Possibly great deal on a fast render box

[Oshyan]

I just came across what looks like a great deal for a new HP system with a 3.4Ghz i7 2600 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 1.5TB hard drive (among other things). If you have no interest in overclocking, this is a really excellent system for TG2. This deal might go fast, so check it out if you're interested in a fast new machine a budget:
http://www.woot.com/ (note, if you visit this link after the deal is over, it will show some other product)

- Oshyan

[Oshyan]

Note that this would be mainly useful as a render system. It comes with a pretty crappy graphics card and a small power supply so it would not be easy to upgrade the graphics without also upgrading the PSU.

Here are some slightly more expensive but similar deals I found in researching further:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=19568&CatId=4928 ($50 more, same specs, better graphics card, but no Bluray)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=557085&CatId=4928 ($100 more, same specs, even better graphics than above, no Bluray)

Overall it still looks like a good deal, with the caveat that it would be for a render box (or if you just don't care about a decent graphics card, but remember it will affect object preview speed, especially for large populations).

Edit: this might also make a nice media player hooked up to your TV. Easily play 1080P video content, has a Bluray drive, lots of hard drive space for DVR stuff. Just need to add a TV tuner. Use it as a render box when not watching HD video.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

Pretty sure this is US only
It dose raise the old question though. With sufficient budget would it be better to buy two (or more) smaller render boxes (in the 3.4ghz region) at approx $600/$700 versus possibly twice that for a sweet OC'd top of the range system. If its purely for rendering, "Render Crofting" anyone? then I think it starts to make sense.
Cheers
Richard

[otakar]

Looks like it's gone. What was the price? I'm following pricing closely and hoping that prices drop enough to warrant a purchase before too long. The i7-2600 is exactly what I am after as I've found that I have no time to tinker with clock speeds and risk overheating and system instability. US$300 for a CPU is still too much to swallow, especially with MOBO prices for Sandybridge CPUs so high.

[Oshyan]

It was a complete system for $699. I've since seen similar deals since, one from Dell. All US though.

- Oshyan