System Configurator Questions

Jock

Jock

Jock

Associate
Joined
27 Mar 2008
Posts
967
Location
Darlington
Hi there,

I'm looking to buy one maybe two new systems for my business but wondered if I could get some advice before I do because I dont want to spend so much money to find out i made the wrong decision.

CPU: What exactly is thje diffference between ivybridge and sandybridge. The computer is going to be used for the likes of 3dmax and photoshop and not understanding the difference i'm not sure which is most appropriate.

Mobo: From what I can see they are all x79 and ddr3, so what exactly is the differences between them? Will they all pretty much do the same job?

RAM: I'm debating between 16gb and 32gb and for the latter, it says the mobo has to have enough slots. Would i be correct in thinking that if its not greyed out, then the mobo must support it?

HDD: I've never really heard of RAID before but had a quick explanation from a pal but am i right in saying if you want it whereby it makes a clone of your hdd on a seperate one, in case one fails, that would be RAID1? Also in the configurator, when i select raid, the choices of the hdd's all go grayed out, dont you still have to choose which ones you want?

Lastly, if you are looking to buy several of the same machine is there discounts or anything available?

Thanks for your time.


Edit: Sorry, one more question. When i bought the computer im using now from you guys it was some time ago and I wasnt allowed to get more RAM put in so was stuck on 6gig which was something along the lines of they couldnt overclock it. If I get 16 or 32gb will it still be overclocked if i choose it and can it still be overclocked a decent amount. Im just thinking if the most you could get is 10% theres no point paying for the full overclock.
 
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I was going to configure it from scratch and looking at the options either starting with Intel x79 sandybridge or the Intel Z77 Ivybridge.
 
Because i'll be using these every day for rendering I'm quite happy to pay a bit more, but only if its worth it, I dont want to throw money at something for the sake of it, but if it'll improve performance then i'm quite happy to part with more.

Might need to go look for some benchmarks for the specific programmes.
 
Cheers Micky.

Is this the right place to be asking these questions or should i be in general hardware or should i just be phoning ocuk?
 
Cheers Nathwraith,

So for the motherboards like you say, just need to check slots etc so thats no problem.

Although it hopefully wont happen because i'll be looking into it, but if you were to make a mistake on the configurator and just for arguments sake chose 32gb ram and it couldnt fit in, I take it it would get picked up and resolved whether thats to cut it to 16gb or the likes?

I think as you say 16gb will suffice as i've managed on 6 up till now though it has caused a few problems for some of the bigger animation jobs, but 16gb is a fair hike.

From your description Raid1 is obviously what I need I think, but the one thing i dont get is in the configurator, when you choose raid the hard drive 2 gets greyed out, but shouldnt I have to choose which drive i want to use. I've maybe got it wrong but what i envisaged was an SSd for C: purely for my core programs and windows, then something like a 2tb hdd for d: which would then be in a raid1 setup with a second drive of the same, which would have all job files etc which is the one i'd want backed up and saved should the worst happen.

In terms of where I go from here, i had sent in a webnote earlier when wondering the best way to contact and they mentioned the business to business number, although being self employed not sure if that applies or not but should i be going through them?

Cheers
 
Thanks for your help guys.

Just need to look into the motherboards and should place the oprder in the next couple of days. Good times.
 
As crazy as it sounds I seem to be struggling to get an order sorted and give you guys the money. Went down the phone call route as I had a couple of questions and then followed it up by email as instructed, but still waiting to hear back so I can place an order which I was hoping to do yesterday.
 
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