3D Production/Workstation PC for ~65k (bangalore)

[chnacr]

Newbie here.. Hi hi hi hi.. Im Chandan, from bangalore

I have checked the other buying advice threads, but felt that specific recommendations will help me a lot.

I need to assemble a brand new rig for heavy 3D work and long hours of rendering. I have a strong desire to get an i7 2600k and a GTX 560Ti. Non very confident about jumping into the AMD and ATI bandwagon, so i'd rather stick with Intel and Nvidia.

A good case with tool-less interiors and a proper cable management system will be awesome.

Suggestions for a good mouse, keyboard and a pair of headphones will helpful too.

1. What is the purpose of the computer? What all applications and games are you going to run? (Generic answers will not work. Be exact and avoid the word 'et cetera.')
Ans: Mainly for 3D modeling, texturing, rendering, game designing, little bit of video editing (software like Maya, 3ds max, Vray, Photoshop, Source SDK, Cryengine 3 SDK, UDK) and some gaming (Half Life 2, Crysis 2, BF3, MW3, Counter Strike, Assasins creed, GTA, UT3)

2. What is your overall budget? If you can extend a bit for a more balanced configuration, then mention this too.
Ans: I'd like to stay within my budget of 65k, but can go upto 68k if its really worth the extra money.

3. Planning to overclock?
Ans: Not very keen about it.

4. Which Operating System are you planning to use?
Ans: Win 7

5. How much hard drive space is needed?
Ans: 250GB or lesser. Budget is the problem. Insane HDD price these days.

6. Do you want to buy a monitor? If yes, please mention which screen size and resolution do you want. If you already have a monitor and want to reuse it, again mention the size and resolution of monitor you have.
Ans: Not planning to buy a new one as of now. Currently have a viewsonic 18.5" LED thingy. Pretty low-res stuff, but its ok for now.

7. Which components you DON'T want to buy or which components you already have and plan on reusing?
Ans: Monitor, optical disk drive,

8. When are you planning to buy the system?
Ans: Bangalore (SP road)

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
Ans: Here's the situation: I have to buy all the hardware in Bangalore and get the rig to Mangalore. So is it safe to assemble the rig in Bangalore and transport it, or is it better if i get it assembled in Mangalore?

10. Where do you live? Are you buying locally? Are you open to buying stuff from online shops if you don't get locally?
Ans: I live in bangalore and im gonna buy the stuff from there (SP road). Currently im in Mangalore on vacations.

11. Anything else which you would like to say?
Ans: Highest priority is the i7. I planned to fit in the other hardware according to the budget, but im open to your suggestions

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

if you aren't concerned of overclocking then why i7 2600k and unnecessary spending on z68? a non k will 2600 will do!

Component | Make | Price Processor |Intel Core i7-2600|17200
Motherboard |Intel DH67CL B3|5750
RAM |G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT(4Gx1) * 2|2386
Graphic Card |Asus ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP-2DI-1GD5|14500
HDD |WDC 250GB Blue WD2500AAKX|3766
DVD Writer |ASUS 24X Sata Black DVD|1150
PSU |Corsair GS600|4000
Case |NZXT Source 210 Elite|2300
Monitor |Benq G2222HDL|7600
Mouse |Logitech G400|1300
Keyboard |Logitech Media Keyboard K200|400
Mouse Pad |Razer Goliathus Fragged Omega S - Speed/Control|500
UPS |APC 800VA|2800
Speakers |Logitech Z313|1680
| Total |65282

that gpu is available here -
Buy Asus ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP-2DI-1GD5 in Mumbai India
its TOP model and 20mhz more oced than msi 560ti TFII which is 14.6k.

 

[vickybat]

@ chnacr

Hello and welcome to tdf mate. Since you have the monitor for now, i suggest you get the 2600k and z68 motherboard combo because at some point of time, you might wanna go for overclocking. Its better to invest in a good feature rich motherboard by saving on the monitor now since you have one. Monitor can be upgraded later at any point.

Go for i7 2600k for 17.2k and asus z68 m-pro for 8.9k. Check the prices locally at sp road mate.

 

[ico]

Rather get HD 6950 2GB instead of GTX 560 Ti if you are going to really use Maya/3ds Max. nVidia "Fermi" Geforce card drivers are crippled. Viewports are slow. I've posted about this a lot of times.

GTX 560 Ti is going to be a hell lot slower than GTX 260 in Maya/3ds max Viewports.

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/1546229-post14298.html

 

[$$Lionking$$]

Change monitor to Alienware OPTX - its for 8k.

Change GPU to HD6950 or switch to professional graphics card.

Also, you should consider overclocking.... its pretty safe for "anyone" to go for 4.0 GHz on Core i7 2600k... Even the software bundled with motherboard will do it easily and there is really no substitution for higher x86 processor performance.

P.S. For those who think auto overclocks break your system - PM me!

 

[Gourav Kundu]

Rather get HD 6950 2GB instead of GTX 560 Ti if you are going to really use Maya/3ds Max. nVidia "Fermi" Geforce card drivers are crippled. Viewports are slow. I've posted about this a lot of times.

GTX 560 Ti is going to be a hell lot slower than GTX 260 in Maya/3ds max Viewports.

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/1546229-post14298.html

Which brand/company one should consider for this card like, MSI, Powercolor etc. ?

 

[ico]

^ MSI HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozer III/OC @ 16K.

tbh, people into serious modeling should always go for a FirePro/Quadro. Enthusiast cards like Radeon and Geforce don't cut it. Reconsider your options again.

 

[vickybat]

^^ Rightly said mate. Afaik double precision floating point performance matters here which only the workstation cards can deliver.

I would say if budget is an issue, the firepro cards are only option. Quadro's are very very expensive. But here op also wants to game and these cards won't cut it.
So 6950 might be the best of both worlds considering the problems you mentioned with nvidia cards. I don't have much insight into 3d modelling though.

Its better for op if he can wait for other gcn cards to show up i.e the entire 7 series line up and choose accordingly as per budget.

 

[chnacr]

@Jaskanwar Singh: Thanks for the suggestions bro
Wanted to know how good/ expensive are mechanical keyboards. And can you tell me if there are more options for the cabinet?
Like vickybat said, i'll invest in an i7 2600k and a z series mobo just in case i feel confident enough to overclock in the future.

@ico: damn.. never thought the nvidia card would give so many problems
Hope ATI cards work fine with maya and all. Would i require additional fans for the case?

@ $$Lionking$$: My brain thinks OCing is awesome, but my heart tells me not to do it anytime soon . But i will in a few months. Only if i can afford a water cooler

Ok this is what i have decided upon now:
Processor: i7 2600k
Mobo: Asus z68 m-pro (as suggested by vickybat)
Graphic Card: MSI HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozer III/OC (i trust you ico )
RAM: G-skill F3-10600CL9S-4GBNT(4Gx1) * 2
HDD: WDC 250GB Blue WD2500AAKX (How good is the Velociraptor thingy)
PSU: Corsair GS600
Case: Source 210 [(need more suggestions)+(how will a CM Scout do?)]
Mouse: Need more options
Keyboard: Mechanical anyone?
Mousepad: Razer Goliathus Fragged Omega S - Speed/Control
UPS: APC 800VA (will 1kVA be any better?)

...tbh, people into serious modeling should always go for a FirePro/Quadro. Enthusiast cards like Radeon and Geforce don't cut it. Reconsider your options again.

^^ Rightly said mate. Afaik double precision floating point performance matters here which only the workstation cards can deliver.

I would say if budget is an issue, the firepro cards are only option. Quadro's are very very expensive. But here op also wants to game and these cards won't cut it.
So 6950 might be the best of both worlds considering the problems you mentioned with nvidia cards. I don't have much insight into 3d modelling though.

Its better for op if he can wait for other gcn cards to show up i.e the entire 7 series line up and choose accordingly as per budget.

Kinda agree with both of you. I was wondering if quadro or other serious workstation cards would work well for games and general purpose computing. I don't want my rig to be strictly restricted to 3D modelling and stuff.

 

[vickybat]

^^ Nope buddy workstation cards won't help you in gaming as they are restricted from driver level afaik.

Well i don't know but read recently that the VLIW architecture that existing radeon cards employ do not give consistent performance in general purpose computing because of dependencies. Theoretically nvidia fermi is better than amd 6 series in general purpose computing but like ico said nvidia deliberately messed up with drivers to force users to go for workstation cards resulting in poor performance in current nvidia 5 series cards.

That's why i'm saying wait for amd's GCN based 7 series cards to show up. They have much better compute power than existing 6 series cards. You should wait a bit for them imo and they also give consistent performance in gpgpu computing.

 

[chnacr]

^^ Nope buddy workstation cards won't help you in gaming as they are restricted from driver level afaik.

Well i don't know but read recently that the VLIW architecture that existing radeon cards employ do not give consistent performance in general purpose computing because of dependencies. Theoretically nvidia fermi is better than amd 6 series in general purpose computing but like ico said nvidia deliberately messed up with drivers to force users to go for workstation cards resulting in poor performance in current nvidia 5 series cards.

That's why i'm saying wait for amd's GCN based 7 series cards to show up. They have much better compute power than existing 6 series cards. You should wait a bit for them imo and they also give consistent performance in gpgpu computing.

