Frustrated Enough it's Probably Time For a New Computer

[Darkwing]

Long story short, never buying apple again.

 

So, what kind of computer (custom built preferably) would do a smooth job of running programs like AM and other heavy programs like Photoshop, Maya etc? What kind of specs am I looking at? Preferably something that wouldn't come to more than 800 dollars.

[robcat2075]

Well, for A:M I'd suggest something with 4 cores so you can get mileage out of Netrender.

 

Might as well get 8GB of ram since it's cheap.

 

For Autodesk and Adobe products I think they have specific desires about graphics cards so you may want to check their specs to see what they recommend.

 

Of course you want 64-bit windows.

[largento]

Some of Adobe's apps take advantage of Nvidia cards with CUDA.

 

I would think you'd want to wait until October, so that you could get Windows 8 bundled with your computer.

[Fuchur]

Some of Adobe's apps take advantage of Nvidia cards with CUDA.

 

I would think you'd want to wait until October, so that you could get Windows 8 bundled with your computer.

 

From my experience, Win8 will be bad... (every second version of Windows is good, while the one between is bad... 95 = good, 98 = not that good... 98 SE = good, win me = bad, win 2000 = okay (only exception I can come up with), win xp = good, win vista = bad, win 7 = good, win 8 = ...,, etc.)

It does not have to be like that, but since they are testing many new things out, it is very likely that win8 is not that great and will be a little buggy (at least at start).

 

I would recommend to go higher than 4 GB. At the prices of RAM nowadays you can easily put 8 or even 16 GB in your computer. Especially for AfterEffects and if you are rendering with many cores in A:M you may want that. Get AT LEAST 4 cores... 6 or 8 are available too... for single-threaded-applications get an Intel-processor, for multi-threaded once you get more for your money with an AMD-processor (since they offer more cores for smaller prices).

You can get a Nvidia-card, although I am a fan of ATI/AMD there too but both are nice and if you need CUDA, go for a nvidia-card. If you need OpenCL go for an ATI/AMD-card. (better implementation of OpenCL... but no support for CUDA).

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

I took a look at sub-$800 computers at Tiger Direct and Microcenter and I notice that it's hard to find something that doesn't have integrated graphics which has typically been poor. But maybe integrated graphics are better now?

[Darkwing]

Well I know a guy who's good at building computers, so I'm looking at more of a custom rig than a pre-bundled rig. I've heard one gets more bang for their buck that way too

[Fuchur]

Okay, I took the time and created a nice system for you.

Since I am in Europe, I only get Euro-prices, but I calculated with the current exchange-rate and got a quite nice system for about 860 Dollars. (665 * 1,29 Dollars = about 860 Dollars).

 

However if I were you, I would spend the extramoney for another 8 GB of RAM (to get 16 GB, which is only about 50 Dollars more at the moment). If you still have a little money left, buy an SSD-hdd for the operation system.

With that you get an high-end 8-core-system from AMD with plenty of RAM, which has a very good multi-core-performance and can be overclocked additional to that.

 

Since I am not sure about the prices for you, you would have to check the parts with your resellers in the US. The HDD is a 1000 GB CNMemory-HDD. Anything else in that price-range will do too... especially if you buy a SSD additional to that, the other HDD will not be very important, because it should only be used for data-saving and not for programms, etc.

Nevertheless: This will be a system that should handle what you asked for quite well... a Nvidia-card in the same pricerange should do well with it too.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Darkwing]

Thank you ever so much!!! I think my goal will be to buy parts over a period of time instead of all at once. It'll at least help me not feel the damage all at once

[pixelplucker]

Apples and PC's aren't that much different anymore. If you have gobs of software invested into Apple then you may want to stick with them. Changing platforms also means changing software from scratch.

The Mac Pros are really solid machines. Consider the cost of staring from scratch and weigh that against the cost of a pro. When pricing them out also consider a mid ranged cad card or a really high end desktop card. I was never a fan of their lower end machines.

 

I went through a huge expense when Apple shifted over to OSX series which put me in the position of starting over. That was the time I dumped Apple.

[Fuchur]

Apples and PC's aren't that much different anymore. If you have gobs of software invested into Apple then you may want to stick with them. Changing platforms also means changing software from scratch.

The Mac Pros are really solid machines. Consider the cost of staring from scratch and weigh that against the cost of a pro. When pricing them out also consider a mid ranged cad card or a really high end desktop card. I was never a fan of their lower end machines.

 

I went through a huge expense when Apple shifted over to OSX series which put me in the position of starting over. That was the time I dumped Apple.

 

For about 800 it is a good system. And if you dont have the money for a CAD card (which really is not worth the money... a highend-gaming card is most often as fast as the FireGL or QuadroFX cards and is something like half the money... it is maybe a difference for CAD-software, but without the special driver support or even own drivers from the software for the cards, they are just as fast as gaming-cards or even slower... and since most software doesnt offer special drivers, you really dont need to bother with them...)

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

Haven't we had a certain amount trouble with Quadro cards and A:M?

[Darkwing]

Apples and PC's aren't that much different anymore. If you have gobs of software invested into Apple then you may want to stick with them. Changing platforms also means changing software from scratch.

The Mac Pros are really solid machines. Consider the cost of staring from scratch and weigh that against the cost of a pro. When pricing them out also consider a mid ranged cad card or a really high end desktop card. I was never a fan of their lower end machines.

 

I went through a huge expense when Apple shifted over to OSX series which put me in the position of starting over. That was the time I dumped Apple.

 

Yeah, that's somewhat similar to my problems. The thing with so much software invested in mac, it's kind of obsolete for me now. See my laptop is currently 3 years old and was still running Leopard. It just got to the point where I couldn't put new software on it (including AM V17) because the minimum requirement was Snow Leopard. So after much trouble, I bit the bullet and bought the OS upgrade disk from Leopard to Snow Leopard, however, a lot of problems have persisted and my laptop is drastically slower than the pre Snow Leopard install. It basically can only run like one program at a time now, my volume controls are messed up, and most important to me with these problems, is rendering times in AM have increased roughly 3-4 times than what it used to be. So the kicker for me that's making me switch back to Windows is that when things become obsolete and old or broken with windows, I at least won't have to shell out a ton of money because Apple is a brand name. Plus I don't like this new direction of apps instead of "programs" for mac. There's more to it, but I've figured that statistically speaking, I can build a windows PC that will exceed the capabilities of another mac for hundreds of dollars less. Basically, my impression of mac now is that they're kind of overpriced toys that only people making a lot of money can really keep up with. But anyways, that's my rant and it's about time I actually had a computer decent enough to do the kinds of things I do with them.

[largento]

I've been using Macs since 1989. They weren't toys then and they aren't toys now.

 

If you think you can make a better PC, do so. No need to bash people who use Macs. My Macs have always run great. Except for the one that I gave away, I still have all of my Macs and they all still work.

 

The expensive upgrade you held off getting was a $49 OS upgrade. Hardly a wallet-buster. I guarantee you that's significantly less than what Microsoft is going to ask Windows users to pay for Windows 8. (And the current OS upgrade for Mac is only $29.)

 

My grandfather always said, it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools.

[Darkwing]

No you don't understand, I said that the OS update didn't really work so well. The hardware is getting old and a new mac will cost me in the vicinity of 1500 dollar before tax. A significant amount of money compared to an 800 dollar system that will have better specs. And for the record, I wasn't bashing those who use mac, I was bashing mac itself, well, not bashing even so much, just displaying my personal distaste for them. And that's all it is, my own personal distaste and dissatisfaction that is leading me to pursuing other options. With that said, I want this to stay a topic about building a decent custom computer. So with that said, what kind of cards would be suitable? I really don't know what a quadro card is or any of that, so you say (fuchur) that a high end gaming card would do? What kinds of cards am I looking at in that case?

[Fuchur]

I've been using Macs since 1989. They weren't toys then and they aren't toys now.

 

If you think you can make a better PC, do so. No need to bash people who use Macs. My Macs have always run great. Except for the one that I gave away, I still have all of my Macs and they all still work.

 

The expensive upgrade you held off getting was a $49 OS upgrade. Hardly a wallet-buster. I guarantee you that's significantly less than what Microsoft is going to ask Windows users to pay for Windows 8. (And the current OS upgrade for Mac is only $29.)

 

My grandfather always said, it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools.

 

Hey, nothing against Macs... they are powerful, but they are overpriced (especially compared with self-built-systems)... and I dont know how long Apple will really keep an eye on the computers.

They make their money with Apps, Music and Iphones / Ipads / Ipods today and the amount of money they earn from computers is quite small. If I were Apple, I would concentrate on these fields instead of investing too much in the computer-market. (easy to see when they dropped their own hardware and went to a "normal" computer-system.)

 

The PC market is a little different. More companies competing and more important:

It is not all about super-high-end. Even so a Mac is nice when you buy it, it is quite expensive and for me it makes more sense to buy each year (or whatever your timeframe may be) a new computer which is fast (not superfast) but costs me half the money than buying all two years or three years a new Mac which is getting quite old at the end. If you have the money to stay current all the time, Macs are quite powerful (and if you run DualBoot on them it is quite nice to have one).... I dont want to spend that kind of money so... and as always Apple has a bad attitude... no other os-software-manufacture is forcing their customers to buy a certain hardwaresystem too... why cant I buy OSX for another computer but need to buy a hardware-system from them too? No freedom of choice there. When they werent using "normal" pcs as hardware that may have been logical somehow, but today there is just no reason anymore for such a behaviour...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

PS: Yes, there were some problems with Quadros, but I think they have been solved...? At least there were no complaints recently. That may have to do with the fact, that most people dont use them so....

[largento]

Gerald, here's the analogy I would use from my point of view:

 

I need a car to get from point a to point b and back again. I can buy a new car that will do so reliably for many years ...or I can buy a used car for significantly less that won't be as reliable and will require a lot of maintenance.

 

If you're the type of person who likes to work on your car, you go with the second choice and it's a good fit for you ...and you can't understand why someone would want to buy the new car for so much more money.

 

However, if you're like me, you have no desire to work on your car. You just want it to start up when you want it to and go from point a to point b and back again ...and it's worth the extra expense to buy the new car.

 

Which is the better way and which way really saves money? The used car isn't likely to last as long as the new car, so that person who bought the used car is likely going to have to buy another used car in that time period. It's likely between that second purchase and other expenses involved in maintaining them, that the used car person could spend more than the new car guy in the same period of time.

 

I bought the new car and I've been driving it for 12 years.

 

I bought a Mac Pro in 2008 for $3000. Yikes, you say, that's too expensive. However, it's four years later and I'm still using it and it still works great. I'll most likely be using it for another two or three years. Let's say it's only two and I'll have used it for six years. You say you buy a new computer every year (presumably for more than $1K each time?) So, in six years, I've spent $3K for my "over-priced" computer and you've spent over $6K.

 

Bottom line is I don't want to work on my computer. I want to work on my projects.

 

Apple is a hardware company that writes their own OS and software so that their products will "just work." This is horrifying to the guy who wants to build their own computer or constantly be playing under the hood, but to me, it's the perfect way to go. The hardware and the software work together and the whole thing just works.

 

Were the OS to be open to all, it would have to be loaded down with all kinds of code to make it work with all kinds of non-standard parts. This would make it less reliable and for me, less useful. You said earlier, that half of Microsoft's OS's are "bad" and should be avoided. That's not exactly a glowing endorsement of the one-size-fits-all OS.

 

This stereotype that all Mac Users are wealthy people who throw away money on shiny things isn't correct. I'm sure there are people like that. To use the car analogy, there are people who can afford to buy some over-priced car every year, but I'm not one of those people and I doubt any of the other Mac users on this forum are, either.

 

We all like what we like and it's not necessary to bash what the other person likes to justify what you like.

 

In the end, it's about what we do with these machines, not the machines themselves.

[pixelplucker]

I agree with Largento.

