Digital Art Zone

Hello!

I have a pretty old computer, with few RAM and processing power, and thus I haven’t been able to upgrade to DS4 till now.
BUT!...I’ve saved money to buy a new computer, and I’d like to hear some suggestions on hardware parts.

So, if there is anyone who knows a thing or two about computers and can help me get a general idea about what I would need and what I should look for in a new computer, I would really appreciate it
I will be using the new computer for both rendering in daz (although I tend to use a lot of lights and uberenvironment), and making 3D illustrations in photoshop (again, with a lot of layers).

I am aware that daz has a page with system requirements, but those are the minimum as far as I know. And I would like something above that minimum.

Got a budget in mind? that will help people

I have an i7 quad core, Sandy Bridge, which I have had for two years now, and it is still up to the mark.

I increased the RAM from 8 to 16 GB recently, and it never has any problems with anything memory wise at least.  I am well pleased with it, and I use Photoshop as well as DS.

I’m not sure how the prices in my country would relate to those in other countries (they may differ a bit), but for me it would be around 500-550 $

I too thought about upgrading my RAM, but I’m afraid that the parts in my old computer are too outdated.

I use a company to build my PCs,  This way I only need buy a new “box” as I have all the peripherals already.

THey have some with the specs already drawn up, or you can design your own.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/desktop-pcs/home-office-pcs/

Obviously only useful in the UK

For the cpu, don’t buy less then an i5 (2500 series or higher), if you can afford an i7 (2600 series or better). Make sure you buy one of the sandy bridge generation. Personally I wouldn’t get the newest Ivy Bridge generation, since they will be more expensive and they’re not that much faster, only 10% or less, but if you’ve got money enough, go for it. Don’t get an AMD, they will be cheaper, but they’re not as powerful as the i5 and for sure not as the i7.

RAM…... No less then 6Gb, but more is better.

Graphics card, that’s more personal. Some prefer nVidia, I like ATI’s. The better card you buy, the better your previews in DS will look. It will not speed up rendering and such, but the details and quality of your preview will get much better.  For ATI I’d recommend a 7000 series with at least 1Gb on the card, but again the higher number you can buy, the better it will be for time to come.

You can also buy cpu’s with apu, that is a cpu with a graphics card build in. I would not recommend these. Much slower and upgrading may turn out to be a nightmare.

Harddrive….. get the size you like, at least 500Gb, I don’t think brands matter that much anymore these days.

Then you will have your OS, I wouldn’t go for Windows 8 on a desktop, personally I think it’s akward, I do prefer Windows 7. Whichever one you choose, get the 64bit version to make sure you RAM can be used.

3D Toons - 08 December 2012 09:27 AM

For the cpu, don’t buy less then an i5 (2500 series or higher), if you can afford an i7 (2600 series or better). Make sure you buy one of the sandy bridge generation. Personally I wouldn’t get the newest Ivy Bridge generation, since they will be more expensive and they’re not that much faster, only 10% or less, but if you’ve got money enough, go for it. Don’t get an AMD, they will be cheaper, but they’re not as powerful as the i5 and for sure not as the i7.

For graphics work, AMD’s Piledriver series has plenty of power…and raw, ‘real’ cores…even the Bulldozer series, which was a performance dog in most things really did well in 3D apps…in fact it out performed many i5 and i7 models and Piledriver is even better (the Piledriver is the Vishera line FX-83xx and the like.

It outperforms the Sandy Bridge line for about $100 cheaper AND is par with a couple of the Ivy Bridge line for a couple of hundred cheaper.  Nothing out performs the upper end IB (or unlocked Ivy Bridge models…but then again, you aren’t going to touch one of those for less than 2x the price of the 8350…and in case of the top performer the i7-3960X, 5x the price. 

propane-antistar, what country are you in? Is your budget of $500 a normal price for a new computer, or upgrades? Are you going for a brand new laptop or desktop, or do you just want to buy new parts?

As an example, I got a new laptop just the other weekend.

Asus i7 2.3ghz
8g ram
nvidea geforce 610m 2gb
Win 7 pro 64bit
retail cost was just over $1000 (although I got it for about $800 cos of family) which is fairly normal for Australia.

I don’t buy computer stuff from the retail chains - Harvey Norman, Big W etc (Australia) - I always use a computer store, specially for upgrading as you can say what you want, instead of being stuck with the retail chain ones.

My laptop runs DS 4.5 pro great - also runs Photoshop great.

So far, I haven’t installed my games on it, but as I’m the type of gamer who only plays things like Sims 3, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon etc and not the huge resource hungry ones like Far Cry or Halo etc, I’m not anticipating any problems. :D

jakiblue - 08 December 2012 09:12 PM

propane-antistar, what country are you in? Is your budget of $500 a normal price for a new computer, or upgrades? Are you going for a brand new laptop or desktop, or do you just want to buy new parts?

I am aiming for a brand new desktop PC. I live in Romania, and for 500$ I can get a pretty decent above average desktop pc, and the maximum I can pay is 700$

And yes, I was thinking about buying from a computer store, as opposed to computers they sell in hypermarkets (those have a mix of good and bad hardware).

And thank you everyone for the input, these infos really help me in getting a general idea of what I should look for in a new computer. I really appreciate it

I use the site that Chohole mentioned to build a spec. and print it out then take the spec. eleswhere.

Judging from other forums I’m on, quite a few people do that!

prixat - 10 December 2012 08:00 AM

I use the site that Chohole mentioned to build a spec. and print it out then take the spec. eleswhere.

Judging from other forums I’m on, quite a few people do that!

For those that do live in the UK I can really recommend this site. My last PC is still going strong, and has never had anything go wrong with it, it was just getting rather old and too low spec for todays programs. It is over 6 years old.