Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
If you know hardware and/or want to do heaps of research and can eat the cost of frying hundreds of dollars of components if you screw up, then definitely build your own.
Otherwise...
I always buy Dell. More expensive, but it's much more likely to do what you think it should.
Alienware is better than the core Dell stuff because, for some wackadoo reason, Dell removed all the customization options they used to have. Alienware is still pretty configurable.
I'm planning on getting an Alienware Area 51 sometime before the end of the year. With three slots for cards, it should be reasonably upgradable for a while.
Dude, no offense intended just trying to help. When it gets back to the 3D world I am a noob right now, I haven't touched this stuff since Poser 3/4 days. However hardware on high performance stuff? I kinda live that world in my regular job, and offer basic help where I can. My laptop that I carry for work (bought from my own pocket) is a i7, 18 Gig of ram and a GFX 880M. That laptop is vastly underpowered quite often....
So in my last attempt to render the scene I was using, it crashed. (Daz3D) I am not sure but I am removing stuff and attempting to see if I can isolate it or if there is a memory issue with 'how much' stuff is loaded.
Richard: here, in the Control Panel -> System. There have been times when the "(7.99 GB usable)" has not appeared, but it's there most of the time.
"Go into the BIOS and see if you can adjust the memory timings, manually. If you can, you may be able to bump it down a bit and have Windows see all of it."
Thanks, that was another suggestion that a tech recommended. I tried quite a few adjustments and was able to get the "7.99 GB usable" message to vanish upon checking the Control Panel right after booting. However, the next day it was back even though the timing changes remained.
edit: Windows 10's Task Manager is showing some information that I hadn't noticed before. It says I'm using 2.4 GB of 8.0 GB, with 4.0 GB "hardware reserved". Is that normal?
edit 2: Dude, no offense intended just trying to help.
It was someone else I was frustrated with, sorry for any misunderstanding. We do seem to have an surge in wanna-be hardware and Iray experts around here lately who never seem to actually read a person's questions, and it bugs me when a person who still calls Studio "DAZ" starts lecturing an 16-year veteran of 3D about how Iray is a realistic renderer.
I used to build my own rigs but got too time consuming so I use CyberPower PC.com to get my rigs now. They are close by where I live in CA so when they ship it's like to me in a day or so after they get it set up. You have all sorts of customization options, you can even change out the box if you hate it, which I usually do, to something more to your liking. Since you already have a spanking new card you can even order your rig with NO vid card if you want or SLI it to the the one that comes with the set up. I've only ever had one issue with this company, it wasn't resolved to my liking but it was the only time in a decade and it was years and years back now. If you order during one of their sales often times the shipping is free so keep an eye out on that...
RAM: Ah, I was experimenting with building a machine through them too (this is the 'default' build): http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Infinity_8800_Pro_SE ; Good to know you've had decent experiences with them.
Snowsultan,
When your system is reserving ram for hardware, that means that your GPU is on board your motherboard and it HAS to allocate that ram to make the GPU function, your CPU will use it all up if you are gaming, or rendering or something else hardware intensive.
I recommend to anyone who wants to do anything with computers, in fact I urge you to learn how to build your own and to research hardware, its critically important in my opinion.
Look at it this way if you will. Even the best boutique PC builders are liable to use ultra cheap aka crappy components somewhere and if they don't they charge a high premium for what they do put into it generally higher than retail. By building your own you will save alot of money for one thing, you will know what went into it and feel pride about that choice and you will have a better understanding of how it all works. You can plan for the future, for instance I bought a 1050 watt EVGA platinum certified PSU, which is overkill for what I have, but now I am future proof there as a bigger newer card will be no problem.
If I were to buy right now I would buy a Socket LGA 2011 v3 motherboard though not sure which as I have not looked in a while, probably a Gigabyte or an EVGA, but I digress, an E5-1650 v3 Xeon (Haswell chipset) CPU (Skylake Xeons are not available yet) and load it up with RAM, at least 32 gigs, though I would go for 64 eventually.
Most motherboards in this range will be in the $250 - $300 range, the CPU around $700, and 32 gigs of RAM is about $400., 980 Ti's are around $650 each so thats about $2000 if you round up for 3 cards. No boutique can beat that even if I added an evpensive PSU and you would for three 980 ti's, case and cooling.
