. what motherboard would be needed for the above processor and then what kind of a cooling system you would need and then blah blah blah.

Any resources for me to read up on? I know the basic spec I want, the above processor, a SSD drive, 2tb HD, as much RAM as is possible/I can afford (16gb min) and a fairly decent HD monitor with the ability to set up a dual monitor system down the line.

I don't ask for much, do I??? :rolleyes:

Cheers!! :D
 
verbal_ie said:
Ok, I'm pretty convinced. I'm def gonna build me a PC.

I'm hugely interested in this i7-3930K processor. 6 core?? Right, my main issues are this. I know how to build a computer in a very basic way - I know what components I need, what goes with what etc. But I've never done it and I'm a bit clueless about compatibility issues and such between different components. I.e. what motherboard would be needed for the above processor and then what kind of a cooling system you would need and then blah blah blah.

Any resources for me to read up on? I know the basic spec I want, the above processor, a SSD drive, 2tb HD, as much RAM as is possible/I can afford (16gb min) and a fairly decent HD monitor with the ability to set up a dual monitor system down the line.

I don't ask for much, do I??? :rolleyes:

Cheers!! :D
Click to expand...

you need a socket 2011 motherboard to go with a 3930k, if you arent planning on overclocking the cpu, then i'd have thought any board will do as long as it has all the features you want, pay attention to the number of dimm slots though some of the cheaper boards only have 4 whilst you'll probably want 8 so you can use lots of cheaper ram.

You've mentioned ssd as a want, which is fair enough, but i'd only add that in last if you can fit it in your budget, unless you go for a very large and expensive ssd, as i mentioned already it wont benefit you that much, and you can easily lose the benefits in spending time moving files around and making sure you arent inadvertantly filling it all the time. Its something i added to my own 3d rendering biased machine at a later date, and whilst it makes windows load quicker, and the few things i can fit on it open instantly, it offers little else because all my apps and the content i create is too large to fit on the ssd, so from that point of view it offers nothing, it will be situational though. I could move current projects onto it, but its not worth the hassle for a few seconds of time saved. I'd be putting that money towards cpu, or a good monitor or something. If you have the budget though go for it.

something to consider is how quiet do you want this pc to be, 3930k's require carefull consideration towards cooling (socket 2011 cpu's do not come with coolers so you need to buy a compatible one), although if your not planning to overclock its not so important. Is this machine purely for content creation or do you plan to use it for gaming aswell?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom