yoyojoe

hey folks,

I'd like to pick your brains for some suggestions to realise a 3d modelling and rendering capability on a 'tight'ish budget.

What is the hardware 'priority' order please?

I think it's cpu, then gfx card then memory.

your suggestions greatly appreciated.

budget is about GBP 500.

I have a case, psu, drives etc.

many thanks

koala

I've got a friend who works in 3D Modelling and has just built a system purely for rendering. In order of importance - quad core CPU, as much RAM as possible, fast hard drive with large cache, PCIE graphics card. Just make sure your software supports multi-core CPUs before buying, and your PSU is strong enough to handle the upgrade.

John Von Trapp

what are you going to be modelling with? What program

yoyojoe

hey koala,

many thanks for your input, much appreciated :) with that as a 'sign post' I can progress my research in an informed direction and found this post
http://discussion.autodesk.com/forum...sageID=5542330 (dated Aug 2008)
as verification to your input, so it looks like my budget is already in trouble.

software - evidently the renderer 'mental ray' assigns 1 thread per cpu core.

fast hard drive - I figure a raid 0+1 configuration will yield reasonable disk speed and fault tolerance for 'safety'.

memory - it seems that 6 to 8 gig of DDR2 is quite do-able at current prices.

for the psu - I'll be sure to use the TSF post for figuring the psu duty requirements

*************************************************

hey john,

the 3D app is 3DS Max.

thank you both for your posts :)

koala

I'll see if I can get my friend to have a look at this thread and leave some comments. He's using a quad AMD, 4GB RAM, two 7200rpm SATA drives in RAID, and a PCIE HD4850 graphics card with 64bit XP. He's also been testing some rendering software to see which ones use the CPU cores to their best advantage - AutoCAD, 3DS Max, VRay and a few others.

yoyojoe

thank you for the thought - that'll be sweet if he does, if not, no problem.

yoyojoe

. . . and so my research now brings me to a buying list.

do you have any comments please on the following hardware proposed purchase:-
intel Q9300 (4 x 2.5 GHz)
8 gig Corsair 800 MHz ddr2 memory
intel mobo 3210 shlc
2 x 40GB sata
600W psu
2U rack case
. . . and all inside my budget of £500 :)

as I'll be running this box via a kvm switch I figure the mobo on-board graphics will suffice for my needs.

for a raid 5 configuration I'd install 2 x 80GB sata II's + 1 x 500GB sata II hard drives and keep the 40 gig units as 'spares'.

thanks for your interest.

connor-53

Why get 2 x 40 gig HD? You can get like a 500 for the same price....

connor-53

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-31457

yoyojoe

the 2 x 40 gig drives come as part of a package that is already built but is no longer needed/required.

I believe that the unit was a demo/trial package that has served its purpose and is now surplus to requirements hence its being sold off with those drives as part of the deal.

I figured I'd also go with a couple of additional WD 250 gig sata II's each with 16 meg cache.

yoyojoe

. . . other than that I believe I'm now sorted so this post is answered.

many thanks for your help folks :)

yoyojoe