€1000 - €1200 to spend on a new Gaming/3D machine

NeVeR

Hi all,

Well after having my old machine for 4 years it's time to move on, In saying that I upgraded the graphics can and added 1 gig of RAM in that time.
This is the Card i have in my machine now

PowerColor Radeon HD 3870 "PCS" 512MB,
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343410


But i want to build something new.
I'm going to be in stalled Windows Vista 64. So i can add alot of RAM.

How does my graphics card compare to the ones out now? Should i be getting a new one?.

I run alot of USB things like Hard drives (3)/Printer/webcam/mouse /keyboards/ipod/camera etc and would like alot of ports on the Motherboard.

I dont need monitors as i have 2 already.

I was thinking of a quad core processor. But wanted to know what you guys thought.

So lets just break it down.

Processor : Quad core
RAM: atleast 8 GIG, (rendering 3d)
Motherboard: something that can take more RAM if needed also USB ports,
Graphics card, Should i upgrade to something bigger
Power supply, I was thinking around the 750watts. Should i get bigger?

thanks guys.

Kinetic^

For what you;ve posted 750watts psu is overkill imo. Are you going to be running the 2 monitors off the machine?

NeVeR

at least 2. I've been looking and i might kick it up to 3. (Might) . But defo 2

Solitaire

What exactly do you want to do with this machine? And what size are those monitors?

You'll definately want a better graphics card for gaming; many €80 cards would beat on that old HD3870 of yours. Moore's Law FTL

And I can't really put up a HWVS build today due to their staggering stock issues ATM (hell, is there a single sub-€200 2x2GB DDR3 kit left on the entire site?!) Although everyone seems to be playing fast and loose with stock recently

NeVeR

I'l be using it for gaming and 3d design. also digital matte painting with really large Images.

I have 2 x 22" monitors.

Solitaire

Sorry, I really meant monitor resolution. Although I'd guess that if those are decent quality 22s you'd be talking 1920*1080.

If your budget could stretch a cheap i7-920 build with at least a GTX275 (or maybe a GTX260 55nm 1.75GB for the uber-framebuffer) wouldn't go amiss, especially if you're using Adobe CS4 or anything else that likes CUDA.

And maybe you should think of sticking with Windows 7 64 RC until it goes retail rather than wasting money on Vista

NeVeR

it's 1680x1050, Not sure about the i7, Alot of ppl have warned against it,

I've never heard of windows 7 so i'll have to look into it.

darealtulip

NeVeR wrote: »

it's 1680x1050, Not sure about the i7, Alot of ppl have warned against it,

I've never heard of windows 7 so i'll have to look into it.

you can download it for free from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

it will work till march after that you have to buy it.

Solitaire

64bit version in particular is sooo much better than Vista... this isn't a cost-cutting option, rather a better OS option on a permanent basis (you'll have to pay the piper once its released but it seems so much better than the slow and fussy Vista and buggy-as-hell XP when it comes to 64bit OS)

Surprised at the monitor res... anyway, unless you insist on running Crysis on Very High settings I'd say you don't need an insane GPU, though an oversized framebuffer would help your design work a lot so long as you don't have to pay through the nose for a decent card with one. But you might not need to limit yourself to nVidia if you won't need CUDA.

Core-i7 are great CPUs, but don't benefit gamers at all. Hardcore applications, on the other hand, fly like the wind on them so they're the only real option for €1200+ Soho builds. Then you get the best of both worlds

Here's a very rough guide:


Some things. If you don't need CUDA you'd get better service from the Sapphire HD4890OC for the same price. The case and PSU border on overkill but are pretty futureproof as well unless you go CrossFire/SLI in which case you might actually finally have a need for that 750W monster. Speaking of which, you'll be spending a lot more on an X58 mobo if you want/need SLI in future. 6GB of fast DDR3 in triple-channel mode should be plenty, add another €90 if you want to double it to the full 12GB (do you really need that much?) Finally, and possibly the most relevant, do you want to overclock that CPU to get a bit (OK, a lot) more grunt out of it? They have great OC headroom but past 3GHz you'll need a proper aftermarket cooler. Add ~€35 for a Xigmatek S1283 and the seperate LGA1366 bracket it'll need. Those should help keep you very cool in there even at 3.8GHz

Blazer

NeVeR wrote: »

it's 1680x1050, Not sure about the i7, Alot of ppl have warned against it,

I've never heard of windows 7 so i'll have to look into it.

People have warned against i7 because they might be upgrading from Core2Duo or Quad.
But for rendering etc I'd definitely recommend going i7 route.
Specifically for the amount of ram you want. Lots of the DDR2 boards have issues with using the full 4 slots on the board (8gb ram).
With some of the X58 chipset boards you can go upto 16gb of ram.
I have a precision M6400 (dell workstation laptop) which is quad-core and has 16gb of ram.
It quite happily run 7-8 VMs simultaneously with no issues while I'm gaming

NeVeR

thanks guys, Still dont know about the i7, But i'll have a think about it.