karecurtar,
When the applications are demanding as are 3D rendering, video editing and gaming- all of the intended uses, plus the budget is restricted, the best cost to performance ratio will derive from a used workstation. Workstations are are designed for these uses in that they are designed for reliable high performance. Workstations are also made to be very quiet-running. The HP z620 is inaudible in a quiet room from 18" away.
And importantly, computers depreciate very quickly. For example the new AMD Athlon X4 860K cost $93. In Passmark, baselines, the AMD Athlon X4 860K has an average CPU mark of
5556 and Single Thread Mark of
1594. However, an Intel E5-2690 8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz has a CPU mark of
14383 and Single Thread Mark of
1878. New, an E5-2690 cost $2,050.
Notice the 8-cores instead of the four of the AMD and this is important in rendering that can use CPU- and in some cases also GPU CUDA cores. The noticeably higher single-thread performance will be an advantage in gaming.
The memory bandwidth of LGA2011 is also more than double and many workstations can use 64-512GB of RAM. For your use I'd recommend a minimum of 16GB and 32GB is preferable.
Finally, buying a used workstation and upgrading is much earlier and faster than building from individual components and there is a built-in support in the form of user manuals and a source to update BIOS an drivers, etc.
How about:
HP Z420 Workstation 2.90GHz 8 Core E5-2690 16GB RAM No HDD No OS Buy It Now $ 540
And to that, add a Samsung 750 Evo 250GB- $75, WD Blue 1TB- $50 and used GTX 770 4GB, about $120. That's about $800. If that is too expensive, there is the E5-2680 and -2670 and GTX 760 2GB, and many other good combinations.
Another tactic would be to start with a system like this:
HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5_1620 3.60GHz 10 GB 2 HDD: 1st Windows 8.1 > Sold for $250
That has an E5-1620 (4-core @ 3.6 /3.8GHz) (Passmark 9096 / 1931) , 10GB of RAM, Quadro K2000- not bad at all, and two hard drives. With that system, add 6 more GB RAM, a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB for the OS and programs and use it, gradually changing the CPU, adding RAM, a faster GPU. The low initial price and upgrading over time will allow higher performance upgrade components. There are infinite combination of this approach. I have a z420 with the E5-1620 and did some quite large 3D CAD and rendering projects on it at a completely useful speed with a 24GB RAM, Samsung 840 /WD Black 1TB, and Quadro 4000.
I've upgraded used workstations a number of times and have had complete reliability in 3D CAD, rendering, graphic design, and analysis and simulation programs.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
Modeling:
HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) / 32GB DDR3 -1866 ECC RAM / Quadro K4200 (4GB) / Samsung SM951 M.2 256GB AHCI + Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) + Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]
Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:
HP z620 (Rev 2) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz) / 40GB (4X 8GB +4X 2GB DDR3-1600) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) / 800W > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >
[ Passmark System Rating= 5322 / CPU= 19675 / 2D= 767 / 3D = 3544/ Mem =2337 / Disk = 12951 ] 8.15.16
The z620 was purchased for $270, 2x CPU's: $345 , CPU riser board : $150, RAM $165, HP Z Turbo Drive $250 and GPU and other drive was reused from a Dell Precision T5500.
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