Rendering/gaming machine advice

[barnsley]

This is a build I am helping a friend do, he needs it to eventually support SLI'd 670s and it needs to be good for gaming and work in UDK (light rendering and stuff). The budget is around £600 (the closer the better). He already has the ram (8gb corsair xms3 1600mhz) and a 670 that were previously purchased for an upgrade that never happened.

This is what I came up with: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1NrtU

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor- £175.00
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler -£23.98
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt ATX LGA1155 Motherboard - £94.00
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk -£71.99
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive- £62.99
Case: Inwin GT1 Black ATX Mid Tower Case - £55.00 (placeholder case, probably won't use this
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply- £88.50
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)- £67.19
Total: £642.84

I need some advice on it, in particular the use of a xeon. I've never specc'd a build up with one and I chose it as I was told it is a 3770 without the gpu? It also made the build just in budget. The psu is overkill for a single card system but as mentioned before another 670 will arrive after christmas.

Any improvements/ideas welcome.

-Edit updated list to have a E3-1230 v2-

 

[Yeren]

for the extra £10 i would buy a 3570k


http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1NqRu

and a different PSU with SLi in mind

 

[WYP]

how much would he benefit from hyperthreading?

i think you could get a 4670 or 4670k for cheaper than the xeon/3770.

 

[Tripp]

yeah an look into the samsung evo ssds too there usually cheaper and have great performance

 

[barnsley]

I'm not too sure how he'd benefit from hyperthreading, its apparently supported but poorly implemented from what I've heard. From my experience with UDK on my machine he needs a lot of grunt to render maps out, I believe he's working with DX9 at the moment but will move on to DX11 at a later stage.

for the extra £10 i would buy a 3570k


http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1NqRu

and a different PSU with SLi in mind

Not going to be overclocking it, so there'd be no need for a k series. Good shout on the PSU though .



-EDIT- He needs atleast a tb of storage for music,games and other stuff, hence the mechanical drive.

 

[Tripp]

get one of these instead of the samsung basic ssd thats in there http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...6Gb/s++Solid+State+Drive+SSD+?productId=56764

 

[barnsley]

get one of these instead of the samsung basic ssd thats in there http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...6Gb/s++Solid+State+Drive+SSD+?productId=56764

aww man I paid exactly that for my one, which is the basic one . Added the ssd to the list.

 

[Tripp]

yeah i plan on getting a 256gb on myself people a really raving about them at the mo

 

[SuB]

i'd say HTT is a good thing for rendering just about anything tbh fella.

 

[barnsley]

To quote someone on the internet :
"...
The HT is not typically a big noticeable improvement for general UnrealEd use, since that is not really processor intensive, but it is noticeable during building, especially lighting building (Lightmass Swarm Agent). 20% on an hour-long build is 12 minutes."

The lightmass building is the bit I need to focus on to speed it up for him. We were going to be using his i7 2600 from his old desktop build (and replace everything else) but he sold it to his mum for £200 (effectively the price of a 3770) and in terms of lightmass building etc I'd like to keep it at around the same speed/faster if possible, hence the xeon.

So should he get the i5 over the xeon is what I am asking?