It’s been so long since I bought a decent machine for home use that I’m really struggling. I’ve got a budget of around £2.5k. Please help me spend it properly before I blow it on something I don’t want or need. Rendering speed is paramount.
I’m currently considering a HP Z600 workstation with this spec:
2 x Intel Xeon E5620 / 2.4 GHz
8GB DDR3 SDRAM Quadro FX1800 768 Mb
Kingston 64Gb SSD
1 TB - standard - Serial ATA-300 - 7200 rpm
I’ve calculated that this should cost around £2.5k (including VAT)
If you think you can get a better spec or if something is wrong with this spec, please let me know any decent alternatives.
I have been after a decent workstation for years… I originally purchased a custom built quad core 6850 wont mention the company - PC specialists (there u go) ;)…I had 8 gb ram Quadro 1700 etc.Had nothing put problems and after 15 months died slowly…I eventually spent £3500 on a BOXX…Even tho i have had a replacement machine recently thru them for a random problem i can highly recommend them..They are built superbly and i think Chaos support them but could be proved incorrect..
They are designed for what Arch Viz guys need…Even tho with a 2.26 - 12gb ram FX 3800 i still have a few little issues but i think this is more 3ds Max 2011 than the machine…
So highly recomm’d…Just be careful purchasing a machine that states all the numbers u dream of for a great price as this IMPO means it wont last forever ..
you are asking for a configuration of your computer system regarding on price/power.
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To be honest, I wouldn’t want to build my own machine. Both my knowledge and time are pretty limited at the moment. It’s taking up enough of my time just trying to reseach what’s the best, let alone put one together.
Why not buy a pre-built workstation? I’m currently on a Dell Precision T7500 and though it’s a little slow, it’s very stable and I’ve had no problems with it before. Are you just talking about cost?
I’ll be using it for my own personal use. Vray mostly. Some private work but mainly R & D. I’m based in Manchester though my home is nearer Yorkshire.
I’ve priced up the Dell equivalent and it doesn’t come close on price, I’m afraid. You just don’t get as much for your money.
Thanks for the offer but I would be a little uncomfortable sourcing a machine from outside the UK, should anything go wrong.
If anyone has any links and recommendations for places that do custom builds, I’d be very grateful.
Have you checked out workstationspecialists.com? Seem to have some decent specs and reveiws for their stuff! To be honest our experience with Dell stuff has been so good that I would take less specwise just to have the build quality and reliability. (Although I know others have had the opposite experience with Dell!!)
Just to put another option out there and confuse you…
..it might be worth considering going for a fast i7 over the dual xeons. I’ve found that some of the faster i7 cpus are equivalent to the slower dual xeon setups. Going with i7 would allow you to spend the saved cash on more ram, bigger SSD, better GFX card, etc..
We have always used expensive dual Xeons with mid-range Quadros in the studio but bought a cheaper i7 system with a fast gaming nVidia gfx card for some motion gfx (AE) work, I was surprised to find that it performed equally as good as the Xeons and felt much quicker to work with inside of Max due to the higher cpu core speed (a lot of Max functions are still not multi-threaded) and fluid viewport navigation.
I used scan.co.uk for the customised i7 build and their customer service is excellent, they are also very good with warranty/returns.
ps. check out the Intel i7 970 6-core @ 3.2ghz. Scan now offer this as an option in their custom builds.
Well Pre-Made workstation are called ‘‘proffestional’’. Just by having that status they are 50-100% more expensive ! For home based user I strongly dont advise u to go anywhere near those companys… as for actualy Proffesional then yes… their next day fix support and 24/7 should be usefull if it actually work… I dont know I never try them and never will.
Wish u were closer to Norwich I could build it up for you…
About Quick comparison let me throw this quickle (prices are from scan but u can find it cheaper! )
And there we go £1982 round up to £2000 with thermal pasts and junk… and £500 left for graphics card and HDD’s U could get SSD + store and so on depends on u…
And on top of it u can OC this system ! So 2.5 ghz xeon overclock to 3.0/3.5 or even 4 and u have a lot more power and computing that u will EVER get from Pre-Build workstations… Dell/Hp/etc will never let OC CPU. Only Boxxx but box pricing is well… interesting…
Find some1 in Manchester that could just put the parts together I bet u would just have to give him like 100£ and hell do it for u !
