Operation: Little Sister College Rig

[Ragnar_Mike]

So my sister is attending art school and will need a pretty decent rig to work on her art. We're going for something compact so mATX is preferrable.

She loves either the LIAN LI PC-Q08R (which is micro itx) or PC-V354R so I'm going on the assumption that I can find them somewhere in the states. I know I can get the Q08R, but the V354 will be a bit of a challenge but worth it.

Anyway, her uses are as follows:

Photoshop and Illustrator

Rhino/Zbrush (3D Sculpting)

After Effects

So predominantly 2D work but with 3D modelling/rendering on the side. My rig is beefy and has said software so if she needs something rendered fast, mine will usually be available.

My current build thoughts

i5 2500k

CPU cooler (whatever I can fit in there, probably an h50/h70 or stock)

8gb DD3 1600mhz Ram

1tb 7200rpm HDD

Z68 chipset mATX board

GTX 460 of some sort

Corsair 650w modular

Windows 7 Home Premium

We're trying to keep it under $1200, but obviously there's a little wiggle room there. I'm down for saving money so anything is up for being tossed. I'm not deadset on overclocking it either a nice bulletproof sturdy PC is a plus for her and running a 2500 and stock cooler would save some cash. Just a thought.

Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try and supply decent answers. No promises though.

 

[ruthless_villain]

i think 2600ks are better for the that kinda stuff and maybe throw in a SSD thats about it possibly stretch to a 560ti

western digital blue/black for hdd

any decent asus/gigabyte/msi motherboard

mushkin ram

evga / msi gpu

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

A 2600k would be better when running lighter, multi-threaded tasks potentially but equally I think the cheaper 2500k would do the business - add a "free" overclock and you've got yourself a very powerful system.

I assume the software will be supplied and licenced to the College so no additional charge for that - some expensive software there otherwise!

Additionally, I'd say maybe in this case 16gb of ram might be advised as it'll certainly help when working with larger items. Ram is cheap at the moment. From what I've heard the likes of Illustrator & Photoshop can really suck up ram potentially.

Board-wise a Z68 makes sense, plenty to choose from - personally I like ASUS.

Hard disk space is also cheap at the moment so I'd be inclined to get a 2nd 1tb drive - I think that 1.5 or 2tb drives actually offer the best gigs/£ at the moment, but shop around. A 2nd drive (whatever the size) might be useful for backup purposes or simply for storage depending on how much work they're doing! If she's playing with lots of projects that are mulitple gig's in size (potentially) then she'd likely welcome the extra space. Note: I DON'T use Photoshop or Illustrator myself, but people I know who do say it can eat storage as well as ram...guess stuff is saved in an uncompressed raw format or something. Not sure. SSD's are good and fast now, but I'd suggest not essential for this particular build where cost and storage capacity are at a premium.

As for GPU, I'd be inclined to go for something newer than a 460, maybe a 560ti or possibly a 570. Certain Adobe software can take advantage of nVidia GPUs so in this case are likely the best choice.

You will need a 64bit version of Windows, just in case you'd not thought of it - I'm sure you had though

I think you'll likely have more options regarding getting good parts than you would in the UK as your money seems to go further there

Best of luck with the build.

Scoob.

 

[Ragnar_Mike]

Good suggestions!

I have taken things under advisements and have tweaked up a new game plan.

-i5 2500K

For what she will be using it for the extra 100 bucks is hard to justify on this budget.

-Asus P8Z68-M Pro

I like Asus' boards quite a bit and this one has plenty of great features that will last her through college.

-16gb Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz RAM

Mushkin is actually rather pricey out here, I dig their styling, but for the same price of Mushkin 1333, I can get Corsair 1600

-Corsair H60 Cooler

The way this case is laid out, the PSU sits on it's side parallel to the mobo, so I only have maybe a graphics card's height worth of clearance around a good chunk of the CPU. Naturally, if I were a nutter I could water cool it, but that's not within the realm of this build. So a self contained cooler will do for her modest needs.

-1.5gb 72 RPM Hitachi Deskstar HDD

It's the same price per gig as my previous choice so and extra 27 bucks for 500gigs seems worth it. And she can always get an external drive for school.

All that and the various stuff needed to make it complete probably comes out to about 1100. That leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I still need to choose a graphics card. I'm going between the GTX 460 and 560ti. Obviously, I would prefer the 560 but that means the end price is going to be somehting like 1400, rather high. I might be able to swing that but I need to think about what to cut back on now. The ram makes sense as does the CPU. It's a good price for the PSU and the HDD is reasonable. The only think I can think of dropping is the H60 but that limits OC ability.

 

[Scoob]

Good suggestions!

I have taken things under advisements and have tweaked up a new game plan.

