Help to improve render times and PC performance

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LockPC

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Hi

I primarily bought my PC for gaming however I am going to study to be a 3D-Animator soon. Before starting school I have done a few little 3D projects in Maya. Render times can be quite long and I don't want to be held up by waiting for renders and when I start my course I will be doing much more long and complex scenes.

Just after any feedback for some easy things I could do to improve render time and overall PC performance. Have been wondering if a new CPU and/or GPU (or another GPU) would fix my problems? Could probably do with another 8GB RAM?
Budget would be about £500 tops.

Case : Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced ATX Mid Tower Case
Power : Antec EarthWatts EA 650 650W Power Supply ATX12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC
Mobo : ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD
GPU : Asus ATI EAH6850 Direct Cu PCI-E 2.1 1GB 256-bit GDDR5, 790/4000 MHz
CPU : AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad Core 3.2GHz 2MB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache 125W AM3
Memory : Kingston DDR3 1600MHz 8GB HyperX Kit (2x4GB)
Storage 1 (RAID 0) : Western Digital WD5002AALX Caviar Black 500GB SATA3 6Gb/s 7200RPM 32MB Cache
Storage 2 (RAID 0) : Western Digital WD5002AALX Caviar Black 500GB SATA3 6Gb/s 7200RPM 32MB Cache
Disk : Asus DRW-24B3LT Black 24x Dual Layer Lightscribe SATA DVD Rewriter
Monitor 1 : HP Compaq LA2306x 23-inch LED Backlit LCD
Monitor 2 : HP Compaq LA2306x 23-inch LED Backlit LCD

Thanks so much in advance - any help would be much appreciated! :)
 
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KareemGT
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getochkn

getochkn

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I would get a new motherboard and chip, probably an 8350 8 core CPU and more RAM. A video card isn't going to help much with rendering. Some cards can take advantage of graphics processing power from a video, usually NVidia cards though and it's not usually a huge boost unless you're running 4 Titan class cards in a system for pure CUDA power, I wouldn't worry about the video card. If there is room to get a new video card after MB/CPU/RAM, then go for it and see if Maya likes AMD or Nvidia cards better.
 
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LockPC

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Thanks for the quick feedback so far guys. So it seems like regardless of anything else I should be upgrading my MB and my CPU and adding some RAM. GPU maybe another day when I've saved some more cash :)

I'm not too familiar with how Maya uses the GPU as I'm new to the software but after some very quick reading it seems the addin, Mental Ray (hopefully you have heard of it?), doesn't have/use GPU acceleration.

Looking at the FX-8350 + the additional bits that could go with it, it seems really nice and in my price range. I'll do some more research tonight to ensure everything I have at present is compatible.
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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Well , Good Luck ! btw , what is your budget for the upgrade ( CPU/RAM/Motherboard ) ?
 
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LockPC

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Thanks! It's a lot of fun upgrading and building a PC but there's a lot to think about and just so many options :)

Budget is about £500 (~USD$770) tops but would love to keep it well under that if possible of course.
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£141.59 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£68.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.00 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (£244.40 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £509.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-12 13:44 BST+0100)

Just a suggestion :) , to help you improving the list !
 
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LockPC

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Thanks heaps, fantastic!

Out of interest, if I was to not upgrade my GPU yet but future proof myself by purchasing a "Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard" so later on I could crossfire two GPUs or something, does that seem like a wise thing to do, and is this MB much better than the one you originally put above?

Cheers!
 
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KareemGT

KareemGT

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ya the sabertooth is much better for sure !! it's seems like a good idea , get the CPU / Mobo / RAM for now , and wait for the upcoming Cards so that you will get much better chance for better future proof PC . Good luck :)
 
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LockPC

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Ok, thanks for the info. I suppose I'm not a serious OCer however could be good to future proof myself with the option if I want a little more out of it later?

Out of interest, I'm just trying to find some info about SLI as I'm not really familiar with it. Will a MB that supports 3-way SLI be able to run two GPUs that support 4-way SLI ? i.e. could I run two EVGA GTX 670 FTW's with a Sabertooth 990FX? Just trying to understand the compatibility.

Thanks :)
 
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LockPC

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Jun 7, 2011
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Ok interesting. I see your point. Thanks for tip on SLI too :)

Do you have any suggestions for a cheaper MB for my comparison that could run (for example):
1x AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£141.59 @ Aria PC)
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card (in SLI)

No probs at all if not, I can keep snooping around for something to compare to.

Cheers :)
 
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LockPC

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Jun 7, 2011
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Thanks very much mate for the suggestion. Will do some comparisons. Hopefully if I go with this it will help me knock off 50 pounds or so. At a glance there aren't any significant differences.

Cheers :)
 
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