New machine required for 3d modelling

Phil_rich

Afternoon all,

I need to buy a new desktop or laptop for my new 3D modelling home business. I have recieved my software and the recomended requirements are :

64kb intel 4 processor (i think)
4GB RAM
15,000 rmp SATA hard drive
256mb stand alone graphics card

I will check spec again once home.

To achieve this what sort of machine am I looking at? Where would be the best place to buy from or should I get one built? Also any idea on the price (excluding monitor unless in a bundle)

Many thanks
Phil

MICKG_3

Hi

Save money build your own and use either an AMD Phenom 960 quad or if use can a 6 core 1050. I wouldn't use a SATA driver @ that speed cause it would have to be a raptor. Consider 2 drives in raid. Geforce 460 1gb graphics 4gb DDR3.

Hope this gives you food for thought.

whoops !! I forgot consider cclonline.com for your stuff they will build to your exact spec's. I can reccommend them as I have been buying from them for over 15 years !!

gonzo127

without the proper specs its hard to guess although £400-450 for the base unit should be more than enough going on what you have posted

also do not beleive the 15000rpm hard drive as a requirement as really on the velociraptor hard drives run at that speed and they are really not much faster (and in some cases are slower) than a normal samsung f3 hard drive which runs at 7200rpm

GRM

Consider going for a SSD instead of a mechanical HDD. Just got one in my new laptop and it's rediculously good.

[Deleted User]

Knowing what software you will be using will probably be helpful.

Phil_rich

Thanks for the input so far, I will see if i can dig out the full spec required. The software I am running is Strucad Evolution.

Phil_rich

Ok, looking at the spec required:

Multi-core Intel/AMD 64 bit processor
4GB RAM
768MB+ professional open GL 2.0 graphics card
10,000/15,000 rpm SATA/SAS HDD


Any help or advice on where to get such a system and aprox costs would be reat.

Thanks
Phil

gonzo127

pretty much all CPU's should be at least duel core these days
4GB of RAM i would say is once again pretty standard
all modern descreat graphics cards will be able to support Open GL 2 the expensive bit will the the professional graphics chipset
as for the hard drive ignor the recommended speed as its carp, a Samsung f3 running at 7200 rpm runs as fast and sometimes faster than the raptor/velocoraptor's which run at 10000 and 15000 rpm

check out this http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/4 which shows the performance of the Samsung f3 in comparison to the 15000rpm velociraptor and the 10000rpm raptor, as you can see in a lot of the real world tests it is actually faster and only seems to drop behind on the synthetic tests - however if you really want to spend the extra ~£100 premium to make sure you match the spec i would suggest getting a SSD which is far faster to run your programs on and then just get a large capacity secondary hard drive for storage

[Deleted User]

You're going to want to look at something like the AMD/ATI FirePro range of graphics cards for that type of usage, a standard gaming card isn't going to be suited at all.

gonzo127

anewhope wrote: »

You're going to want to look at something like the AMD/ATI FirePro range of graphics cards for that type of usage, a standard gaming card isn't going to be suited at all.

ah i missed the 'professional' part of the graphics spec D'oh will go and edit my previous post but taking this into account you will probably be looking close to £1000 instead of my previous guestimate of £450

GRM

Phil_rich wrote: »

Any help or advice on where to get such a system and aprox costs would be reat.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cad+workstations

Spending four figures on my main fee-earning infrastructure is not something I'd be want to be too MSE about. Speak to CAD specalists, read the reviews in Cadalyst, do extensive research and then decide. If you buy something that cannot handle what your clients require then you're kinda screwed.

The Dell T7500 - which is the one Dell recommend for 3D industrial design - with the base Xeon CPU, 6GB RAM and a 1GB FirePro GPU comes in at £1846. Plus VAT. Without a monitor.