Overclock.net › Forums › General Hardware › General Processor Discussions › need help building a 2000ish euro Workstation for 3d rendering and FX work
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

need help building a 2000ish euro Workstation for 3d rendering and FX work

post #1 of 2
Thread Starter 
Hi guys I need help on what to buy for this new workstation Im planning on building. There's a lot of components I don't need such monitors and other periferals, and I got Hardrives a plenty as well. So i just need the all the other elements to build a pc from ground up. My budget would be at maximum 3000 euros, but that's already pushing my wallet a bit too far. Ideally I'd like to spend around 2000. Some things I'd like to have in specific is 24Gigs of Ram, 2 Processors (either Xeon or Opteron, knowing that the more cores the better it should be for the type of stuff I need to do such as fluid simulations using houdini 3dsmax fumefx), and for graphics im planning on getting a GTX680 or GTX690(prolly some custom edition with more ram).

Approximate Purchase Date: the next two months.

Budget Range: 2000ish euros

System Usage from Most to Least Important: CG Rendering and FX simulation workstation as well for 3d modeling.

Parts Not Required:keyboard, monitors, harddrive.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: dunno

Country: portugal

Parts Preferences: by brand or type (e.g.: I would like to use an AMD CPU & Biostar mobo with a 24" LCD and full tower case)

Overclocking: no

SLI or Crossfire: no

Monitor Resolution: i got two planned for this workstation which i already have in fact. one runs at full hd(32inch FullHD tV), while the other one runs at 1600x1200 (cintiq21UX)
Edited by mulafraga - 3/7/12 at 11:07am
post #2 of 2
If you're doing things like 3D modeling and rendering, you're going to want a workstation class GPU. On the Nvidia side, its the Quadro series, on the AMD side, Firepro.

The top quadro GPUs are the 4000, 5000 and 6000, at around $700, $1500, and $3000 respectively. Here's a chart comparing them: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html
The 6000 is probably out of your budget, but the 4/5000 will do you nicely depending on how much you spend on other components. If you know you need more vram than that, the 7970 has 3 GB of GDDR5, but it's designed for gaming, not professional render work. Sapphire is coming out with a 6 GB 7970, and there will probably be some kepler GPUs with tons of memory, but not for a little while. If you really need more than 2-3 GB of memory it'll be tough to come by.

Basically, at the same price point the Nvidia cards have better specs so I'd recommend one of them.

If you're stuck on AMD, go for either an 8-core bulldozer or a phenom II x6 since you can probably use all the cores. If you can be convinced to jump ship, the 2600 will do you nicely (or you could wait for Ivy Bridge). If you want to spend more money, an SB-E chip will give you tons of power. Or you can go for the 3820, which is a socket 2011 CPU so you get all those features and the option up upgrading to SB-E or IB-E The problem is the motherboards will be more expensive.

Get as much RAM as you need, it isn't terribly expensive compared to other components. You might want to look into ECC RAM, but that's mostly used in servers, so I don't know if you'll need it. If you want that, you need a motherboard that supports it.

If you aren't overclocking, you don't need a super duper cooler, the stock one should be fine.

And as for power supply, the corsair ax650 is 80+ gold, fully modular, and should have enough juice for you.
Big Daddy
(16 items)
 
   
CPUGraphicsHard DriveCooling
Intel Core i7 2620M AMD Radeon HD 6470M Hitachi 320 GB 7200 rpm SED Stock, AC MX-4 
OSMonitorMouseMouse Pad
Windows 7 Professional 64 1600x900 Logitech G700 Razer Goliathus 
Audio
Onboard 
  hide details  
Reply
Big Daddy
(16 items)
 
   
CPUGraphicsHard DriveCooling
Intel Core i7 2620M AMD Radeon HD 6470M Hitachi 320 GB 7200 rpm SED Stock, AC MX-4 
OSMonitorMouseMouse Pad
Windows 7 Professional 64 1600x900 Logitech G700 Razer Goliathus 
Audio
Onboard 
  hide details  
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: General Processor Discussions
Overclock.net › Forums › General Hardware › General Processor Discussions › need help building a 2000ish euro Workstation for 3d rendering and FX work