AMD claims 'world's fastest GPU' title [printer-friendly] • The Register
Here it says those GCN based 7 cards would cost $549. Anyway i would'nt be able to afford more than 15-20k rupees for a graphics card.
And i have to buy the hardware tomorrow.

 

[vickybat]

^^ Buddy $549 is for 7970 and its the top end card of 7 series lineup currently. The lineup is this way:

Tahiti-7970/7950
Pitcairn-7870/7850 (most probably)
Cape verde- 77xx etc

So Pitcairn and cape verde will definitely fit your budget. Its advantageous for you if you wait buddy. That architecture is tailor made for your purpose. Buy everything now except for the gpu and wait a little bit.

 

[Gourav Kundu]

^ MSI HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozer III/OC @ 16K.

tbh, people into serious modeling should always go for a FirePro/Quadro. Enthusiast cards like Radeon and Geforce don't cut it. Reconsider your options again.

Thanks, but I think the upcoming cards from AMD/ATI i.e. 7 series cards will be better(for the purpose of modelling/rendering and gaming) as compared to the present cards and might fit into the budget of Rs.15,000(after reading this thread again)( and if I choose Quadro/Firepro cards it would exceed the budget and won't help in gaming either). So I can wait for the cards. ( by the way, when they are going to come in India) Thanks again for your reply.

 

[ico]

Here is a direct comparison between GTX 560 Ti and HD 6950. This guy is explaining what I'm talking about: Polycount Forum - View Single Post - Slow viewports In Maya with new nvidia card !

Best part is with most HD 6950, you can hook up 4 monitors. 2 monitors will have to be Displayport monitors though. The guy in the link above has a customized HD 6950 and he can hook 6 monitors. (4 have to be Displayport) GTX 560 Ti = only two monitors.

Thanks, but I think the upcoming cards from AMD/ATI i.e. 7 series cards will be better(for the purpose of modelling/rendering and gaming) as compared to the present cards and might fit into the budget of Rs.15,000(after reading this thread again)( and if I choose Quadro/Firepro cards it would exceed the budget and won't help in gaming either). So I can wait for the cards. ( by the way, when they are going to come in India) Thanks again for your reply.

They are going to take a month and half to arrive.

HD 7970 3GB becomes available today worldwide. Indian expected price = 35,000. Indian availability? Should take 3 weeks.
HD 7950 3GB was to be made available today worldwide. But now it will come after 3 weeks. HD 7870 2GB and HD 7850 2GB may be will come together with it. Indian availibility? Expect one more month from February. So, it's March now. Expected price? No idea.

At 15k, you'll be either getting HD 7870 or 7850. We'll see that later.

If you need a card now, you should get it. As simple as that.

Who knows that AMD might also following nVidia's moronic move with their coming series? I'm not going to blindly claim anything. You'll still be able to pick up a HD 6950 2GB for cheap after HD 7000 series gets launched.

 

[Gourav Kundu]

Here is a direct comparison between GTX 560 Ti and HD 6950. This guy is explaining what I'm talking about: Polycount Forum - View Single Post - Slow viewports In Maya with new nvidia card !

Best part is with most HD 6950, you can hook up 4 monitors. 2 monitors will have to be Displayport monitors though. The guy in the link above has a customized HD 6950 and he can hook 6 monitors. (4 have to be Displayport) GTX 560 Ti = only two monitors.

They are going to take a month and half to arrive.

HD 7970 3GB becomes available today worldwide. Indian expected price = 35,000. Indian availability? Should take 3 weeks.
HD 7950 3GB was to be made available today worldwide. But now it will come after 3 weeks. HD 7870 2GB and HD 7850 2GB may be will come together with it. Indian availibility? Expect one more month from February. So, it's March now. Expected price? No idea.

At 15k, you'll be either getting HD 7870 or 7850. We'll see that later.

If you need a card now, you should get it. As simple as that.

Who knows that AMD might also following nVidia's moronic move with their coming series? I'm not going to blindly claim anything. You'll still be able to pick up a HD 6950 2GB for cheap after HD 7000 series gets launched.

Ya I totally agree with you .Thanks.

 

[chnacr]

Waht if NZXT cabs are not available here in bangalore?
Maybe i should go for the Cooler Master Elite series.
I've seen people suggesting CM elite 430 on other threads in this forum, but according to theitdepot.com CM Elite 311 Plus Black-Titanium seems to be cheaper and also seems to have USB 3.0 on the front.
Looking for a good case in the 3k range.
Need some guidance on this.

 

[d3p]

NZXT cabinets are in full stock with Golcha IT @ SP Road. Check with them...