What to get for £500 build for 3D Modelling/Rendering/Adobe?

[fileepfilop]

Hi guys,

I'm at uni doing a design degree which involves a lot of 3D modeling/rendering on mainly Alias Studiotools and working with Photoshop

Last yr I was running a now 4yr old P4 1.6Ghz Dell system with upgraded memory to 768mb and 128mb graphics card.

I'm now looking at building a new PC from scratch just using the monitor, keyboard and mouse from the Dell. So I will just need to budget for the tower (I have about £500). Already have operating system and software.

It will be used primarily for 3D modeling/rendering and Adobe Photoshop etc. But also broadband.

My budget is about £500 and my priorities are: fast as poss, quiet (would like water cooling), possibly overclockable, and upgradeable. If possible I would like it to be twin monitored.

What I'm asking is for someone to be able to advise me on all the components to use because I haven't built a PC before (have done upgrades and maintenance) and don't know what's best to match up and what's best for overclocking/upgradeability.

Have looked at CustomPC Magazine's 'Build a Perfect PC for Just £500' in April but don't know whether this would already be out of date and any good for what I need.

HELP! Cheers guys. Phil

[NightshadowUK]

You're not gonna get all that for £500. If I were you, I'd scrap even thinking about overclocking and watercooling, and go with something like this:

AMD Sempron 64Bit 3100+ S754 256K (1.8Ghz) - £73.21
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe S754 nForce4 - £59.88
(2x) 1Gb Corsair Value Select, DDR, PC3200- (2x) £80.97 - £161.94
128MB ScanFX GEFORCE 6600GT - £101.16
200Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 - £60.29
Coolermaster Centurion 531 Silver Aluminium Case - £42.30
380W Tagan TG380-U01 - £37.47
NEC ND-4550A Silver - £30.66
1.44Mb Sony Silver Floppy Disk Drive OEM - £4.34

I built a system very similar to this just the other week and it ran rather nicely.

[0iD]

Rendering is very mHz dependant in my experience. Our best performing CAD machines are all currently Intel. Also 1gb ram should be seen as a minimum.
Having said that I've yet to get to spec up a dual core machine so I can't comment. But that's a little outside your remit

[directhex]

You're not gonna get all that for £500. If I were you, I'd scrap even thinking about overclocking and watercooling, and go with something like this:

AMD Sempron 64Bit 3100+ S754 256K (1.8Ghz) - £73.21
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe S754 nForce4 - £59.88
(2x) 1Gb 2x512Mb Corsair, DDR400/PC3200 - (2x) £65.96 - £131.92
128MB ScanFX GEFORCE 6600GT - £101.16
200Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 - £60.29
Coolermaster Centurion 531 Silver Aluminium Case - £42.30
380W Tagan TG380-U01 - £37.47
NEC ND-4550A Silver - £30.66
1.44Mb Sony Silver Floppy Disk Drive OEM - £4.34

Total - £541.23

I built a system very similar to this just the other week and it ran rather nicely.

i'd strongly disagree with 4x 512mib - it uses more power, generates more heat, and doesn't play well with amd64 memory controllers. 2x 1gib is far better

[NightshadowUK]

D'oh yeah, my bad. I was trying to keep to his budget as best I could as one stick of 1GB costs about £80. The Asus only comes with 3 DIMMs anyway so 4 sticks would be no good.

*Edited*

[0iD]

And of course if you get it from Scan, there's no carriage charge once you've got enough posts under your belt

[NightshadowUK]

No charge if it's a 5 minute drive away either.

How many posts do you need anyway?

[0iD]

You just need 25 posts the day before ordering, it's all explained in this thread
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=51925

[fileepfilop]

Thanks tfor the replies! I know £500 won't get me much in the sector I need it for but I'm a skint student! I've stretched my budget to come up with this from the scan.co.uk website...

1 LN10804 Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G - FSB1066, PCI-Ex16, DCDDRII667,4xSATAII, Raid, 8ChAudio, Lan,ATX £70.30

1 LN11055 Intel Pentium® D 820 Dual core 2x2.8GHz 800FSB S775 2x1MB cache Retail inc.Fan (3 year warranty) £176.58

2 LN9871 512Mb DDR2 PC4200, 533 MHz, 2x32Mx64, non-ECC, 240 DIMM, unbuffered, CL4 Infinion Retail £49.56

1 LN7925 425W HiperPower HPU-4S425 4th Gen Quiet Dual Fan Active PFC (24/20 pin)(ATX/BTX) £35.12

1 LN9888 128MB Leadtek WinFast PCI-E PX6600 GT TDH 6600 GT £98.11

1 LN9867 CoolRiver Complete water cooler Deluxe Version (VGA/N.Bridge/CPU) using 120mm + Fan Cont £58.74

1 LN11657 200GB Samsung SpinPoint SP2004C 7200rpm, 8MB, SATA II Fluid Dynamic Bearings, 25dBA £63.39

1 LN11909 CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Case Black Body (Silver Trimmings) w/o PSU £41.13

Total: £595.55 + £15 P&P (hopefully can get it for free from scan.co.uk)

[fileepfilop]

I will be using the monitor, keyboard, mouse, CD drive, CDR drive and floppy drive from my current system.

[fileepfilop]

So, what do you guys think of my spec? How could you improve on it?

[fileepfilop]

I'm aiming for a quiet PC which is why I've spent on water cooling. I know that's it's not a particularly good cooling system but I won't be overclocking so only needs to keep things quiet and not over work on the cooling front.

[fileepfilop]

I'm most unsure about the graphics card because I don't really have a clue about them. Could someone please recommend one to me. Because I will be connecting the watercooling to the heatsink of the graphics card will I save money by buying a card without a fan? I need to be sure the water cooling system I mentioned in my spec will connect to the chosen graphics card.

Thanks

[DavidM]

If its for serious number crunching, a dual-core AMD may be a better choice. They are generally more powerful for this sort of thing.

[fileepfilop]

I've heard the opposite. I've heard that Intels are better for number crunching and AMD are better for gaming etc. Plus AMDs are a lot more expensive!

[fileepfilop]

Now got the price down to £585.40 for the same spec.