Btw. robdeja@ Now go run to get that EVGA motherboard and go OC XEONS! Let the heat buuurrnn
Speaking as someone who for Years built and maintained his own systems, the problem with putting a machine together ‘from parts’
is that not ALL components play well together! In some configurations you can end up getting performance that falls a long way short
of the expected performance rating. You can even end up with situations where untested combinations of components can introduce
a Massive amount of inherant system instabillity! (Then when Max/Vray keeps crashing there ensues LOTS of screaming about the
appaling quality of the software!!)
Not naysaying the idea, but ‘sometimes’ the extra price can definately be worth it. (IMHO)
This is my major worry about building my own. I simply do not have the knowledge required to deal with any problems, should anything go wrong. I don’t want to spend the next few months googling what’s wrong with my system. I have never built my own pc and though I’m pretty sure it’s not rocket science, I suspect that there are obvious shoolboy errors that are just waiting to be made.
The reason I decided on the Z600 was because of this review…
The reason I decided on the duel Xeons over the Core i7 was because of this benchmark test…
I really do appreciate everybodys help and advice and may yet decide to get someone local to build me a custom workstation, but the price would need to be considerably lower than the Z600 to convince me. One thing’s for sure, I don’t have the time, knowledge or balls to do it myself.
The i7 970 single cpu actually scores higher on cpumark than those dual processor xeons - 10,221 vs. 9,841 (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high\_end\_cpus.html#). Some of the newer xeons do go higher though but at increased cost.
Bugger. I didn’t notice that. I clicked on the processor link and immediately thought (wrongly) that it was rating against the best i7.
What about the issue of 6 cores v’s 8 cores. Is there a difference in rendering speed? Are 16 buckets better than 12 or does this make little or no difference?
OK chaps, I’ve just done a quick spec on pcspecialist…your comments would be greatly appreciated…
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-980X (3.33GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6T WS PROFESSIONAL: NEW ERA CORE i7 WORKSTATION
Memory (RAM)
24GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (6 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
PNY QUADRO FX1800 768MB GDDR3, CUDA ENABLED - 2 x DP, 1 x DVI-I
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
80GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 70MB/sW)***SPECIAL***
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
350W Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1366 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
If you buy a Quadro GPU you may as well open the window to your office and throw your money out, they are that much of a rip off. The new price/performance sweet-spot king is the Nvidia GTX 460, and you can even get a VRay RT friendly 2GB card for when it goes GPU-based.
This card is basically the ‘new 8800GT’, a former legendary GPU for Max. 3DSMax is all about DirectX, and the GeForce cards utterly destroy the Quadros for a quarter of the price.
errrrr. I hadn’t planned to, but I don’t know too much about overclocking tbh. Don’t you run the risk of buggering up your system if you don’t know what you’re doing?
Glass-Canvas, thanks for the heads up on the graphics card. You sound very sure, but why the massive difference in price with the Quadro if the card isn’t as good? Does you know what the Quadro offers that warrants the extra cost?
Quatro is for hi tech CGI. Milions of poly bilions of wireframe and so on. U as personal usser wont never fell any difference between gtx and quatro. Im working in CGI from many years and to be honest only 1 time my GTX failed(made it hard for me) and it was when I had entire market place to work on with few thousand objects and so on…
Just get GTX, or w8 for Vray GPU release and get right card for it.
Overclocking is easy. With the rig I wrote u on 1st page u would have one of fastest pc on market if it let u overclock the xeons as high as 3.5/4 ghz… only faster would be 2x6core rig…
I would second this as they are based quite near you and are very good for buying both parts to assemble your own rig, or if you ring them and tell them what you do and what you need, they will spec you a system for pretty damn cheap. So can also haggle, for example you don’t need that good a graphics card really so ask them to spec you a lower one and cut out a few hundred quid.
Getting certain i7’s are faster for some things and also cheaper than a dual xeon build.
Drop Scan a line and get a quote, I reckon they could do you a faster set up than HP for less than £2k and you still have the year guarantee and can ring them any time for more advice.
I’ve heard good things about Boxx but they do seem ridiculously over-priced again
