Spec Me - VFX PC

I wasn't planning on over-clocking. It's a machine purely for VFX design. Not too much 3D stuff, mostly compositing in Nuke and After Effects. But id like it to be able to handle some 3D stuff like Maya and 3DS Max. I also do a lot of short movie projects, so editing and the likes in Premiere Pro etc. Wouldn't be used for gaming at all. Would just be design.

Ideally I'd love that i7 processor with a SSD, am I dreaming with a budget like mine?
 
That looks very good! I might even stretch to a higher capacity SSD, or if I forfeit that a higher graphics card.

So if I'm running my programs on a SSD, I need to transfer across the project files I'm working on each time? Can I not access the files from a different drive? Or does that defeat the whole purpose of the SSD? Does it get messy if you have some programs on SSD and others on the normal HD? I could see big advantages to having Windows and the big programs like Nuke and After Effects load quickly, but not if it causes a huge amount of bother each time you go to open a file? Surely that defeats the purpose of making life easier with a SSD?? :confused:

Sorry, I've never had a SSD and my friends are all telling me I'm mad to build without one
 
its not a problem, its just a case of being carefull when installing things and paying attention to where they are installing, as its pretty easy to fill 60 gb before you know it! It doesnt get messy you just have to pick and choose what you install to the ssd in order to manage the space, and remember and move your download folders so if you decided to download something large you wont accidently fill the drive, and make sure any apps that use plugin folders are putting things where you want them, for example i use cubase and i could put it on the ssd, but i'd need to make sure my plugin folders are not on the ssd as all my plugins would fill the ssd in no time, its just stuff like that you need to manage more rather than rolling with the defaults all the time, no big deal just stay on top of it.

i have windows, and a couple of the main apps i use on the ssd so they load faster, and everything else is on a couple of 1tb drives, and i just open my projects from those drives so no mucking about. It probably saves about 20 seconds or so in terms of getting to the desktop and getting my apps loaded, but after that there isnt any difference as your back to pulling data from normal hd's, so its not exactly life changing lol. It does make general windows usage much nicer though and yes its worth including if you can, but as i've said i wouldnt do it at the expense of getting the other components right.
 
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Premier Pro and especially after effects take advantage of muti-threaded rendering, you really want hyper-threading on that kind of workstation so i7 is a must, socket 2011 preferably.

You could drop the SSD for now in favor of a better processor, they're easy to add later.

I have a full design suite (AutoCAD, 3D studio Max, CS5 Master suite) plus office and few games on a 128gb and a 256gb M4, and both have room to spare, the 256gb is only half full and I'm not being that careful (and battlefield keeps getting bigger!), so saving for a slightly higher capacity one makes sense anyway.

Premier, Photoshop and after effects supposedly take advantage of decent graphic cards, but I haven't noticed much difference between a 3gb 580 and an old 275, or even the 8400 on my laptop for that matter. I do remember CS4 Photoshop crashing the graphics driver a lot when using advanced acceleration though, so I wouldn't invest too much in a graphics card.

The Nvidia 4xx series had some driver issues with 3D studio 2011 and earlier but it's been fixed since 2012, still worth sticking with the 5xx series and above if you can though.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for all the help guys!! Much appreciated!

Budget has dropped a bit unfortunately! Anyone care to re-spec me for about €1000 (£850)? This time I don't need a monitor. I'm hoping I can still get that i7 in there over anything else.

Am I nuts in thinking I can get the i7 3930k with 16gb RAM and maybe a SSD for that price?

Also, might be an incredibly stupid question, but what do you connect an ESD wrist-strap to ???
 
No possible way of getting a 3930k on that budget unfortunately. You're best off going for a i7 2600k and overclocking it which will give very good performance.

Imho something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £249.95
1 x Asrock Z77 Extreme4 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £119.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) £99.95
1 x XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £72.98
2 x Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Single Channel Module (CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10) £47.99 (£95.98)
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £676.82 (includes shipping : £10.00).



+ a budget case and GFX card. I have no idea what GFX card you'd need but there should be enough left in the budget. Then you can add another 2 memory DIMMs and an SSD at a later date when you have the funds.

ESD strap can be connected to anything that is grounded, the case should be fine as long as it's not on plastic.
 
