Help me kill my old rendering laptop

Hardware Hub Build a PC
1

I have been using a TERRIBLE dual core pentium laptop with HD 3000 graphics for RENDERING!  It takes days to render "light" animations that should take a few hours.  I use blender 3d and lightworks but am looking to upgrade to maya or cinema 4d for animation.  I also use this computer for VFX and video editing.  I bought the PC a few years ago before I knew much about computers.  I now know I overpaid for a not so great browsing PC.  I have a budged of $800 including the monitor, OS, and keyboared.  I already have a mouse and some ok speakers.  I wish to build my own computer and this being my first build I was wandering If you could help pic out parts.

Thanks and Alonze!

2

An 8350 will kill any CPU in rendering at the ~$180 price range. If you want something more powerful the 3770k/4770k is way to go. 

3

Thanks I was looking around and the 8320 seems to be a bit cheaper with close specs.  What I really need help with is the Graphics card,

4

If you aren't going to use your laptop anymore, you can always use the HDD for more space with this build.

I tried to stay under 800.  It's pretty hard, especially with the cost of windows. monitor, and keyboard.  I'm just pointing out that if you torrent Windows 7, you could use that 90 dollars toward other parts of the system.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1O78I

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor.  8 Cores should provide plenty of power.

MOBO: Biostar TA970 ATX AM3+ Motherboard.  Cheapest one with what I needed.

RAM: Kingston Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory.  Would prefer 1600mhz memory, but it was too expensive.  8GB is around the minimum for rendering in my opinion.

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive.  Typical stuff.

GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card.  CUDA isn't really used much (not the best with this stuff), and the HD 7950s are really great value right now.

CASE: Fractal Design Core 3000 ATX Mid Tower Case.  Cheap case.  I like Fractal Design.

PSU: EVGA 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply.  Cheap PSU with decent quality.

OD: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer.  If you need it.

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit).  I prefer Windows 7, and it's cheaper.

Monitor: Acer S220HQLAbd 21.5" Monitor.  Cheap monitor with good reviews on newegg.

KB: Rosewill RK-700M Wired Standard Keyboard.  Cheap membrane keyboard with decent reviews on newegg.

This should kick your laptop out the door in terms of power.

5

I use an 8350 for cinema4d rendering, I can vouch for it's price / performance ratio (meaning, it's good).

for graphics cards + cinema4d you only have to worry about opengl performance + vram limit

I keep wishing that one day maxon will about hardware acceleration but they haven't :( 

6

Just an FYI all the software I plan to use has recently become compatible with linux and this is now probably an arch or ubuntu system.  Thanks for the help

7

Thanks personally I use Blender.  I am going to learn maya but for the modelling blender seems to have the best interface for me.  Thanks for the tips on graphics.  I'm just starting out in the 3d world.

8

are you going to overclock?

9

(sorry life got in the way for a while)

maybe.  I'm open to it.  This will be my first build and I'm a little wary of overclocking since it can fry my components if I do it wrong.

10

why on Earth is every 1 suggesting an ATI card for a CGI rendering machine,

ALWAYS go with a NVIDIA card GeForce (for beginners) or Quadro (for very HIGH professional work that PAYS) for any CG related work, unless u r planning to buy a ATI FirePro Card,

i my self have been searching for the right setup even though mi current rig does every thing but i KNOW this for SURE that NEVER buy a ATI Radeon card for ANY CG related work

11

Prior to my current 7970 I used to have a NV Quadro card and for cinema 4d it wasn't worth the money

I have yet to experience a single display driver related crash in cinema4d with my current 7970 and the price premium of stability doesnt seem worth it... the simple truth is that as long as you dont overclock you are pretty much set.

... and outside of cinema4d I get the benefit of being able to use it for gaming

12

If you are using blender i would by no means recommend you an amd card nvidia cards have cuda which works amazingly in blender cycles i have a gtx 760 and it renders in blender at about 10x the speed of my overclocked fx-8350. only nvidia gpus support cuda so would have to have a nvidia card in order to utilize that function correctly. also amd card prices have spikes you can get a 770 for the price of a 7950 on newegg currently which is a significantly better card than my 760 and overall for your work a better choice due to the sudden rise in amd card prices.

13

While gathering information for my own rig i show this thread and since i'm a linux user i thought i should also warn you about amd gfx on linux.

While they're cheaper and often comparable to nvidia in terms of performance they could also be a pain in the a#$ when it comes to linux. And that's because of the drivers and the way those affect performance from one release to another.

My best bet with amd was to stick to an older kernel - driver combination which worked but its not an option for a productive machine since you would want to keep your system up to date and squeeze everything possible from your new hardware.

So, go with nvidia. I myself after a lot of research thinking of the evga gtx 760 oc since it overclocks good, while keeping the power consumption (and temp) low as possible.

And since you're gonna be using linux have a look at distrowatch.com. You will find many distros specialized for what you do.

Last, i would also advice you to avoid ubuntu but not its derratives (since they seem to be polished with better code), and chose a debian based distro if possible.

14

This would fit your budget, and be great for rendering. FX 8320 gives you 8 great performing cores, and a GTX 660 gives you CUDA abilities to use to boost the rendering. Also, i found a quite affordable nice IPS panel monitor for you, and everything would be under 800$. But if you can scavenge that old HDD from your laptop, you might be able to fit that GTX 760 into the build

I hope I helped you :)

15

Link to the build ------> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2sLxz