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Home Workstation Build Advice

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Approximate Purchase Date: 4-6 weeks

Budget Range: From $2,000-$2,500 after rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: 3DS Max/Maya/ZBrush and After Effects CS5 compositing

Parts Not Required: Monitor, Speakers... Haven't built a rig since 2004 so need advice on Keyboard/Mouse.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Tigerdirect (I have tiger blood!), Newegg, the lower the price the better.

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: No real preference.

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe in the future

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: My old rig sounds like a 747 at take-off, so a quiet case and PSU would be nice, but I realize I need plenty of power too.


I have been looking at the i7 2600k as far as CPU (although I know the 950 and 970 are great performers in my area) and I am still debating whether I should get a plain Fermi card or if I need a Quadro for what I do.

I know I want AT LEAST 12 Gigs of good RAM and a SSD for booting and loading certain programs (Vertex 3?). As well as perhaps a couple Terra's of RAID0 mechanical storage.

Any help would be great guys, thanks!

More about : home workstation build advice

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Briefly,
Sandy Bridge 2600
Mo Bo - Pick something from ASUS or AsRock (make sure it is the 1155 board).
8 or 16 GB of ram (4 x4GB, or 2 x 4GB).
GPU -- NVIDIA, depends on your budget (but you could go for a 560).
PSU - 750W would suffice.
Case -- I prefer Lian Li, for sleek looks, quality case, silence.... like the PC 7FN
HD - 2x 1TB (I prefer WD, but people like Seagate for the price).

pick a cheap CD reader / burner, a monitor (just got a new samsung 23" it is sweet!).

You should be good to go... :) 




Oh, you DON'T want RAID 0 if the files are somewhat important to you... If you want RAID, think of RAID 1 or RAID 1+0.

And that CPU - if you are overclocking, go for the 2600K (I forgot to add the "k")

As for cards --- Quadro tends to be more precise, so you probably want this for work, a Quadro 4000 if you can afford it...

Thanks for your input Selas! I agree with you on the RAID aspect, I was just thinking about the performance benefits of RAID0, as I have multiple backups and most of the HUGE files I'll be working with are going to be kept in a separate external storage device anyways.

Definetely looking at the 2600k but don't know with all the 9xx chips that people in my field swear by AND with IvyBridge on the horizon... Think I should wait for the z58 mobos?

The 9xx chips are way too expensive and the SB perform just as well (look for some tests within Tom's Hardware).

I am not sure when the Z-MB are coming out, but I would suggest start thinking about the other components, and when the time comes - either go SB or go for the new Z58 --- or at least see what the reviews say...

For your work, at this time a SB would do the job quite well, the CPU is only $320, and a good mobo would be $150. This system should last you a couple of years particularly because CUDA / GPU will take over processing power over CPU.

I would recommend this build, just get a better GPU...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/307560-31-build-comme...
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