Novice looking to make a design desktop

Dollx047

Honorable
Mar 16, 2012
1
0
10,510
Hey all, college design student

So I have a limited budget: (1200-1700)

Intended use: 3D rendering, multitasking

Programs used: adobe creative suite, 3ds max, autoCAD, Revit

Components so far:

Processor: i7-26000 (3.4 Ghz w/ 8Mb cache)
OS: windows 7 pro
Memory: 12 Gb dual channel DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333Mhz-4 DIMMs
Primary hard drive: 1Tb- 7200RPM, SATA 3.0 Gb/s, 16Mb cache
Video card: 1Gb GDDR5 nvidia geforce GT 545

Any tips for maximizing performance without raising cost? Thanks for your time.
 
i7-2600 should be fine but really anything in the i7 line will work.

12gb ram should be fine. if you want to use a ramdrive suggest getting whatever the max your system can handle.

suggest using a 80gb ssd for boot and having another drive for storage.

suggest the best video card you can afford.

make sure you buy a decent brand psu. probaly in the 600-700w range or so depending on how much crap you pack into your machine. do a power calc.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
12gb ram should be fine. if you want to use a ramdrive suggest getting whatever the max your system can handle.

12GB is a triple channel (X58) configuartion - that won't work on LGA 1155. You need 8, 16, or 32GB in order for it to properly function.

Video card: 1Gb GDDR5 nvidia geforce GT 545

That's an HTPC card - you want at least a 560TI or a 7850 - that will be the ideal solution. Of course if you can afford a Quaddro that would be the ultimate.

For a rendering station here's what I would suggest:

Case: Corsair Carbide 400R - $99.99 ($10.00 MIR)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer MKII 750W - $109.99 ($20.00 MIR)
Motherboard: Asus P8B WS - $219.99
CPU: 3.2GHz Intel Xeon E3-1235 - $264.99
RAM: Kingston 8GB Unbuffered Server RAM - $69.99
SSD: 64GB Crucial M4 - $99.99
HD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $119.99
Optical: Lite On DVD Burner - $17.99
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 560TI - $229.99 ($20.00 MIR)

Total: $1,232.91 - $50.00 MIR = $1,182.91

I know the video card is a bit out of place for this build but it's CUDA enabled which will help for rendering a lot.