Preparing for massive upgrade

Graivy

Honorable
Jul 9, 2012
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10,510
Getting into next gen of mobos, chipsets and RAM finally, having been stuck with a dual core and 6 GB of DDR2 for sometime. I'm going to college for game production and decided 3D modeling is my calling, but my rig just doesn't cut it anymore.

I'm trying to decide between an AMD build or Intel. Basically intel has fewer cores with moderately less power, but more efficiency and cooler running, and damn pricey. In addition they also support anywhere from 64-128GB of RAM on some boards with 8 DIMM slots, making this an appealing choice if i were to create a RAM disk and run my modeling programs from it.

AMD chips on the other hand, with 8 cores seem to put out much more raw processing power for less money, at the expense of temperature. But, the AMD boards i've found only support 32 GB of RAM in 4 DIMM slots.

I've noticed in the laptops that my school provides us that students with newer i5 chips and 2-4 GB of RAM seem to have an easier time with 3D programs, than those of us with older dual cores, even me with maxed out 16GB RAM.

Basically, i would just like to hear good solid facts about which platform is better suited to modeling/rendering, with a little bit of gaming thrown in.

One last thing, this build will have to last me for at least a few years before i can even think of upgrading again, so expandability, adaptability and compatibility with future parts is going to be a factor.

Thanks for reading.
 
Intel CPUs generally sell at a higher price because of the relative performance compared to what AMD has to offer. Except in a few benchmarks, AMD CPUs performs worse than Intel's modern CPUs. The Phenom II / FX CPUs are basically equivalent to Intel old Core 2 Duo / Quad CPUs which were released from 2006 - 2008.

AMD's PileDriver CPUs will likely be equivalent to Intel's 1st generation Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs if it can manage a 10% increase in performance over Phenom II / FX.
 

Graivy

Honorable
Jul 9, 2012
3
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10,510
Thanks for the replies. With your help and alot more research i decided to settle for am I7 3820 paired with an asus sabretooth x79. Now just have to figure out if i can put it all together without re installing windows.
 

Temile

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Jun 7, 2012
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Did you read Tom's review of the 3820: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-3930k-3820-test-benchmark,3090-13.html

They came to the conclusion that the 3820 with only 4 cores offered few advantages over a 4 core 2600k, but was considerably more expensive, especially when you consider how much more expensive 2011 motherboards are.

Sounds like you're on a budget, I'm just concerned you're not getting the best value.
 

Graivy

Honorable
Jul 9, 2012
3
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10,510
I'm thinking way ahead with this build. The board i chose supports quad channel RAM kits with 8 DIMMs, up to 64 GB which i need for rendering and setting up a RAM disk. The 2011 socket also seems to be an up and comer so hopefully the next series of chips will be 2011. Also the 3820 is only marginally more expensive than the 2600, about $5-10. I was lucky enough to grab my 3820 off amazon for $294 even.