I made a lot of money with Macs as well as pc's, at one time I had to use both because I was in the service bureau business and had to have double copies of all the publishing software, Mac and pc versions. When that business changed with the big color houses imploding and the introduction to direct to plate systems. The need for 2 systems was no longer necessary. For me that time and the new OSX that was coming out and the expenses to buy an entirely new system, all the software to go with it because Apple has a bad habbit of building obsolescence with OS upgrades it wasn't worth if for me to dump out 15k or so but rather migrate entirely over to the pc.

 

Not everyone is in that situation and if you own Adobe CS you can't upgrade cross platform so plan on the extra 2k just for that since it would be a new purchase on top of the computer.

 

Mac's are a little more money compared to some PC's but not that much if compared to pre-built systems. I wouldn't suggest the lower end systems because they lack the power that is needed for graphics.

 

As far as stability and issues with Quadro cards, I do have some quirks with AM 15j here. Much of those quirks were diminished with AM 16 64bit that I had tried. I haven't done any upgrades to 16 and am waiting for 17 to hobble out. The Quadro cards are much much more powerful than a desktop gaming card and run extremely stable. Maybe not so much for AM but other programs that use them really take advantage of the pipelining. Game cards may have higher clock cycles but tend not to last as long and don't quite have the precision that the cad cards do. They will also tend to stutter under extreme loads. In most cases they do work fine for average use. In the case of AM they are probably more than adequate since AM is very system friendly.

[robcat2075]

I remember how exciting it was the first time to slap together a bunch of components I had scrounged up at sales, turned on the power, and a boot screen showed up!

 

Nowadays the markup on ready-built PCs seems much less so it's hard to beat the price of them by building your own. But unless you go with one of the famous sellers that lets you choose components (still very expensive) there always seems to be some detail of the pre-built PCs that I don't want like integrated graphics or memory slots that are already filled out with smaller sticks than they could have held.

[pixelplucker]

Markup on the machines is so low it's almost the same as the extra shipping costs you get when piecing one together.

 

As far as workstations go. A custom built PC with a mid to high range cad card will run just about the same as the Mac Pros.

 

Not sure what to do when it comes to upgrade time for me in a few years, might have to build one because I really don't like the choices out there now. The company that built mine no longer builds machines and i'm not a fan of the big players left.

[Fuchur]

You are all right if you ask me... (I am still not really sure about the CAD-graphiccards so... I remember a time when you could easily do a mod to the graphiccard and make a Radeon to a FireGL.

The GPU is quite (sometimes exactly) the same. Anyway I am sure that the drivers make a difference, but since I am not using Autodesk-Products, this is really nothing to bother about.

This is a topic about it at Toms Hardware UK: Tom'sHardware UK

(I have a better one in German, but could not find a decent translation.)

 

In the end: For CAD you can go with a CAD-card, but these are quite expensive. For other things a high-performence-gaming-card will not be (much) slower and will cost half the money.

I am sure that you gain something from the drivers if they are optimized, but I doubt it is worth the money... anyhow I will have a look at the newer FireGLs and Quadros again...

When I had a FireGL, it was quite fast but I am not sure if it really made a huge difference... but that was some time ago... maybe today the game is different...

 

I understand why someone wants to buy a Mac too... anyway the difference between Macs and other pre-built systems (good once at least) are smaller than they used to be.

 

And yes: I am a guy who wants to have the full control over what he gets... I hate it (like Robert) to get something prebuilt and if I open it I see, that all the memory-banks are full, etc.

Anyway: Do it your way. I am just saying it may be worth a second look sometimes... you may save some serious money...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

Low end CAD cards will actually have less performance than most game cards. CAD cards are only faster if the programs are optimized to take advantage of the pipeline, caching etc.

 

I believe AM doesn't take advantage of them but doesn't need to either.

Programs such as Rhino, Amapi Pro, 3d Coat use the cards nicely.

 

I remember at one time the options for the mid-ranged cards were non existent on the Macs. Not sure why Nvidia only offered the lowest end and highest end cards and nothing in the middle. Not sure if that has been addressed.

 

I think there is also an advantage on the Mac's since they can run most pc software as well but not the other way around.