Cheers! My budget seems to be dropping every day :( so I think the best bet for me is to build a decent PC with the possibility of upgrading and adding on in the future.

I'd be happy enough with the i7-2600K along with 8gb of RAM (that I'll eventually move up to 32gb or even 64gb). That means I'll need a motherboard with 8 DIMM slots.

I'll be happy enough doing without the SSD until later on, but should I not have this at first so that I can install Windows 7 on it? Also, am I right in thinking I'll need to get Windows 7 Ultimate so that in future I can upgrade to 64gb of RAM?

I'll figure out what graphics card I need / can afford, and I won't need a monitor or any peripherals as I'll be robbing all that from my old PC.

The part I'm most worried about is the CPU cooling and the internal fans etc. Should I spend a bit more on a decent case and some decent fans? I'm very worried picking the wrong fans or cooling system could cause the computer to not function well?

Do I need to buy all internal power and data cables seperately or do they tend to come with the components?

Cheers
 
Hi there,

Firstly, Ivy Bridge is out soon and worth waiting for if you're not in a rush.

You can only get 8 DIMMs on a socket2011 board [which are expensive].

You can add an SSD later but you'd need to reinstall Windows on it - but for your use it seems you'd need lots of storage first so perhaps get a large HDD first then you upgrade to an SSD later.

What is your current budget then? I'll spec you something, you wouldn't need to worry about cooling.

Power cables come with the PSU and data cables witht he motherboard :)

Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate are required for more than 16GB of RAM yes
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £116.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x OcUK HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £99.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £899.78 (includes shipping : £12.50).



GPU has "OpenGL 3.2 Support" according to the specs
 
You could squeeze X79 in, this is over budget (£850?) but without the SSD is about right. No GPU either but more RAM and capacity for 4 more DIMMs. Bare in mind this CPU is about the same as the 2600K
but it gives you a platform with more room for RAM and a 6-core CPU later

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Asus P9X79 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £199.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £116.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £89.99
1 x Samsung Green 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual/Quad Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) £89.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £954.88 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
Right-o.

Thanks again for all the help. My final budget is a spanking €1,300 (£1,000) give or take €50 or so.

Some must haves for me:
An i7 processor
16gb RAM
A SSD (maybe 120gb?)
2tb Hard Drive
Good Power Supply
Windows 7 (never seems to be included in sample baskets!)
And whatever the best graphics card my budget leaves me with

I found a couple of pre-built systems, both using the new Z77 chipset motherboards for the price with the above, but one is a Dell and I'm worried about customisability (terrible spelling!!) in future and also worried about their power supply. The other is decent enough, but both have what turns out to be a fairly crappy graphics card for the money (the AMD Radeon 7770 DDR5 1gb).

In terms of the SSD, is it hard to set up an SRT caching system and also have Windows boot from it along with installing a couple of the bigger programs (After Effects, Maya, Premiere Pro etc) on it?

Cheers!
 
This is a bit over but includes all you wanted:

I'm not sure if you need Windows 7 Pro, but if you plan on going with more than 16GB later then you'll need it:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £249.95
1 x VTX3D HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Dirt3 PC Game £191.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £108.00
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £105.95
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) £97.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £80.40
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,048.22 (includes shipping : £12.50).



I think it is possible to use some of the SSD as cache and some as normal, I've not had experience myself though sorry.
 
Is it not necessary to also have a CPU cooling? This is the main worry I have of building, mainly because it is the main thing I don't understand when it comes to components (along with a few other points as you can see below!! :rolleyes:)

I'm leaning more towards the Smart Response Technology SSD idea. The max caching is 64gb, but I'm not sure if this means that Windows also boots from the SSD or if I'd need a bigger SSD for that?? EDIT: Actually if I understand what I was just reading on the Google machine, you load Windows onto the HD and it caches to the SSD for optimal booting?? Correct me if I'm wrong, cos that sounds odd yet kind of right???

