Hi all. I am currently trying to scope out a PC for my digital media course in September. I am going into my 4th semester now, and I need to upgrade my PC.
Recently a friend of mine who works in a computer store suggested I go with a nvidia GPU because of something called CUDA.
Now I've been using an older PC with a radeon 6670 for the last 3 semesters, and although my PC isn't blazing fast, I haven't really run into any problems. The only time I've encountered issues is with zbrush and that is when I am dealing with high res meshes with multiple parts (we're talking 15 million + polys).
I am ALSO a gamer, and I want a system that can play games as well as deal with my 3d applications (zbrush, maya, and 3d studio max, mostly). I've always been partial to AMD, so I was hoping to go with an 8 core system with 16gb of ram and a 3gb GPU.
So my main question is this:
Is there a real advantage to using nvidia cards for 3d related applications, or am I making too much of this?
I should also add that I would like to reduce render times as much as possible, but I am also on a budget (no more than $1350).
Should I be looking at intel cpu's and nvidia gpu's instead or will the performance difference be miniscule at best?
Edit to add:
This is a pre-built that I was considering. I was going to shave a few options off to save a couple bucks and it turned out to be about $1350 with shipping after all was said and done:
http://
Recently a friend of mine who works in a computer store suggested I go with a nvidia GPU because of something called CUDA.
Now I've been using an older PC with a radeon 6670 for the last 3 semesters, and although my PC isn't blazing fast, I haven't really run into any problems. The only time I've encountered issues is with zbrush and that is when I am dealing with high res meshes with multiple parts (we're talking 15 million + polys).
I am ALSO a gamer, and I want a system that can play games as well as deal with my 3d applications (zbrush, maya, and 3d studio max, mostly). I've always been partial to AMD, so I was hoping to go with an 8 core system with 16gb of ram and a 3gb GPU.
So my main question is this:
Is there a real advantage to using nvidia cards for 3d related applications, or am I making too much of this?
I should also add that I would like to reduce render times as much as possible, but I am also on a budget (no more than $1350).
Should I be looking at intel cpu's and nvidia gpu's instead or will the performance difference be miniscule at best?
Edit to add:
This is a pre-built that I was considering. I was going to shave a few options off to save a couple bucks and it turned out to be about $1350 with shipping after all was said and done:
http://