[Darkwing]

Well AM is definitely one of my primary pieces of software, so a system that would work well with AM is definitely a bonus! But on that note, some of the other heavy weight software I use are programs such as photoshop, after effects, maya (if I go windows, 3DS Max potentially) and whatever video editing software I get my hands on. And maybe I'll even play some games, but I'm not really into that sort of thing so much though there are a couple I like/am interested in

[Ilidrake]

For building a PC I would recommend newegg.com

I swapped from TigerDirect to these guys and I can honestly say I have yet to be disapointed by there service and parts. The prices are also really good. The free shipping is also nice

Just my 2 cents.

[thejobe]

for mac machines i feel for doing anything graphical base they win hands down. the pipeline is just more powerful.

are they over prices:yes but its hard to compare them to PC since the way they process information is so diffrent that its very hard to compare.

 

a mac pro is = to a 6 core i7 3.5Ghz as far as processing power

everything after that is all OS

 

now for PCs custom build you can go with anything really (ill link recommended)

i suggest (64 bit) AMD 64 4 core processor

MSI AMD motherboard

8GB of ram Dual set 2x4

Nvidia GTX 550 Ti

Case (you can pick any i just think this looks cool). lol

power supply (can never have too much power tool man)

Hard drives (x2)

 

this setup costs a total of $624.93 (US) or 491.55 (EU)

so you can get a nice machine on a nice budget. it just depends on where you look.

oh yea dont forget to add another $120 for windows software.

[Darkwing]

Really? A Mac Pro is really that good? I dunno, see my Macbook was good until the novelty wore off and then it kinda became a matter of how much patience I had. It's just this machine kinda put a bad taste in my mouth for mac because it always had a hard time running AM, has some hardware issues, and backwards compatibility is something Mac isn't so keen on. But again, not ranting, just surprised. And when you sa Mac pro, I'm assuming you don't mean the laptop, right?

 

Back to stats though, I'll take a gander at what you posted shortly Jobe, it's much appreciated though, even though I haven't looked yet (That goes to Fuchur and all others who've posted as well)

 

EDIT: This is the best iMac I can find around these parts

 

EDIT EDIT: Went to apple.com, now I know what you're talking about for Mac Pro. Even the lowest is waaaayyyy out of my price range! Though I can see how that would be a really good computer, but it's definitely out of the question!

[pixelplucker]

Mac Pro is a solid machine comparable to the very high end Dell, HP and other Xeon based workstations. I believe the motherboard on them is a modified version of the Intel Skull Trail. Same board layout as my machine.

 

Not sure if you can run 3ds Max on a mac using an emulator. Not sure why you would want to run Max or Maya for that matter. Not to knock those programs but the speed in which you can assemble a scene in AM is hard to beat.

 

If I were to choose another 3d program for animation on top of AM I would consider Lightwave, Modo or one of my old time favorites Electric Image (now called EIAS3d). For now AM does what I need. Max Maya and Softimage have that awful maintenance program from Autodesk that is optimized to suck as much money out of your bank account and make you feel grateful for it.

[Darkwing]

Well, two things, Maya and Max are free for me cause I'm a university student, and two, my partner in crime is a max user, so having the ability to work in the same language helps. Granted, we make do very well as is and don't for a moment think I'm even intending to replace AM. Am is always my first choice!

[thejobe]

just so you guys know At my photo studio we have a mac pro.

we using it to do photos and videos for all type of businesses.

i never used it to do A:M though. maybe ill try one day.

these are its specs

Configuration

 

Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores)

32GB (8x4GB)

1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive

1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive

1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive

Two ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB

 

Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)

Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)

One 18x SuperDrive

Apple Magic Mouse

Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide

Dual-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

Country Kit

 

it cost us around $10,000 for that machine with monitors and all.

and i can say hands down its the fastest thing on the block. double period.

[Roger]

I don't really have an opinion as far as Mac vs. PC goes. Use what you like. I do have to 2nd Largento in that I don't care much for futzing with my systems as I used to. It's too much of a pain.