Would I need a 2gb graphics card if I wanted a dual monitor setup? Or might I be better going with something like the GTX 560Ti "448 Edition"? I know they're similar in price, but which would be better (sorry, fairly clueless about graphics cards - won't be used for gaming, but just for occasional 3D rendering in Maya or 3DS Max)

Also, this is probably a stupid question, but what is the difference between Windows Pro and Home Premium? I mean, it'll behave and look the same right? :confused: I don't want it to look like my PC at work!!

Finally, is 600w enough power or should I be looking at 750w? Maybe if I reduced the size of the SSD, I could afford this.
 
It is indeed necessary, but that i7 is a retail version and comes with a stock cooler which will be adequate.

That is correct, you never 'see' the SSD, it just speeds up the hard drive in the background.

If you're just gaming on one screen and using the other for other applications [which I'd recommend], the VRAM on the 560Ti 448 edition is enough. Acutally in your situation the Nvidia card might be better as it supports CUDA. Take a look into it, it might help speed up your rendering.

The main difference for you is that Pro can support upto 192GB of RAM, whereas HP is limited to 16GB. They will look and behave the same :)

600W is plenty for a 7850, you could nearly run two with that - they are fairly low power cards. For a GTX560 Ti 448, 550W and above is fine. As it says here
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-448-core-review/7

Changing the graphics card and SSD brings it right on budget :)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £249.95
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" WindForce 3x OC 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £108.00
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) £97.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £80.40
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5 SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £69.95
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,000.22 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
So the fancy schmancy water coolers and the likes are just if i were to overclock (which I don't plan to do seeing as I don't have the knowledge)? But the stock cooler will work perfectly if it stays at 3.40ghz?

I'll be using for video editing and VFX stuff (mostly compositing), so if I were to use a dual monitor system (both in HD) would the GTX560 Ti 448 graphics card hold up ok?

Also, any recommendations on adding a tiny bit to the spec (low cost add-ons) so I could see if I could afford a memory card reader and wireless connectivity? I just want to see if I can afford these straight away with the build or if I'll have to add down the line.

What are opinions on SRT? I keep changing my mind about it. SRT of 64gb cache vs. dedicated SSD with the OS and a few key, frequently used hardcore programs??
 
Once again, a big thanks to everyone who posted here with advice and for the great patience with my ever-changing notions of what I wanted. Here's my final decision on what I'm going to build.

Please tell me if I've made any mistakes here, or if there's anything I can improve on. I'm coming in €80 over budget, but I'll work around that. I think I'm happy to go with Intel's SRT - can somebody tell me if the SSD listed below works with that? I think it does.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £249.95
1 x ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560Ti "448 Edition" OC 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
1 x Akasa Venom Toxic Full Tower Gaming Case - Black £119.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) £109.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £108.00
1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £83.99
1 x Akasa Venom 750w Modular '80 Plus' Power Supply £69.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5 SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £59.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
1 x Akasa Internal 6-slot Multi Card Reader with Superspeed USB 3.0 port (AK-ICR-07U3)
 £11.99
Total : £1,137.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
It's really your basket beejjacobs, but I changed a couple of things:

I upped the PSU to 750w to help me sleep at night :p, but stuck with a modular 80 plus. Opinions on this particular PSU are welcome.

Chose a slightly different version of the graphics card, but I'm not 100% sure why?! Think it was something to do with the airflow maybe? Or maybe just because this one had more customer reviews? Thoughts?

Chose a diff HD because the other one is out of stock. Went with the nearest 2tb 7200rpm 64mb cache to the price.

Went with 2x8gb RAM so that when I upgrade to 32gb in the future it'll just be a matter of buying the same again rather than replacing all. Does this particular RAM work well with the motherboard?

I threw in a memory card reader because I transfer photos and videos quite often and they can be handy.

Is there anything else I should do? Should I go for Windows 7 Ultimate over Pro? Are there any big advantages?
 
Looks fine, I'd get the other 560Ti as it's cheaper, with a custom cooler too - so it'll run quieter/overclock better.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-094-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1854

As that motherboard only supports one graphics card, you may as well get this PSU as it's much cheaper and will have no issues running that rig:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-166-CM&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1103

Get this CPU instead, Ivy Bridge is out now and is the same price, so you'd be mad not to!
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-403-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567


Other changes seem good :)

Don't like the case myself, but looks plenty big enough!

Stick with Win 7 Pro.
 
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