-i5 2500K

For what she will be using it for the extra 100 bucks is hard to justify on this budget.

-Asus P8Z68-M Pro

I like Asus' boards quite a bit and this one has plenty of great features that will last her through college.

-16gb Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz RAM

Mushkin is actually rather pricey out here, I dig their styling, but for the same price of Mushkin 1333, I can get Corsair 1600

-Corsair H60 Cooler

The way this case is laid out, the PSU sits on it's side parallel to the mobo, so I only have maybe a graphics card's height worth of clearance around a good chunk of the CPU. Naturally, if I were a nutter I could water cool it, but that's not within the realm of this build. So a self contained cooler will do for her modest needs.

-1.5gb 72 RPM Hitachi Deskstar HDD

It's the same price per gig as my previous choice so and extra 27 bucks for 500gigs seems worth it. And she can always get an external drive for school.

All that and the various stuff needed to make it complete probably comes out to about 1100. That leaves me in a bit of a pickle. I still need to choose a graphics card. I'm going between the GTX 460 and 560ti. Obviously, I would prefer the 560 but that means the end price is going to be somehting like 1400, rather high. I might be able to swing that but I need to think about what to cut back on now. The ram makes sense as does the CPU. It's a good price for the PSU and the HDD is reasonable. The only think I can think of dropping is the H60 but that limits OC ability.

Cool. You have got the Sandy B. built-in GPU availble with the Z68 chipset of course, but it'll be no 460/560 that's for sure. Still, by all accounts it does a fairly respectable job if you're only doing light graphics work. Not sure how much Photoshop and Illustrator need a the power of a dedicated GPU, I know Illustrator can take advantage of one, but that's it. Something to research further I think to be 100% sure.

IF using the onboard GPU can tide her over then maybe a better GPU than initially intended could be saved for as a future upgrade? Really need to check what the software tools she will be using need from a GPU...maybe a meaty CPU (which you'll have) is all you need.

I think you've made some good choices in your tweaked list, very very difficult to compromise further really. Hopefully others will have some more suggestions for you.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[Ragnar_Mike]

Cool. You have got the Sandy B. built-in GPU availble with the Z68 chipset of course, but it'll be no 460/560 that's for sure. Still, by all accounts it does a fairly respectable job if you're only doing light graphics work. Not sure how much Photoshop and Illustrator need a the power of a dedicated GPU, I know Illustrator can take advantage of one, but that's it. Something to research further I think to be 100% sure.

IF using the onboard GPU can tide her over then maybe a better GPU than initially intended could be saved for as a future upgrade? Really need to check what the software tools she will be using need from a GPU...maybe a meaty CPU (which you'll have) is all you need.

I think you've made some good choices in your tweaked list, very very difficult to compromise further really. Hopefully others will have some more suggestions for you.

Cheers,

Scoob.

As someone who does use photoshop and CAD stuff, I believe the most heavily hit part during use is RAM, then probably the CPU, then the GPU. I don't think the graphics card calculates the layers and strokes and junk, it just displays the final image and maybe helps render out filters and stuff, but I think the 460 would probably be enough for use like that.

Rhino and Zbrush are much more graphics card heavy, naturally, as they display 3d. But it's never video game level needs. You purposefully hide a lot of polys in zbrush and fake high poly count to work so I think a GTX 460 would actually do quite nicely there.

I think i'm willing to add a little padding in there to get her a 460. She's not doing dual monitors or anything crazy so that will last her quite some time and if she feels the system age, I can always bump up the OC and add an SSD for the HDD caching. Time to price out this stuff and find a good deal.

 

[ExpertLayman]

As someone who does use photoshop and CAD stuff, I believe the most heavily hit part during use is RAM, then probably the CPU, then the GPU. I don't think the graphics card calculates the layers and strokes and junk, it just displays the final image and maybe helps render out filters and stuff, but I think the 460 would probably be enough for use like that.

Rhino and Zbrush are much more graphics card heavy, naturally, as they display 3d. But it's never video game level needs. You purposefully hide a lot of polys in zbrush and fake high poly count to work so I think a GTX 460 would actually do quite nicely there.

I think i'm willing to add a little padding in there to get her a 460. She's not doing dual monitors or anything crazy so that will last her quite some time and if she feels the system age, I can always bump up the OC and add an SSD for the HDD caching. Time to price out this stuff and find a good deal.

Ditto on the RAM. I remember reading a long article on Photoshop recommending that 6GB is min.

For rendering and animation in 3D CPU is the most important component. My reading the 2500 K is good enough really.

The Crosair H60 is said to be a noisy fan, but really when one is engrossed is work you won't notice it.

Here's a video of the noise (First fan ofc)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7hS8uCmxeA