 

Here is what I would get:

 

1. Quad core Core i7 3770 (Ivy Bridge cpu) or Core i5 3450 (also Ivy Bridge) - it has graphics built in so you could skip a card if you really needed to $300 or $200

2. 16GB RAM - about $100

3. If you have to have a discrete graphics card, get a geforce 550ti for about $135

4. 500gb or 1tb HD, whatever is cheaper these days, about $99

5. DVD burner $20

6. case and power supply $75

7. Win 7 OEM license $99

 

If you don't need a monitor, that should run you around $700 or $800

[Fuchur]

I don't really have an opinion as far as Mac vs. PC goes. Use what you like. I do have to 2nd Largento in that I don't care much for futzing with my systems as I used to. It's too much of a pain.

 

Here is what I would get:

 

1. Quad core Core i7 3770 (Ivy Bridge cpu) or Core i5 3450 (also Ivy Bridge) - it has graphics built in so you could skip a card if you really needed to $300 or $200

2. 16GB RAM - about $100

3. If you have to have a discrete graphics card, get a geforce 550ti for about $135

4. 500gb or 1tb HD, whatever is cheaper these days, about $99

5. DVD burner $20

6. case and power supply $75

7. Win 7 OEM license $99

 

If you don't need a monitor, that should run you around $700 or $800

 

Roger you may want to throw a mainboard in too...

Otherwise you would not really have a great time with that machine...

And you may want to go a bit higher on the case and powersupply too... there is nothing more annoying than a groggy case... the one I choosed above is a really good one and not very expensive.

(I am using it for all the computers I buy at our company nowadays... very steady, nice air-flow with included 120mm fans, etc.).

But you need additional powersupply.

 

For $75 you will get a case that is at max worth $10-25. I dont know if there is a good case for that amount of money, but I doubt it.

 

I'd say you will have to pay at least $50 for the case and another $50 for a desent powersupply. WIth such a graphiccard and that CPU you may need a little more Watt as well.

And if you are really going in that direction you may need a SSD to get all out of it too...

 

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

Getting into Max and Maya might be ok for now since it is free..... almost pointless to learn them if your not going to eventually buy them. As far as communicating between programs, you may want to look into EIAS3d. It can import maya files and I think it can import FBX. The renderer is one of the fastest and best looking imo out there. EI really shines on the mac, seemed a little clunky on the pc version and I never upgraded over and eventually ended up with AM.

 

I'm still not an Autodesk fan and personally wouldn't poop my nice clean machine up with their stuff

[Roger]

I don't really have an opinion as far as Mac vs. PC goes. Use what you like. I do have to 2nd Largento in that I don't care much for futzing with my systems as I used to. It's too much of a pain.

 

Here is what I would get:

 

1. Quad core Core i7 3770 (Ivy Bridge cpu) or Core i5 3450 (also Ivy Bridge) - it has graphics built in so you could skip a card if you really needed to $300 or $200

2. 16GB RAM - about $100

3. If you have to have a discrete graphics card, get a geforce 550ti for about $135

4. 500gb or 1tb HD, whatever is cheaper these days, about $99

5. DVD burner $20

6. case and power supply $75

7. Win 7 OEM license $99

 

If you don't need a monitor, that should run you around $700 or $800

 

Roger you may want to throw a mainboard in too...

Otherwise you would not really have a great time with that machine...

And you may want to go a bit higher on the case and powersupply too... there is nothing more annoying than a groggy case... the one I choosed above is a really good one and not very expensive.

(I am using it for all the computers I buy at our company nowadays... very steady, nice air-flow with included 120mm fans, etc.).

But you need additional powersupply.

 

For $75 you will get a case that is at max worth $10-25. I dont know if there is a good case for that amount of money, but I doubt it.

 

I'd say you will have to pay at least $50 for the case and another $50 for a desent powersupply. WIth such a graphiccard and that CPU you may need a little more Watt as well.

And if you are really going in that direction you may need a SSD to get all out of it too...

