1st PC Build - comments please?

[eternal renegade]

Hi, I built my first PC a few years ago basically to run Autodesk Inventor and day to day stuff; I then uprated the same basic setup to the current. I actually know very little about computers and learnt doing this on the cheap. Most of it was used stuff except the M/brd and RAM.
I would appreciate any helpful comments please?

ASUS M4A88T-V EVO M/BRD
AMD PHENOM II x6 1100T PROCESSOR
SAMSUNG DDR3 - 4x4Gb
Win7 Ultimate
MS Office 7 Professional
NVIDIA QUADRO 4000 Graphic
ASUS
Xonar DS Audio Centre
Fractal R2 1000w PSD

Mis-guided maybe - but it does work pretty well. The software is the greater issue at the moment.

 

[zoltan.boese]

That are you planning to use the PC for? What is budget? What parts do you already have?
The power supply is overkill, so is the quardo.

 

[eternal renegade]

Basically home use plus Inventor 3D modelling. I know I might have got carried away a bit but it was hopefully 'future proofing' a little as I know Inventor 2015 requires 4x the resources of 2013 that I am currently running. If I go to 2018 I shall need more and I don't want to keep rebuilding - can't afford to.

Budget? As little as possible - this setup cost me about £250 GBP.

 

[zoltan.boese]

Let me sum it up... you want to meet or exceed there system requirements https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/System-requirements-for-Autodesk-Inventor-2015-products.html
from a budget of 250 British pounds.
Do you already have RAM, this program requires at least 12GB, that is more than half of your budget.
For complex models an i7 + 16GB RAM are required. Such a system will cost you abode 500 even second hand!
Sorry, but it seems to me, that is simply out of your budget.

 

[tazeps]

I used to work on Creo (another 3D modelling and FEA software) on computers with less capabilities than this.

Your RAM looks good. your power supply is overkill as Zoltan stated. 400-500 seems ideal for me except if you want to leave room for additional components in the future.
I'm not familiar with the Quadpro. it has less than half the capability I see in more recent models on Nvidia's website. But then again, I built 3D assemblies and did analysis on a weaker computer with acceptable performance. so you're probably fine.

your processor is acceptable and if you have a good cooler on it you can overclock it (increase it's speed).

if I were you I would run the system and play around with autodesk inventor and try to do some FEA or any heavy processes in it and see how it's going.
you can monitor your cpu performance from "Task manager" or downlod HWINFO so you can also see your QUADPRO performance.

after seeing those results you can decide if you need an upgrade.

 

[eternal renegade]

I already have 16Gb Ram as I listed and I'm hoping the AMD PHENOM II x6 1100T PROCESSOR is capable? I haven't looked into the spec of that compared to the i7 or Xeon® E3 yet. I didn't say my budget is £250 I said as little as possible.

 

[eternal renegade]

I already have 16Gb Ram as I listed and I'm hoping the AMD PHENOM II x6 1100T PROCESSOR is capable? I haven't looked into the spec of that compared to the i7 or Xeon® E3 yet. I didn't say my budget is £250 I said as little as possible.

 

[eternal renegade]

Thanks TAZEPS thats the kind of answer I was hoping for. I don't do FEA and rarely work from home, it's just my own stuff occassionaly (am getting into Solid Works as Well) but if I have the system I have the possibility. I ran a Quadro 2000 in the previous system and Phenom 4-core ok but as I understand it CAD doesn't make use of the multi-threading yet anyway! Just got carried away I guess!!!

 

[tazeps]

Thanks TAZEPS thats the kind of answer I was hoping for. I don't do FEA and rarely work from home, it's just my own stuff occassionaly (am getting into Solid Works as Well) but if I have the system I have the possibility. I ran a Quadro 2000 in the previous system and Phenom 4-core ok but as I understand it CAD doesn't make use of the multi-threading yet anyway! Just got carried away I guess!!!

well, if you are going to make renders of your models THAT should benifit from the extra cores. but yeah if it's mainly hobby/personal stuff it definitely can run acceptably. but certainly not future proof.

If you wanna future proof you might wanna invest in
1- bigger RAM. DDR3 is fine you don't necessarily need DDR4. but I would not get something with a clock speed lower than 1400 Mhz since =+1500Mhz speeds are easily attainable. More than 1800Mhz can start getting into "overkill" area.
2- a better graphics card. (someone on youtube used a Radeon R9 380 and he got good results).

youtube is full of guides and builds for PCs.

PS: Make sure to check your parts compatibility!

 

[eternal renegade]

Thanks; I don't really get into rendering just mechanical parts and assemblies. I have the most RAM that m'brd can take. As I understand it this video card is/was pretty high powered for serious gaming so I thought it should be able to handle anything I'm doing. I'll have dig deeper into specs. Yes I learnt to keep an eye on compatability.

