building daughter pc need help

[donvito62]

Hi all,
I want to build my freshmen in high school daughter a desktop PC and she is an awesome artist and is taking classes geared towards a field in computer graphics and 3D animation . I would like some suggestions on a PC i can build her that will be upgradeable as she gets deeper into it.She already picked out a case she liked its a mid tower atx case with a 450w power supply which I do plan on upgrading. I am having trouble deciding on what type of CPU is more geared towards this type of work. I know for the most part now she will be using it for the usual teenager stuff but she already draws some awesome pictures on our old PC with her wacom tablet and would like to try doing some animation and stuff. I also know that the animation software can be very expensive. But i shouldn't need that for a little while . I would like to keep the cost around a thousand bucks or so any help or ideas for hardware that is easily upgradable?

 

[g-paw]

What is your budget? Your best bet would be an Intel Q6600 or an E6750 depending on your budget. I'd suggest the ASUS P5K-E because it has 3 PCI slots and onboard firewire. The latter would be if you have a digital camcorder or planning on getting one plus if you get an external hdd with a firewire connection and save a USB port. Suggest 2 hdd a smaller one, like Seagate, for the OS/programs and the second for storage. Kids are malware magnets , they help themselves and this will make it a lot easier when she (you) have to reinstall Windows. I such you have have her build it including having install Windows and driver. Just did this with one of my granddaughters who's a freshman. I was there but other than a minor driver issues she didn't need my help. Even though she's a cheerleader she liked the geek cred that came with building among her peers.
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131225

 

[akhilles]

E6750
GA-P35-DS3L
ATI HD3850 PCI-E
DDR2 2X1GB 800MHZ (Kingston if you want out-of-the-box compatibility)
SATA2 500GB HARDDISK
SATA DVD BURNER
CORSAIR VX450W

I highly suggest you get some sort of Internet security suite for her. Mcafee is getting good reviews. Or Microsoft OneCare if it's gonna be Vista. In addition, I would partition the harddisk into a 50GB for OS & the rest for My Documents. Back up the OS to D drive once in a while right after a complete malware scan. A good backup program is Acronis True Image. It doesn't have to be installed, just boot up the CD & walk through the wizard.

 

[Shadow703793]

^Agreed. You can also switch the CPU to the E6550 and OC it. (If OCing you need to get a better cooler). To back up just the OS you can also use the Xpress Recovery option on the P35-DS3L. (Read the Manual for more info; here is the link (Pg. 57):
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/Manual_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Manual&FileID=18097 )

Software wise, get XP x64 if possible, or Vista x64. You might also want to try out Maya, which is a great program for 3D work. If this PC is only for Photoshop,etc work and not much gaming you can degrade the graphics card a bit and up the CPU to a Q6600. (Photoshop CS3, SolidWorks,Maya,AutoCAD,etc really benefit from a quad core)

 

[Shadow703793]

If you want Fire Wire just get a good PCI ad on card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815265003

For Graphics just get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127296
^You can OC the card, since this is not for gaming it should be fine. Most 3D modeling software benefit from more CPU power than graphics power.

 

[truromeo4juliet]

Akhilles has a good build right there, but I'd replace the E6750 with a Q6600 for graphics animation... video editting, sound chopping and clipping will be very taxing on the processor, not so much when doing the editting, but when doing a draft- or final-render, it'll be a lot faster (with the newer software, of course) to have the quad-core...

and he makes another great suggestion with Acronis True Image... I WOULD install it, though, and schedule it to create the automatic backup for you after your malware scans (automate them, as well)... make sure you backup to a DIFFERENT drive, because it's not really a backup if you don't, and data recovery (not transfer, but RECOVERY from a dead drive) starts at $250 for evaluation and can range from between $500 to $5000+ for resurrecting data from a dead drive... (prices vary based on region and company doing the repair)

 

[akhilles]

truromeo4juliet has a good point on the quad cpu. Go for it if you can afford it. It's not too much more expensive then E6750.