 

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

D'oh! Yeah, I totally forgot the MB. So tack another $100 on for a midrange board. Rosewill and Antec make some good budget cases, but yeah $100 might be more realistic. An SSD is nice but not essential. I guess if you really wanted one, a 128GB boot drive isn't much more than a $1/GB these days, you could make that your only drive if you were very careful about monitoring your space. You'd probably want to pair it with another drive and just leave your OS and apps on the SSD. But we're probably closer to $1k, now. Add another $200-$300 if he needs a monitor, mouse and keyboard (which he may at the least need a monitor if he had an all-in-one Mac).

 

If he's on a budget, he might be able to get some good combo deals off Newegg, they usually will knock a bit off one or more components when you're buying them all at the same time.

[Fuchur]

I had a look at newegg and throw together two systems (so you get the real prices for the US). One AMD, one Intel. In both cases I tried to stay in budget as good as I could.

AMD is in budget (about $795), Intel is out of it. (about $885)

 

Both systems should be quite powerful. AMD-system has a high-end motherboard and no special-deals, while Intel has a mid-range motherboard and a deal to save some money when buying motherboard and cpu.

You could go with a mid-range one for AMD too to save something like $65 dollars. If you are buying I would have a look at the offers again... maybe they have one for the 8150 then too (till now only for the 8120)

 

The difference is something like $150 (real) like that.

For that you could throw in a very nice SSD in the AMD-system.

- OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5"

- 2,5" to 3,5" built-set.

 

Shipping-costs are not included in both systems.

If you are building it yourself you'll need some heat paste additional to this.

(or does newegg have a built-service? My hardwarestore puts the computer you built from parts (choosen by you) together for only 20 Euros. (this is a nobrainer, especially since they throw in the heat paste, etc. for free, etc.)

 

The difference between both systems without special deals, etc. would be something round about $170-200.

If you need single-core high-performance I would throw the $200 in for the intel-processor, if you are more into multicore-applications (seems to be like that to me) I'd go with the AMD-system. If you've got the money you may want to get the SSD with it to increase speed. (it is often the HDD which slows the computer down, not the processor itself anyway. (depens on what you are doing of course)

 

Hope this helps. As I said, both system should run very well and are quite fast once for a low price. (anything above that would not really give you significant performance-boosts while having a reasonable performance/money-ratio.

(it is not wise to spend 100% more money for 10% more performance... just doesnt make much sense at least to me...)

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

PS: As you can see I got a Nvidia-card in for CUDA-stuff. If A:M gets GPU-acceleration it will very likely be based on OpenCL (can be used by both large manufacturers, but AMD has the better implementation, at least till now). Anyway since that is not likely to happen in the nearest future (only FastAO uses it, but it should not really make a difference there), it may be wise to see what AfterEffects, etc. need...

[Darkwing]

Wow! This is definitely a most informative and helpful thread!

[thejobe]

Nice finds there. That's close to the one I put together up above.

[pixelplucker]

Nice systems, I would stay away from the solid state drives. They over priced, have slow write speeds and are limited on how many times you can write to them. The only good thing about them is if you are tossing them into a laptop and banging them around a work shop.

 

AMD has really helped out ATI, hearing a lot of good things about their cards now. Wasn't too long ago they were a nightmare to deal with.

[robcat2075]

AMD has really helped out ATI, hearing a lot of good things about their cards now. Wasn't too long ago they were a nightmare to deal with.

 

That's good to hear. For a while it looked like the purchase was going to sink them both.

[yoda64]

Nice systems, I would stay away from the solid state drives. They over priced, have slow write speeds and are limited on how many times you can write to them. The only good thing about them is if you are tossing them into a laptop and banging them around a work shop.

 

I must disagree with this statement in the most points

The only thing wehre I'm agree with You , that they are have a higher prize , but only if You compare a ssd with a single hd , if You compare it with a real raid it's also not true.

For the point "are limited on how many times you can write to them" , the A:M sources are on the same ssd , where I'm also compiling A:M .

 

And "slow write speeds" , autsch .

You had ever done a comparison between a raid0 and a ssd on the same system ?

Before I have switched to ssd's , I had a adaptec2405 with WD VelociRaptor's running , this configuration (Raid0) was slower .

