New machine for 3d wanted

Started by Walli, June 18, 2010, 09:31:16 AM

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neuspadrin

I usually preferred NVidia for gpu's, but I recently got the 5850 and I'm loving it.  Great for games, havn't had any serious driver issues at all (the only bug I did have was load times in bfbc2 were SUPER long for having such a nice card. But they fixed that in the following release of drivers).  So one minor annoyance for a month - not too bad ;). ATI is really stepping up to the plate and pushing for some good products.

Though Nvidia's do seem to fit into graphics programs a lot better with CUDA etc.

As for overclocking, I avoid it.  I prefer not to risk the chance of messing up my cpu, as they are quite expensive.  If you do, make sure that thing is stable, well cooled, etc. And monitor it over time too.


Hetzen

I've been using an overclocked i7 for about a year now. It was originally set to 4Ghz, but I've rolled it back to 3.4Ghz on a 2.66Ghz chip (through paranoia more than anything else), and I've got to say I've had absolutely no problems with it. BUT, I did get it thoroughly bench tested over a weekend before it was shipped out, after having extremely good dialogue with the technician putting it together. The only downside to my system, is that I'm limited to 6gig of ram, as ram likes to fail when it's pushed too hard.

FrankB

I'm still not sure what's an acceptable max temp for the i7 920... anyone knows?

Hetzen

Not sure about max temps Frank, but a good PSU was a must in my system (850watts as far as I remember), as well as a good heatsink which is air cooled. It's been a joy to work in TG.

FrankB

yep, all true. It's like finally PC CPU power is meeting the true fundamental requirements of TG2. Everything before that was absolutely underpowered.
Still, while OC'ing, I wonder how hot I can allow the CPU to go, long term. Because I don't know, I'm not OC'ing mine at all.

Regards,
Frank

Hetzen

#20
I think a number of things come into play with OC'ing. PSU is actually quite important, ie being able to supply the wattage with enough overhead. The case was also a consideration, ie having enough air space to get rid of excess heat. And placement of machine to allow that air to circulate. There's nothing really special about my system, I just think it was well designed via my needs and the technicians advice. This was also my first OC setup.

I've always had custom built machines with good components, whether that being me building it, or in this case, someone who knows about OC'ing advising me. It may have cost an extra £200 for getting better components, but those components have worked out very cost effective. I tend to change my system every 3 years, and my mother still uses a machine I made 5 years ago, a 2.66ghz, my home machine was my last work machine, quad core 2.66ghz. Funnily enough, the upgrade has usually cost around the same price over the years, ie £900.

neuspadrin

Quote from: Hetzen on June 19, 2010, 07:04:34 PMFunnily enough, the upgrade has usually cost around the same price over the years, ie £900.

Yep, I spent about 1700 to build my computer the first time. That included monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.

I just recently spent just under 1000 to upgrade the motherboard, cpu, ram, and gpu after ~3years.  Its a good upgrade time to keep in date while not spending too much. Since I use my computer so much ;).

Walli

I have just seen that Intel now also has the Core i7 875k, which has no built in limitations concerning overclocking. It´s also reasonable priced as far as I can see. So at the moment I think it boils down to a Core i7 860 or 875k, good price, good speed and good to overclock if I need to.

The faster cpu´s are much more expensive. If I need to render bigger animations I use render farms, and as some of my applications are really only using one core it makes almost no sense to spend that much. I am always tempted, but it makes no sense ;-)

And gfx board, after reading the comments and surfing the web and taking a look at what I really do - an ATI 5850 or 5870 would be a good deal concerning speed/proce/energy consumption.

So I think I start to build some configs around above mentioned specs.

Oshyan

Good call Walli, I have an 860 and it's faster than my 920. Unless you really want to overclock, the 875k may not be worthwhile though.

- Oshyan

Walli

yes, I might go with the 860 as its much cheaper and also can be overclocked, if you are a bit more carefull.

Unfortuanatly my decision about the ATI might be obsolete. Looks like I might have to be "compatible" with the upcoming Vray GPU renderer and Arion. Arion is cuda only afaik, the vray gpu renderer is cuda and also opencl

antti

I recommend spending a little bit extra on a good CPU cooler and case fans to keep the temperature and noise down during long rendering sessions. You might take a look at e.g. what Noctua has to offer.

FrankB

#26
that's right, Noctua is a good choice. My case has one 14cm and 3 x 12cm fans, two came with the case and are acceptable, and two are from Noctua, keeping the CPU cool. Overall the server isn't exactly still, but it's just non-intrusive, low tone "humming" and air flow sounds that come from it. Those 4 fans make less noise (and at a nicer frequency) than my previous system which had only one fan :D

Cheers,
Frank

FrankB


Walli

14cm fans? Sounds like you could use that to create "Hackfleisch" ;-)

Looks like a very nice case. It´s always I bit hard to spend money for " just" a case, but there are really huge differences and a good case can be recycled over and over again.

Hetzen

I went with this case, from these guys....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-101-AN&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

The top fan is seriously quiet, plenty of space inside, and the PSU is at the bottom of the case. Looks reasonable, ie doesn't look like a Nike trainer, and a damned good price too.