 

[tazeps]

Thanks; I don't really get into rendering just mechanical parts and assemblies. I have the most RAM that m'brd can take. As I understand it this video card is/was pretty high powered for serious gaming so I thought it should be able to handle anything I'm doing. I'll have dig deeper into specs. Yes I learnt to keep an eye on compatability.

you're welcome. and actually the Quadpro cards from Nvidia are not optimized for gaming but for media/rendering/graphics instead. So your choice with it was good. It just is a very old model and there are many graphic cards (including gaming cards) currently available for decent money and better performance (on paper at least. i never tried a quadpro card).

 

[eternal renegade]

Oh right, my mistake; but I've never had to wait for the card/graphics so maybe it's quicker than me lol. Until it appears to be holding me up no point in changing it?

 

[tazeps]

Oh right, my mistake; but I've never had to wait for the card/graphics so maybe it's quicker than me lol. Until it appears to be holding me up no point in changing it?

i'd say so yeah. as much as it is very enticing to upgrade for sweet sexy performance boosts, if your current build is working and satisfactory, there's no reason to upgrade if you're on a budget 😀

I built an upper-mid range gaming PC 4-5 years ago and still working great for everything I need!

Try out the new software upgrade you're going for in maybe a trial/free version and see how it works for you.

 

[eternal renegade]

Oh right, my mistake; but I've never had to wait for the card/graphics so maybe it's quicker than me lol. Until it appears to be holding me up no point in changing it?

i'd say so yeah. as much as it is very enticing to upgrade for sweet sexy performance boosts, if your current build is working and satisfactory, there's no reason to upgrade if you're on a budget 😀

I built an upper-mid range gaming PC 4-5 years ago and still working great for everything I need!

Try out the new software upgrade you're going for in maybe a trial/free version and see how it works for you.

 

[eternal renegade]

Yes it would show that my previous foresight putting in big bits was worthwhile. Hadn't thought about the 2018 trial version ; but would that overwrite my 2013 Student version, render that unless and commit me to 2018 or nothing? Alternatively I partly built another PC with the 4-core and other bits I took out of this one. Just needs RAM then I could try the trial on that. Oh, it'll need a video card as well I suppose!!!

 

[eternal renegade]

Radeon R9 380 £180 second hand!!!!!!!

 

[tazeps]

Yes it would show that my previous foresight putting in big bits was worthwhile. Hadn't thought about the 2018 trial version ; but would that overwrite my 2013 Student version, render that unless and commit me to 2018 or nothing? Alternatively I partly built another PC with the 4-core and other bits I took out of this one. Just needs RAM then I could try the trial on that. Oh, it'll need a video card as well I suppose!!!

i doubt it would overwrite your 2013 version. but as a precaution, you can just find out what's your student version license key or key file and back it up somewhere in your documents and make sure you also have the disk/installer file accessible/backed up. then you can install the 2018 trial with no worries. if it overwrites it, you can go back by reinstalling the 2013 one and activating the key again.

and yeah I heard that graphic cards prices are high recently because so many people are buying all of them to mine bitcoin and it's creating a serious shortage of cards on the market. that's a completely different topic xD

 

[eternal renegade]

Yes it would show that my previous foresight putting in big bits was worthwhile. Hadn't thought about the 2018 trial version ; but would that overwrite my 2013 Student version, render that unless and commit me to 2018 or nothing? Alternatively I partly built another PC with the 4-core and other bits I took out of this one. Just needs RAM then I could try the trial on that. Oh, it'll need a video card as well I suppose!!!

i doubt it would overwrite your 2013 version. but as a precaution, you can just find out what's your student version license key or key file and back it up somewhere in your documents and make sure you also have the disk/installer file accessible/backed up. then you can install the 2018 trial with no worries. if it overwrites it, you can go back by reinstalling the 2013 one and activating the key again.

and yeah I heard that graphic cards prices are high recently because so many people are buying all of them to mine bitcoin and it's creating a serious shortage of cards on the market. that's a completely different topic xD

Right, I picked up a Quadro 5000 for a good price and Corsair Vengence 16Gb RAM. I put the 5000 in my current PC to make sure it's working, and it is; so I put the 4000 in the new PC and downloaded Inventor '18 Trial version to test it.

Everything seems fine so far buut there's something screwy with the graphics. A lot of the text is in green, th Comodo Logo is blue (it is green on the other PC), tick boxws don't show ticks although they are there and a few other similar things. All I did was take the 4000 out of one machine and put it in the other - but I did disable the onboard Radeon graphics??? Both PC's are the same except one is 4 core the other 6 core; The new machine uses the HDD I took out of the other complete with the already installed windows setup. Any ideas?