$1000 Render box!

[dezork]

Approximate Purchase Date: TBD- either now, or Black Friday.

Budget Range: $1000

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Multithreaded CPU-bound Rendering, CUDA computation, gaming.

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com/Any US site

Country of Origin: USA.

Parts Preferences: by brand or type: Intel and nVidia (for CUDA).

Overclocking: maybe

SLI: In the future maybe.


I'm considering these components:

Intel Core i7-2600K
$314.99

GIGABYTE GA-Z68P-DS3 ATX Intel Motherboard
$104.99

ENERMAX NAXN 82+ ENM750AWT 750W Power Supply
$119.99

Galaxy GeForce GTX 570
$269.99

NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black Computer Case
$35.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1866
$149.99


Basically the big question is- should I wait until Black Friday (end of November), and should I wait for Sandy Bridge E 3820? I'm not thrilled about the idea of having my whole CPU socket outdated in a few months.

Also, is 16 GB DDR3 1866 wasted on a chipset that doesn't support quad channel?

Other things: I need an nVidia GPU, for CUDA-accelerated rendering. AMD cards won't work.


thanks!

 

[dezork]

No one?

 

[dezork]

bump

 

[Outlander_04]

You do NOT need nVidia gaming card for rendering . AMD cards have the same trick too BTW and you dont need one of them either

Intels Quick sync is built in to the processor and is faster so either ditch the graphics card completely and run on the processor graphics , or make sure your mb is copatible with the lucid logicx drivers that enable quick sync and a cheaper [$70 ish] graphics card if you need multi monitors

Since you dont have a huge power hungry graphics card then drop the psu to a 450 watt unit , and buy a nice quiet office case that wont annoy you as you work

If you are using a 64 bit program then by all means use 16 gb of RAM , other wise 2x4 gig will be plenty . Probably better with 1600MHz and lower latency if you can also have the 1.5 volt you need

 

[dezork]

thanks for the reply.

I don't believe ATI has CUDA... and I need CUDA cores for GPU rendering (aka Octane and Cycles, which don't support opencl yet).

Also, I need a GPU simply to drive millions of polygons on screen while working (multires mesh sculpting, etc).



Any feelings about whether to wait till November for socket 2011 and quad-channel memory support?

 

[aznshinobi]

i5 2500K + MSI 570 $605 ($50 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.717978
G.Skill 8GB DDR3 1600 $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 $125 ($10 EMCKAKA32 code)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271
OCZ ZS 750w $100 ($25 MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341049
Seagate S3 1TB + Lite-On CD/DVD burner $72
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.696126
HAF 912 $60
http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Tower-Case-RC-912-KKN1/dp/B003ZM7YTA%3FSubscriptionId%3D19BAZMZQFZJ6G2QYGCG2%26tag%3Dsquid1240995-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB003ZM7YTA
Total: $992 before rebates

 

[Outlander_04]

thanks for the reply.

I don't believe ATI has CUDA... and I need CUDA cores for GPU rendering (aka Octane and Cycles, which don't support opencl yet).

Also, I need a GPU simply to drive millions of polygons on screen while working (multires mesh sculpting, etc).



Any feelings about whether to wait till November for socket 2011 and quad-channel memory support?

ATI dont call their version cuda , but they do have the same technology .
Both are driver dependent so you are probably right about the graphics card , and should stick with nVidia if you are sure there are drivers .

 

[aznshinobi]

ATI better known as AMD now countered CUDA a while back with "ATI Stream" This is mostly for OpenCL so keep that in mind.
http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/stream-technology/Pages/stream-technology.aspx

I'd mostly just go with CUDA though since it's been around longer and AMD doesn't seem to be making huge leaps on drivers and advertising of AMD/ATI Stream. I rarely hear about it ever.

 

[dezork]

Most GPU renderers only support nVidia's CUDA.

Anyway, thoughts on waiting for the November socket 2011 update?

 

[aznshinobi]

You should wait on Bulldozer and Ivy-Bridge. Both seem to prove strong in the computing area. BD with the high floating point and shared performance and SB-E with it's arch and revisions.