Is it possible to build an iray ready desktop under a thousand
Sfariah D
Posts: 25,699
Is it possible to build an iray ready desktop around or under a thousand? or is that budget too low?
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That depends on if you need to buy everything or have usable parts from another machine. If you have to buy everything (case, keyboard, monitor, hard drives, etc.) then almost a definate no, if you have all the otehr parts and only need to pick up the motherboard, video card, cpu and ram, then there's a chance.
Try kenshaw011267 . He's pretty good at putting together decent systems on pcpartpicker.
Define what iRay ready means to you and what components you have and I'll give it a go.
If you have a monitor, mouse, keyboard and a mechanical HDD (a case would be a big help too) already and are willing to live with a RTX 1060 I could probably make it happen but it would be very tight.
RTX 1070's are somewhere close to $400 which eats into the $1k and would require cutting a lot of corners. I'm not entirely sure if the result would be satisfactory.
I do have a monitor and several keyboards and a mouse (not including the touchpad on the keyboard with stickers on most of the keys. I have several hdds around my room, but not sure how good they are as I have no way to read them since my ancient desktop will not boot.
My current laptop does not have a dedicated video card, so any nvidia video card would be better than none.
I got to go soon or I will take pictures of the old tower to see if any components can be savaged. I do not have any ddr4 ram so need some ram to go with new motherboard.
I think I can go without a dedicated sound card, if I can salvage the old sound card. I need to go soon but I can see what my old desktop has that is still salvageable. The mother board is dead and the i7 cpu was made in 2010 or earlier.
Sound cards are not a thing anymore. All modern motherboards have decent, at least sound built in.
You might, emphasis on might, be able to reuse the case from the old desktop and maybe some fans. If you have a 1+ Tb HDD around you can probably take it into almost any computer shop and get them to test it for you for free or at most a couple of buck to verify that it works. Anything smaller simply isn't worth bothering with.
The 8+ year old i7 is probably not ideal unless your budget is very tight.
Assuming you have a case with at least a couple of working fans I squeezed in a 1070 at just under $1k. That's with $40 in rebates so no idea how long those will last or how long the 1070 will stay in stock, they're out of production. If the case is no good, or if it won't fit an ATX motherboard which if it is from a prebuilt system is likely, then let me know and I'll respec to get a case, A cheap case will add at least $40 to 50. So if $1k is a hard cap I'll have to downgrade somewhereto stay under $1k.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fCZghy
Nooooooooo! I didn't know the 1070 was discontinued. Darn, that was the entry point for 8Gb cards. I guess it makes sense for them, the 8Gb line was getting crowded with the new cards added. Good luck with the build, that setup sounds pretty solid.
All the 10xx cards that have 20xx counterparts are discontinued. I'm not sure if that also includes the 1070ti but i think its safe to assume so.
Darn, that's a downer. I'm actually looking at the 1080ti. It's the story of my life though. Whatever card I buy will soon be discontinued and skyrocket in price, thus keeping me from having dual cards.
If you're willing to buy used people are selling their old 1080ti's as they upgrade to the 20xx cards so if you keep an eye on eBay and craigslist you could get one for a reasonable price. If you check around some of the manufacturers will even honor their warranties on cards bought used so you will even have some warranty if the seller provides you with the original box and the warranty card.
I was told to throw out the old case even though I might be able to use it.
2 or 3 tb
HP is famous for building their system with nonstandard components. so yeah it probably wasn't useful. If you have a usable 2 or 3Tb HDD that is roughly the cost of a budget case.
So with a verybudget case, and 2 fans you need since the case only comes with one, this is what you get:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gNqsxG
Your HDD has to work.
Slight problem my check I was expecting has not shown up. Or if it has someone is withholding it from me.
Sorry. This would be the ideal weekend to buy components. there are a lot of very good sales on.
I am debating on getting a desktop with my tax refund funds (assuming if I can get that document to finish my taxes). Problem is that I do not have the funds yet and there are major President day sales going on right now. I do know I need a nVidia video card. I know Ram is good too. I can upgrade Harddrive later I think.
I might be able to afford up to 2000 on the desktop, instead of up to a thousand.
Then buy the video card and ram now and the rest later. If you want I can spec out a $2k system that should be a great iray render system. It might only be a 2080 since 2080ti's are still so expensive.
Slight issue is that someone threw out my tower while trying to be helpful. It looks like I have to get everything since my monitor died too.
Monitors aren't too expensive. Neither are cases. I'll just have to skimp in a few other places.
Is a 1080p monitor good enough?
If so this comes in right at $2k and should stay there with fluctuations depending on sales.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/kbs666/saved/#view=h2ztgs
The 2k will probably be divided into two payments. I think I found the check that I was expecting several months ago but it is almost 8 thirty pm here so not much can do about it until morning. I can see what I can order in the mean time.
I'd buy the GPU now if possible. The China tariffs might kick in on March 1st and that would be the thing going up most.
Digital Storm still offers the 1070 & 1070Ti as options for their systems. While they're certainly not the most expensive systems, they're not cheap either. I was able to configure a Velox system for $1981 by changing some of the components. It has an i5 3.7Ghz(4.6Ghz Turbo) 6-core CPU, 16Gb RAM, ASUS ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming(3xPCI-E Devices) motherboard, 600W power supply, 1 SSD M.2 500Gb, 1 2Tb Seagate/Toshiba 7200rpm Hard Drive, RTX 2060 6GB, CPU cooling is AIR:Stage 1 high performance copper heat pipe cooler, and Windows10 Home. I also changed the tower to Antec Performance Series P101 PRO, which cut the price by $203. Its not the most optimal system for Iray, but it allows the option for future upgrades(power supply, graphics card, RAM, CPU, etc.).
Nevertheless, if you can build your own system I would do that instead since it would be cheaper and you could probably get better specs than the system I just threw together on their website.
Why would you buy a 1070ti system for 2k? I specced out a 2080ti with a monitor for the same price. With a larger and higher spec PSU, double the HDD, a more capable CPU etc.
Digital Storm is a great company if you literally have money to burn ($4 or $5k) but for any reasonable budget? Don't bother.
Hence the reason I added the disclaimer that it would be cheaper to self-build and have better specs. I mention Digital Storm because if they don't want to build their own system, they won't have to deal with a customer/tech support rep over in India or some other foreign country that only knows how to follow a set of diagnostic instructions from a manual. Their tech support is all US-based, which is part of the reason why they're more expensive. Dell is even more expensive and on top of that, besides the proprietary hardware nonsense, you have to pay extra for US-based tech support.
I wouldn't be too upset about throwing out the case. From the pictures I'm pretty certain that it was one of those arse-backwards, upside down BTX wannabe rigs. You would not get a motherboard to fit in that thing anymore anyway. Not to mention the fact that you would be limited to a mATX form factor to boot.
I can try, but I am back to waiting for tax refund. The check I thought I was going to use has to be reissued as it took too long to get to me.
Then don't let it worry you. Give me a shout when you do have the money and I'll see what I can do.
If all goes well I might get enough to build that computer by middle of March. There should be two checks and the tax refund. If I play my hands right, I might be able to afford 64 gb of ram. I am hoping I can get a graphics tablet too as I want to use the computer mainly for creating 3D renders and 3D content. It would be a bonus to use the same computer to play games like Sims 4 and Left 4 Dead. I wonder if it is powerful enough to play a game and render at same time, or if that is just wishful thinking?
Wishful thinking I'm afraid. Iray really takes over pretty much any GPU it has access to. You can browse the web and that sort of thing but even watching a YT video is pretty choppy with my 1080ti during a render.