What? Are you posting in reference to what I said?
A dual core CPU won’t be a “bottleneck” for anything, and neither will having 2GBs of “SDRAM”
As for the GPU, Nvidia and ATI are close (with nvidia being somewhat ahead, and having a larger userbase). So as things stand now, I would say go with Nvidia.
And there’s Gelato for Nvidia…
For me, “Nvidia” sounds better than “ATI”… ATI cards sometimes have problems with Blender. But, I like ATI better! :rolleyes:
You definitely want 64bit linux for Blender, not 64bit windows. Because blender renders faster in 64bit linux environment, for reasons vastly beyond comprehension …
You want 32bit windows on the same box, though, to enjoy what everybody else enjoys.
If you wanna feel special (sort of like macPeople feel themselves), get a vintage socket 939board, an opteron 165 or 170 ( http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__AMD_Opteron_165_Dual_Core_Processor,__13510550/ ), a 6600gt and 500W power supply. Beware of ram latencies. Lower=better=not cheaper. http://www.corsairmemory.com/corsair/xms.html
http://www.amdgeeks.net/ ; 1.5V is your friend.
P.s.: intrigued by opteron’s eofw.org benchmark result (which “shouldn’t be possible” in lieu of “Intel power”), I did a search and found this: http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q4/quad-fx/index.x?pg=6
Unfortunatelly, there was another linux amd-vs-c2d povray benchmark I knew of, but couldn’t find it anymore.
No, Social, it wasn’t in response to you, but rather the user who suggested 2 gigs of ram at the expense of a cpu. If he went for 2 gigs now, he’d likely skimp out on a decent processor and end up with a single core AMD. I’m simply saying he should go for Dual-Core 64-bit AMD, and upgrade the ram later if he runs into any issues, and when he has more money.
As I said, don’t go to a card simply for the brand name, Ati makes some wonderful cards, and so does nVidia. Both perform well in the majority of settings, and usually the discrepencies aren’t overly noticable to those who don’t actively game or stress-test their system (3dsMark, for example).
'Tis all I’m saying, no offense intended Social. (Yes, I’m aware it’s fairly difficult to bottleneck a pc due to a dual-core processor, you’d have to have otherwise ridiculous componants requiring a Core 2 Duo.).
Buy a PS3 and run Linux ya dummy =)
Bah, the PS3 is boring.
And out of my price range.
@tedi
Unfortunately, the Opteron is out of my price range. But thanks for the suggestion.
Alright, heres my list so far.
Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130050
Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103735
Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121021
RAM(thanks tracer)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145566
Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811147033
PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817255010
Total: $487.96
I have 2 hard drives that I can use, so I’m not going to buy any right now.
So what do you guys think?
eh? well fine if you’re bored with the computer that medical scientists are trying to get their hands on to help power the research to find a cure for diseases like cancer.
Also, I thought you said you had $750 - and the PS3 is ~$600.
Actually, I don’t have 750. If I said 500 or so, it would scare everyone off. 
That actually seems like a pretty nice build there, with lots of room for upgradability. Given that you still are under-budget, I’d actually go for the 4600+ instead of your currently selected processor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103750
As I said, it’s one of the harder componants to upgrade later.
Another thing to look at is the motherboard, if you read my comments below about SLI, you’d want an SLI enabled motherboard. Of course, that’s irrelevant if you don’t plan on doing it, so it’s your choice. Motherboard is another hard-to-upgrade componant, so you’d be better off putting the rest of your budget into there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=socket+am2+sli&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
For a search, and one that isn’t much more but supports SLI is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123005
(it seems like quite a good motherboard, also, supports 8 gb of memory)
And one that is about 100 dollars, but offers good quality (Lanparty is a good mobo maker):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136014
The memory seems good, the card especially seems to be a nice choice due to the SLI capabilities (SLI allows 2-nvidia cards to act together, giving quicker, and better results).
So if you ever feel an upgrade is needed without being too drastic, you can simply pop another in.
So I propose these 2 upgrades:
Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103750
Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123005
Bringing your total cost up to: 700.
(Oh blast, I just read your 500 versus 750 comment. I’d still recommend upgrading the processor, even if you don’t go after the motherboard, it’s only a couple of extra dollars (66 actually) but offers much better performance.)
You’re gonna get left behind with the new memory types, CPU pins, and direct X standards that everyone is releaseing right now (Vista is coming out soon) while trying to build a budget system - if you’re not careful. (I’m not sure if you can keep up for under $750)
I think that now is a bad time to upgrade in general unless you have the dough to spare which you don’t I don’t think. Once I again, I suggest you consider using a PS3 and running a linux op-sys
To me, it isn’t a difficult decision at all. You should start reading up on your Linux distributions if you ask me but-
EH
do what you think is right for you =)
The PS3 is a lost cause as a game system, not to mention a PC.
You don’t get full access to any of the special hardware, so forget about using the CELL and the RSX to their full potential, because you only get a pitch to the framebuffer, and that’s it. So no hardware acceleration, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the whole thing anyway.
I won’t be upgrading to Vista any time soon anyways.
The PS3 can’t do what I want it to do. AFAIK, I can’t draw up origami CPs on it…
Its also more than I can spend.
And I’m used to getting left behind with the new hardware. The last one I built was abuot 2 years out of date when I built it, and that was about 3 years ago…
@Contagion
Thanks for the suggestions. I just found out I have a little less money than I though(stupid hobbies of mine), but I’m going to try to figure out a way to get those. But as it stands right now, I don’t think I can afford paying the extra money.
I don’t think that Sony is quite that stupid. Not that I have some otherworthly faith in them or anything, but I don’t think they want to give up their cash cow so easily. I’m thinking the release of some kind of patches or something or another will make it somewhat more appealing.
and/or pricedrop!
pricedrop!
