3d apps (3dmax, zbrush) build - what to look for?

Hi everyone.
Theres an expression in italian that says "like a fish out of water", no idea if there an equal in english, but thats exactly how i feel now that i have to build my next PC system. Im a student of game design and spend a lot of time in front of my pc for work and for pleasure.

Been working a lot with 3d applications like 3dstudio max, maya, zbrush, mudbox, all of them having huge problems with my actual pc when handling scenes of 50k polys. (except mudbox, where i can work up to 4mio polys). my aim would be working with 1gb big files and around20 mio polys per scene.

the problem is, thinking "ill get a good grafic card and all will be fine" sounds a bit minimalistic, so im here to ask you guys (and i hope you know better than me) which components are essential for working fluently with 3d applications. On the other side, i also play on that pc. Im not the kind of guy who has 20 last.gen games installed at a time, so for instance a good velociraptor300gb will do on that field..

my budget is around 1600-1800euros, 1400-1500gbp... (screen included, 22-26inch)
if any of you has good builds to point out on that matter, or a guide for that specific matter, or knows about people working in that scene being very happy with a product, please let me know..

waiting for your answers!
regards, raffael

Intel Core i7 860 2.8GHz Socket LGA 1156 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £219.38

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172754

ASUS P7P55D PRO iP55 Socket LGA 1156 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £126.84

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173450

ZOTAC Geforce GTX275 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PhysX and Cuda ready PCI-E Graphics Card £359.93 2 of these

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161657

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz HyperX Memory Kit CL7 1.5V £151.11 (8 gb)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169488

Antec 300 Three Hundred Black Case - No PSU £44.80

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143854

Western Digital WD6401AALS 640GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blac £51.79

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150247

Corsair 750W TX PSU - 120mm Fan, 80+% Efficiency, Single +12v rail £89.70

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134677

Samsung T240 24" TFT Monitor 1920x1200 1000:1 300cd/m2 5ms DVI/HDMI Rose B £239.50

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143848

comes to £1283.08 from http://www.ebuyer.com/

if there a reason for you to pick the geforces instead of lets say 2 radeon 4870?
i mean i have some remote reminance of someone saying nvidias work much better with autodesk programs.. not sure thou.. maybe something related to the control server or drivers...

about the GPU i dont really know.. heard one cant almost play anything with one of these.. artifacts all over the place.. but it might of be someones trouble and not a standard.. and also the price isnt really "amateur" friendly..

Also Nvidia drivers play better with professional programs such as those.

^+1 for another HDD for back up. As for RAM, go 12GB if possible. No need for Blu Ray.

Imo, going LGA1366 (aka i7 920) will be a better option as you will be able to use the i9s which are hexacore CPUs later. You should notice a decent performance increase with an i9 upgrade down the road. And no, i9 will not be available for LAG1156.

I'm assuming you are talking about softmodding gaming cards to workstation? If so no, you can no longer softmod on ATI/nVidia cards.

Intel Core i7 920 D0 BOX, Quad Core, 2.66 GHz, LGA 1366

DFI LANParty DK X58-T3eH6, ATX, X58, LGA1366, SLI, CFX

Corsair HX3X12G1333C9, 6x2GB, DDR3-1333, CL9-9-9-24@1.5V

WD VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS, 10'000rpm, 16MB, 300GB, SATA-II

ZOTAC GTX-275 AMP! 896MB DDR3, 240SP

Samsung SyncMaster T240, 24" TFT, DVI-D + HDMI, schwarz

Corsair CMPSU-TX750, 750W, SLI/CF, ATX2.2/EPS, 80Plus

Noctua CPU-Kühler NH-U12P SE1366 - Sockel 1366

Lite-On iHAS324-32, 24fach DVD Writer, schwarz, S-ATA

That's a very good point Shadow, I had totally missed that. The ability to upgrade to 6 cores might be quite nice.

Too bad about the soft mod thing.

None of those 3D applications take advantage of SLI/Crossfire. Look into getting a more powerful single card that will be also fast enough for gaming.

Good build. BUT wait for the ATI 5xxx.

Core i9:

Gulftown, aka i9: 6 cores 12 threads.

True that.

The new 5XXX series should be out in a week or two, I would definitely recommend waiting for them, the i9 is just a heads up for down the road, it will not be released anytime soon, i7 920 is the best choice for your needs.

up

Like this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150443

Not bad Bob, but there are other factors. Most people choose an OEM edition of Windows when building their own comp. This can be quite the hassle with MS to change the MB.

Replacing a motherboard is a great deal of work involving as well a re-format and a fresh OS install.

CPU and RAM can be dropped into a board fairly quickly, and no software changes are needed.

Unless you are a serious enthusiast like me, you will generally hang onto a build until it no longer works for you... and my experience has shown me that the immediate reaction at that time will be, "What can I do to upgrade for minimal cost?"

Also, CPUs tend to come down in price over time.

That was true for XP. Vista has changed that. As long as you lie and say the MB died you are OK though.

Although, I have heard from some that they were told to replace the MB with the same one. Depends on the rep I suppose.

You guys are probably going to flame me for bumping this one month old thread but no PC has been bought yet.. so i was wondering if the parts uggested here (obsidians build and mine) are all still actual and if theres anything new to be taken into account before buying..

(for those who dont want to read all the posts up here, its all about doing an awesome build for 3d apps/games with 1600 €, screen included)

@OP:Start new thread.