I just want to have a computer so that my render time is low.
Seeing as how this is a low budget I just want to create small scene
but fantastic animations. For example, Aliens theres a figure walking
through a small corridor but I want it to look nice and detailed but the area
will still be small! I do want a decent graphic card so I can play games like Battlefield
and other top fun games.
What processor should I use? Intel or AMD?
What company motherboard should I use?
Ram-ill have to decide for myself
Power cable- I guess that’s my own decision
Graphics Card- What type should I get NViDia?
Should I over-clock my computer after?
Sound Card?
My budget is 1000 tax included Canadian.
A decent Intel cpu and motherboard will most likely eat up about £300. Then throw in a decent Nvidia card such as a GTX 650…you won’t have much left for the rest of the system.
I am currently in the process of gathering components for a build, and under similar budget constraints. The idea is to have an initial spec, with upgrades in mind for later on…
Case: Zalman Z11-Plus
PSU: Corsair CX750M
CPU: AMD FX-6300
Chipset: AMD 970
Memory: 4GB
GFX: Asus GTX 650 Ti DirectCU II 1GB
HDD: Seagate 500GB
Optical: Bog standard DVD Rewriter
Internet/Wifi: Dunno yet, but I’ll get back to you on that one…
OS: Linux Ubuntu.
…Going with AMD, my budget for a motherboard bundle from Novatech is now £190, and the FX 6300 may not be an i5, but price-vs-performance it seems to be the sensible choice. Also, I hear the FX 6300 is great for over-clocking.
The Nvidia 650 is not as powerful as other cards in its price range, but its cooling and low temperature appears to be unmatched, and it is over-clocked out of the box…sounds like a reliable card at least hardware wise…
The case and power supply unit give you plenty of space and power, respectively. These components could last you a long time, saving money in the long run…
Should you over-clock? Only if you know what you are doing. Be warned that over-clocking can damage your machine without sufficient cooling. Definitely do your home work before attempting it.
If you are playing games as well, then Windows 7 may be the only way to go. I hear that Linux can run windows games, but I’ve yet to try it.
I built by PC for pretty much the same reason. High quality but small productions. My advice to you would be to stretch your budget as far as you can, becuse in the computer world you do tend to get what you pay for. In my experience Intel would be the best choice for your CPU. I don’t want to get into the whole AMD vs Intel argument with anyone but my reason is simply I find them to be more reliable, plus you will get great performance for the price. The i5 is a perfect choice for building on a budget. When it comes to the motherboard it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to your performance, but it does have a big effect on your reliability, and of corse what you can actualy connect to it! My personal favorite motherboard brand is ASrock. The make really good quality products at really good prices. But its all down to what you can afford. Asus and Evga are also two other great brands. Now for choosing your graphics card, to get good performance, you really don’t have to spend as much money as you might think. Nvidia graphics cards do out-perform AMD when you when you compare similar models, so for that reason I would choose them. With the latest range of 700 series GForce cards being released, the price of the 600’s has dropped hugely. And to be honest, they still have more than enough power. You can pick up a 660 for a decent price now, and that will give you pretty nice render times and let you play most games on high settings. RAM is actualy quite important when it comes to 3D animation. It’s one of the things that determine how much “stuff” you can have going on at once. However. Despite there being all these huge amounts of RAM you can get these days, a friend of mine who is studying computer science at university told me that you really have to be pushing it to actualy get a computer to use more then 8GB, so that amount of memory is absolutely fine even in high budget machines. It’s much more about the speed of your memory than its size! Anything over 2000Mhz will give you lightning fast programmes. My final peice of advice would be don’t underestimate the importance of the power supply. You really have to make sure you get a good quality one or else it can mess up everything else. Corsair are a great make of power supply’s. that’s about it for the important stuff really, anything else is up to you (Case, HDD’s, The colour of the fans, all that stuff). Just make sure that your getting the most you can possibly afford, otherwise you might regret it in the end. Hope my little guide has helped out some what ^-^