PS3 don’t hold my Shin Megami Tensei and Final Fantasy hostage!!
endrant.
I seriously think you don’t want a X2 4600 right now.
You want to upgrade to a yet-to-be released 65nm X2 AM2 when they are dirt cheap (who knows - a X2 9600 if it ever happens … God forbid …).
Or you may want a X2 4600 now and upgrade later nevertheless …
I think that the guy that showed you the $750.00 system showed you an OK system but that also depends if you already have an OS for the machine. If that’s the case then it’s OK but if you have to buy Windows you will have to get WinXP Pro x64 which will cost you about $130.00. The processor choices are definitively between AMD Athlon X2 and Intel Duo Cores. The Intel Duo Core is the best performing at the moment but right now it’s a bit expensive so the AMD X2s are a better value I think. So I would get a motherboard with a AM2 socket and and AMD Athlon X2 (EE version).
Make sure your motherboard has a PCI xpress slot for graphics because AGP it's becoming obsolete quickly. If you buy a motherboard that includes a graphic chip make sure it's either ATI or Nvidia (Do not get confused with motherboards that have only ATI or Nvidia chip sets) not all of those include a graphic chip, read to see if the motherboard includes an Nvidia or ATI GPU integrated in the motherboard but that still has the PCI express slot for graphics additionally. There are plenty of those in the market. If you do that you can have a relatively good graphics card to start with and you can later on buy a better higher performing graphic card and plug it in that PCI xpress slot. You see, that's an economic alternative with an upgrade path and that may allow you to buy a better CPU and/or multichannel speakers (good if you want to play a few of those awesome first person games because it will give you a lot more realism that just regular stereo speakers because of the surround sound).
A dual core processor is a must if you are going to do 3D because it will almost duplicate your render speed and in 3D software like Blender or 3D Studio that's very significant. That's why I recommended you those processors. If you hold your purchase a little more remember that in the next few months (meaning from here to mid year) mainstream quad core processors will be released to the public and for regular software that it's not optimized that doesn't mean much but for 3D rendering software like Blender, again it will be very significant (almost like having 4 computers rendering in one) Blender already has support for 2 processors or 2 cores if you enable the button in the panel and with Yafray it has support for multiple cores. I read that in the next release of Blender (2.43 which will be released in a few weeks after the beta testing period is over) there will be support for up to 8 cores with the internal Blender renderer and that will accelerate your render a whole lot because non real time rendering is entirely CPU based in Blender. The speed of the graphic card will determine how complex your scene can be when editing and how fast you will rotate etc. but rendering it's all CPU.
I recommend at least 1 gig memory but if you can and of course that will depend on what configuration of graphic card etc. you decide to buy then buy 2. Some people will tell you that it won't be necessary and it's true, for the big majority of applications. For most software it's an overkill, but if you are a professional 3D modeler that creates very complex scenes for still rendering you may need the 2 gigabytes, but only if you run 3D models that are a bit complex, otherwise you will be fine with 1 gigabyte.
Remember the alternative of buying a motherboard with an integrated graphic chip with a PCI Xpress slot but if you want higher graphics performance for games and other things from the get go buy a motherboard without integrated graphics and get a graphic card like the one that the $750.00 computer guy recommended you, it's a good trade off between price and performance. You can also make your machine boot in Linux without having to do the complexity of dual boot configuration. You can run a bootable Linux from a CD and save your stuff and your settings in one of those 2 gigabytes USB modules and that way you can run Blender in Linux without touching your Windows machine configuration at all.^^Dude!, there’s this thing called the “Enter Key” try using it once in a while. It’ll help you keep from getting brain damage. 
Looks like a good system here. I’d say don’t listen to the guys telling you that you’ll want to upgrade sooner if you go with the older hardware. I bought a socket 939 system back when they were going out of style. And I still haven’t gotten around to buying a dual core opteron for it, but when I do it’s only $170.
All in all, it’s a great system. I have a lower spec system in almost every way from this system, and the thing runs fine. Runs blender like a dream. You won’t outgrow this system anytime soon.
And yes, I’m not a noob at this, I’ve been programming computers for 11+ years (even dabbled with the blender sourcecode) and do IT work for a job.
What do you want to do with it and how much you have? That helps the most in choosing. You have said kinda how much you have. Tell us the top five things you will use it for. I am interested if Blender will run on these $100 laptops that are going to the third world.
Well, its going to be my computer, but its going to be family used. Mine, which means I have to pay for it, but I can also kick people off.
So, I suspect that it will have graphics crap, gaming, browsing, maybe text editing(I prefer doing it on a mac).
I’m going to be dual booting XP and some form of Linux(probably Debian, because I’m most familiar with that).
I’m not in the whole stay-on-top-of-the-hardware thing, I don’t have a problem with being out of date. Of course, I was using an Apple IIe when windows 98se was released…
Well if the PC is going to be family used, possibly you can get everybody to chip in like 20-30 dollars and you can upgrade the motherboard and processor.
You definately aren’t likely to outgrow the technology soon unless you feel the need to be on the bleeding edge, and with a budget like that, it’s highly unlikely, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
The system will last you a good time, and if you have to wait a couple of weeks to scrounge up another 200 or so dollars, I’d wait. You’re not likely to start having companies running out of stock, and if nothing else, prices will only decrease for your wanted componants.
I still say my revised list would give you everything you want, with quite good upgrade ability, the key componants are covered. RAM and Video Card both have easy upgrades available to you.
Don’t make a rush to get those componants at once, save up the money and get a system that will be significantly better in the long run than your 500 dollar system. The motherboard I suggest supports 8 gigs versus the 4 of yours, with SLI, so it’s oodles of area there alone. It’d be worth the wait for the money, in my opinion.