[Solved] I7 build advice: CGI/editing/gaming rig

Thanks for the reply!

The reason I chose that power supply was because I found a combo on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.775903
So it saves me $35. I was a little concerned 750W wasn’t enough…

I’m thinking about going with this memory instead, it’s two 8GB sticks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820233246
I’m also liking that hdd you posted.

For the board, I looked at the ones you posted, looking at the specks the only thing that was different was the quick synk for video transcoding in the z68. Is this worth an extra $60?

I somewhat agree, dvd should be dead, but this year alone I’ve burned at least half a dozen dvds. Some people are just barely moving on from beta tapes… When I finish a video edit, usually they ask me for a dvd

Doesn't matter.

Yes, it does. In my experience, ATI/AMD's OpenGL drivers suck, and he is using Maya. If it was 3dsMAx, it would at least be Direct3D... but it isn't. Frankly, I trust ATI/AMD's OpenGL drivers about as far as I can throw them... and my ATI/AMD experience is largely with a FirePro, so i can imagine what their consumer OpenGL drivers are like.

Yes, but the OP is talking about a machine for doing 3d work, editing, and gaming, in that order. My experience with the Firepro cards was not with games at all, I didn't run any games on the machine. (The machine in question was the HP z400 I reviewed for Tom's Hardware when i developed the new workstation tests, I had the machine for almost eight months and used it to develop all of the in-house workstation tests as well as running the tests on said machine)

(Also, if he is editing with Premiere Pro CS5 or higher, the GPU acceleration only works on NVidia cards...)

I have plenty of experience playing games. My real testing experience is with workstation systems. I am not and did not say for him to get a FirePro. I said my experience with ATI/AMD's OpenGL drivers is based off of my experience with their FirePro cards, and that it was a rather negative experience that causes me to not recommend them. In fact, based on personal experience, I recommend an Nvida-based consumer card over an ATI/AMD 'professional' card and only recommend the Nvidia professional cards when the person is doing the level of work that usually requires them.

I mainly want the rig to do heavy 3d work and video editing, but I didn’t want to sacrifice gaming. I’d considered a workstation card, but I heard the performance wasn’t all that noticeable? I’ve no preference of brands, but if an NVidia works better with Premiere… I was looking at the EVGA DS GeForce GTX 560:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130657

or, should I spend more on a better card, will it help performance in 3d programs and editing?

They probably will be moderatly complex. For now I'd rather stick with a consumer card, that'll probably be the first area I'll upgrade in the future.

I don't know much about gpu based rendering, but it sounds promising. I do a lot of different things in 3d, so I'll probably use it. Only NVidia cards have the gpu rendering?

Kool, well, thanks for everyone's input. I'm going to buy everything soon, within the week most likely, this looks to be my final list:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/ [...] r=14318574