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Trying to help my artist friend build a PC
TSR
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm trying to put together a list of parts for a PC on newegg.com for a friend of mine who wants to go into graphic design and digital media at the local university.
She doesn't have a lot of money, so I am trying to find components on the less-expensive side that play well together so that she can still get a lot of performance out of the machine. It will be running Windows XP and use such programs as Maya and those in Adobe CS3.
Because she's stepping up from using an older Toshiba laptop, she will need everything to go with it, including a new monitor.
I would like to keep all of these parts under $1000 and cheaper than that if possible, since she is already planning to pony-up for a WACOM tablet and the necessary graphic design software.
Thanks in advance for any input or suggestions about how to go about this.
She doesn't have a lot of money, so I am trying to find components on the less-expensive side that play well together so that she can still get a lot of performance out of the machine. It will be running Windows XP and use such programs as Maya and those in Adobe CS3.
Because she's stepping up from using an older Toshiba laptop, she will need everything to go with it, including a new monitor.
I would like to keep all of these parts under $1000 and cheaper than that if possible, since she is already planning to pony-up for a WACOM tablet and the necessary graphic design software.
Thanks in advance for any input or suggestions about how to go about this.
TSR on
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Any other tips?
The three most important things you'll need are:
1. Memory - 2 GB is good but you may want to concider more. I am using 2 GB and I have noticed a quick rise in render times once I added lights to my scene. These render times got even longer after I added several layered textures.
2. CPU - Faster is better. If you're worried about cost stick with AMD. I've been using a AMD dual core chip with some good results. I think what I have is a 4800.
3. Hard drive size - Project files in Maya and Photoshop can get very big very fast. I saw a 400 GB drive for $99 on Newegg not to long ago. Check in the Western Digital section.
On the contra-contrary, I've worked in tech support jobs for my entire professional life, and I've seen many more dead or dying Seagates than WDs. I only use WDs for my own systems, and the one time that one of my own failed on me, the RMA process was smooth and fast.
My earliest hard drive failure memory was watching my one of my dad's Seagates fail. When I worked at SU Law School IT dept. (which had a hard on for Seagates) I found it almost humorous how often they kicked off. Every other technician in my circle of friends holds them in similar contempt... but of course nothing's worse than Maxtor.
If I didn't get a WD, it would be Hitachi or possibly Fujitsu if I were desperate.
Make sure whatever drive you get that it's SATA2. The hard drive is probably THE biggest performance bottleneck otherwise.
I would also recommend MSI motherboards, and for balancing quality with financial practicality get an Antec case with PSU. Avoid generic PSUs like the plague, and that includes any case manufacturer that you wouldn't buy PSUs from separately.
Interesting. I guess it's just different strokes for different folks. I've had several Maxtors and WD's shit the bed. Seagates have never given me or anyone I know any problems. I still have an IBM(Hitachi) 40 gig from 7 years ago that I accidentally ripped a pin out of and it still works with the aide of some aluminum foil and scotch tape.
Right now I've got parts picked out for a system for her that's based around a Core 2 Duo 6320, (starts at 1.86 GHz, will be overclocking on a nice Gigabyte motherboard,) 2 gigs of G. Skill DDR2 RAM, a Seagate 320 GB SATA hard drive, and a 20-inch widescreen LCD that displays at 1680*1050.
Does this seem like a sound plan? Disregarding the argument about whether Seagate or WD hard drives are better, (I'm going with Seagate since I have one and trust the brand.)
Then again if she's going to be rendering caustics and GI and stuff, it's going to take eons on something like what I'm using. Also make sure that whatever 3d card you go with, Maya's fine with it. Alias|Wavefront, no, wait, discreet (dammit) is kind of bitchy and goes "olo you can only use t3h sup4r 1337 cards wif maya" but obviously my 9600 works just fine, and so will lots of others.