2017 budget 2d animation build

Zuez_259,

For this use, the best cost/performance solution is to buy a used workstation having a reasonably strong CPU single-thread performance. How about:

HP Z210 Xeon E3-1270 3.40GHz 8GB 320GB HD Win 7 Pro 64 bit Nvidia Quadro 2000 > Buy It Now $173.05 CAD

The Xeon E3-1270 is 4-core @ 3.4/3.8Ghz and has a Passmark avergae CPU Mark of 8241 and Single Thread Mark of 1920. I used an HP z420 with a xeon E5-1620 with a single Thread Mark of 1930 and made complex 3D models, ran CPU renderings and edited 400MB photos.

The Quadro 2000 uses drivers made for content creation that include 30-bit color for better color matching /correction, and higher anti-aliasing rates that take off the jagged edges. the highest 2D Mark for an E3-1270 combination is 822. That's quite good. The previous generation Quadros have good 2D performance. I use a Quadro K4200 4GB- ($850 new) and the 2D Mark is 838.

The low price of that system means the RAM can be increased to 16GB, a nice SSD added- Samsung 850 Evo 250GB for $119 CAD and a WD Blue 1TB.

If you'd like to have the performance move to higher level:

Lenovo ThinkStation P300 Tower Intel Xeon E3-1241 v3 @ 3.5 / 3.9GHz 4GB 1TB K600 VIDEO > C $536.59

And the E3-1241 v3 has a CPU Mark of 10036 and the important single thread mark is 2255- in the top tier. the Quadro K600 is also very good, a Xeon E3-1241 v3 / Quadro K600 has a 2D score of 1026.

There is less upgrade room in budget for the Lenovo system, but I'd still advocate for 16GB RAM and a 240GB+ SSD.

Then, for 2D animation software, consider: Serif DrawPlus X8 > $82.95 CAD @ Amazon Ca

And that is very highly rated for ease of use as well as advanced use. Serif also make a full range of graphic design software and might be a way to build a suite of very capable software for 1/4 the cost of Adobe.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

CAD / 3D Modeling / Graphic Design:

HP z420 (2015) (Rev 3) > 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 + Logitech z2300 2.1 speakers > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit >> 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 5581 > CPU= 14046 / 2D= 838 / 3D= 4694 / Mem= 2777 / Disk= 11559] [6.12.16]
[Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1031cb / Single Core = 142 cb / OpenGL= 127.39 fps / MP Ratio = 7.24x] 3.2.17

Analysis / Simulation / Rendering:

HP z620 (2012) (Rev 3) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 / 3.8GHz) / 64GB DDR3-1600 ECC reg) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) + Tesla M2090 (6GB) / HP Z Turbo Drive (256GB) + Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 (1TB) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe sound card + Logitech z313 2.1 speakers / 800W / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > > HP 2711x (27" 1980 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 5675 / CPU= 22625 / 2D= 815 / 3D = 3580 / Mem = 2522 / Disk = 12640 ] 9.25.16
[ Cinebench R15: CPU = 2209 cb / Single core 130 cb / OpenGL= 119.23 fps / MP Ratio 16.84x] 10.31.16