 

 

AMD has really helped out ATI, hearing a lot of good things about their cards now. Wasn't too long ago they were a nightmare to deal with.

Here I agree, I have only ATI graphic cards in my systems .

[mouseman]

I would stay away from the solid state drives. They over priced, have slow write speeds and are limited on how many times you can write to them.

I have heard that the limit on the number of writes in typical use would be more than 10 years, which is longer than I've ever relied on any drive. Perhaps if you are doing really heavy writes, but other than that.

 

Wikipedia mentions this about SSDs:

 

SSD write performance is significantly impacted by the availability of free, programmable blocks. Previously written data blocks no longer in use can be reclaimed by

TRIM

; however, even with TRIM, fewer free blocks cause slower performance.

I have not noticed any kind of slow-down, although I have quite a bit of free space on my SSD. I have 2 drives -- I reserve the SSD for mostly operating systems and programs, and a traditional spindle drive for data. Shutdown and startup times are incredibly fast in comparison to the original OS disk that came with the system.

[robcat2075]

I don't understand the TRIM thing. I read that it "wipes" unused data blocks, but why can't the computer just overwrite them when it needs the space like it does on a hard drive?

[mouseman]

I don't understand the TRIM thing.

The wikipedia page on TRIM has a pretty good description.

[pixelplucker]

Good to know the SSD's are much quicker now. Don't they still offer a higher failure for the number of times you can write to them much like a memory stick as compared to a standard hd?

[MMZ_TimeLord]

That all depends upon how long the hard drive you are testing it against lasts before mechanical failure or media failure. I have been happily tooling along on an Intel 80GB SSD for over two years now... no problems so far and Windows 7 64bit installed in

 

The performance on applications I have installed on the SSD (A:M Included) are phenomenal! I have most of my A:M data (project, models, textures, etc.) on a standard mechanical hard drive, but the main application is on the SSD and it is VERY responsive.

 

The current six core AMD Phenom II X6 I have is very powerful compared to any Dual Core CPU I ever had. If you can get an eight core for about the same money... go for it!

 

I DO recommend getting a minimum of 16GB of RAM to work with that SSD and CPU. With Windows 7 64-bit, it will make a huge difference on your render times and how many NetRender nodes you can run at once on a single machine.

 

Cheers!

[Ilidrake]

Been running my own machine on an SSD for over a year and no problems. And it is FAST!!!

[fae_alba]

I use a Dell laptop refurb (I'm a cheap Scot after all). It has a 120gb hdd, 4 core cpu, 4 gb ram..sub-woofer, good build in sound. It runs multiple instances of A:M, gimp, and several other sundry apps simultaneously without even a pause.

 

I always go out to the Dell refurb site and see what they currently have available. The prices are nearly always much lower than you'd find anywhere else (I paid roughly $500 for mine).

[robcat2075]

Are the AMD FX 8-core processors the ones that have two cores sharing one math processor? That's less than ideal for rendering, I'd presume.

 

And has anyone used one with A:M yet and done the benchmark?

[Fuchur]

Are the AMD FX 8-core processors the ones that have two cores sharing one math processor? That's less than ideal for rendering, I'd presume.

 

And has anyone used one with A:M yet and done the benchmark?

 

It is the other way round: It is the cache which is shared, not the math processor. Each bulldozer-modul has two integer-processors but share the L2-cache.

I have not done a benchmark with one of these with A:M yet, but with other 3d software they are faster than the 6-core Phenom IIs.

The next generator (after bulldozer) is on its way too... piledriver should bring something like 10-15% performance-increase over the bulldozers (so i dont know if it is really like this).

Anyway: A:M always performed very well with AMD's processors. I am not sure if this is still true for the new architecture so.

 

As I said: Both systems will be powerful with A:M. I would go with the AMD one... it is cheaper and will provide a good ratio between price and performance. If you are more into single core applications, go with Intel...

But the AMD-system has one addtional goody: You dont have to support a virtual monopolist like Intel... (if you are like me: I just dont like cartels and monopolists... and while there is a good alternative, I will go with that.)

 

See you

*Fuchur*