Hi everyone, I'm new to building computers but not new to computers at all. I pretty much know the basics of computer building ( the parts and how to put it together and such from video tutorials) but I have some questions for you all.
I'm bug on 3d modelling and rendering very high resolution scenes that take my current computer quite a bit of time to render. Currently I have a pretty old HP running Windows 7 on an AMD Athlon II x4 630 quad core - 2.8GHz, a very lame ATI Radeon HD 4350, with 6gb of ram. I run this on two 20 inch monitors mounted side by side.
I'll be going to college next fall and studying architecture. I use programs like Blender, Google Sketchup, Podium, and Kerkythea to create and render my creations and it's definitely time for an upgrade. I'm looking to build a rig that can run 4 monitors (for creating models and multi-tasking) but also run Steam games at their full settings as well as allow me to render stills and animated scenes in a reasonable time.(Not 72+ hours for a 1 minute scene of simple animation)
I haven't decided on which 4 monitors I'll be getting but probably something around the $100 each range.
Also, what is overclocking and super clocking and are there any downsides to it? Would I need a cooling kit for it? Is it worth it? I went with SSD over HDD because I've heard it's faster, but is it an unnecessary cost for what I'm doing? I use a lot of disk space. 400 GB on my current computer.
So far I've compiled some parts together on NewEgg, and I'd like to know what you all think. Are there any things I've added that are unnecessary? I'm pretty set on the video card, but are there other things that I could do without to save money? I am trying to stay below 1000 and would like to get to the 800 range if possible.
Here i made you a build for about 870$ http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FPWc
The 7850 will be better than the GTX 6xx series for rendering with programs that dont use CUDA as the 7xxx Series OPENCL capability is a lot stronger than Nvidia's. (it also handels a lot of games fairly well)
With the CPU cooler you can give your 8350 a mild OC and gain some more performance from it for fater render times.
the 128Gb SSD should be used for you OS programs and ongoing projects (theyll be quicker to load an scrub through in an editor) and anything big like finished projects or games can be put on the 1TB HDD.
Everything else i changed was just a Cheaper version of what you had, because some of the things you were going to buy had capabilities you probably wouldnt use
Wow, thank you for doing all of that. That helped a lot.
A big reason I wanted to go with the Nvidia card was the Ambient Occlusion feature that allows you to make some older games that I play look a lot better. Would the Radeon card have that capbility also?
I recommend Nvidia for editting, rendering, because they have CUDA.
This build is around $1000, and it's very good for gaming and video editting. You could swap out the GTX 670 for a Radeon 7870, if you wanted to save a bit of cash.
both of those programs benefit from OpenCl acceleration, as for the SSD id say so if your using large files, it will make everything as lot snappier and smoother when trying to edit a large video in vegas ect...
if you want to save some money on the CPU just get an FX 8320, its just a lower clocked 8350, and with the cooler you have you can easily OC it just as high as the 8350.
SSD prices right now are nowhere near the cost/GB of conventional mechanical drives.SSD's are double as what HDD are cost for,As far as 3D rendering is concerned it mostly depends upon the processor,So better you opt for good processor.GPU is also a very good option.