I've built my last three PCs and as you said, saved money by purchasing parts and installing them myself.
"When your system is reserving ram for hardware, that means that your GPU is on board your motherboard and it HAS to allocate that ram to make the GPU function,"
When you say "on board your motherboard", are you talking about an integrated GPU?
Time spent learning hardware configurations and puzzling together how to put your machine together is time not spent working on artwork, developing skills, or doing other life stuff (like taking care of my kids, laundry, spending time with my wife, walking dog, etc.).
'build your own' is a not inconsiderable investment of time. And possibly money, for mistakes, and frustration and stress when things don't work for no reason you can adequately determine.
Yes.
And for some motherboards, unless you specifically turn off the onboard...but according to the spec for the board you posted eariler, it doesn't have onboard video.
But that isn't the only cause for this...it's just one of the common ones. Probably just as common as timings causing.
"And for some motherboards, unless you specifically turn off the onboard...but according to the spec for the board you posted eariler, it doesn't have onboard video."
That's right, I was curious to see if that person had read my previous posts and saw the video card I had instead of assuming that I didn't know if my GPU was integrated or not.
...I need to make the same upgrade. However I also need to upgrade to Win7 Pro as well since I still; have the Home Version. That adds about another 135$ to the cost.
My next full system upgrade, will be a massive step up: Dual 8 core Xeons,128 GB Quad Channel DDR4 memory, and 4 Titan X GPUs. It will also be a fairly expensive one.
If by that time, Nvidia releases GTX units based on the new Pascal architecture (16 - 32 GB of HDR2 video memory and 5,000 - 6,000 CUDA cores), I will swap out the 4 Titan-Xs for at least two of those, four if the price is right (with 20,000 - 24,000 cores, that would give me the rendering speed of Nvidia's 50,000$ VCA). The tech curve is going off the scale.
With how highly developed my scenes have become, I need all the "horespower" I can get.
Currently performing a full render of my populated railway station scene with fog, and as the scene file is huge it is taking forever to perform the prliminary calculations. Nothing has popped up in the render window yet and it's been about 15 - 20 minutes. .
=
No, I was going by this, that you already upgraded to win 10, and was going to downgrade and buy win 7...
I was going by your own post
"Here's what I currently have:"
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039
Graphics card: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-760/specifications
Considering your memory problems I still think it would be a good idea to check out http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ As they have incredibly helpful volunteers that are Computer experts that can help with troubleshooting your PC due to Virus attacks and various PC maladies, And I apologize for having so strong a reaction as I have been in the position of being ripped off by countless online PC companies and I wanted to illustrate the importance in having the right info about your system so you won't waste any of your money.
Either way, it's all the more reason for SS to check out http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ ; because it is not a normal function for the computer to operate in. Because 4 GB of missing RAM is not a good thing, and SS should do a sys memory check the next time they restart their PC.
For those of you that are using EVGA GTX graphic cards and may not know this info. you can download the free PrecisionX program and use it to monitor your gpu, and to adjust settings, monitor tempatures, adjust fans speeds and overclocking etc etc.... though this program is only offered by EVGA got gtx graphic cards 600 series or newer and you will also need an a evga account to download the Precision Xprograms the link is http://eu.evga.com/precision/it/
Its a really good tool to monitor and control your EVGA monsters its what I use to monitor and control my over clocks for my both Titan x running sli
i hope this info help someone.
SnowSultan,
Don't feel bad, running into the same/simliar issue with my ram upgrade. Installed the 24 Gig, and 16 addressable.... *sigh*
CR
...yeah most memory for those particular MBs (LGA 1366) is configured for channel operation. Not sure how memory would be addressed if it was not in divisible by 3.
This is why I would need to spend the extra to update Win7 Pro.
Thanks for clarifying Takezo. I'm sick at the moment, but I'll mess around more with the RAM when I install an SSD I ordered next week.
Jas-va_26: Huh, sorry to hear that. :P I read updated articles on that problem and most people are still saying it's either faulty RAM or some other hardware issue. My RAM is pretty old though, and I've thought a little about buying a new set of 16 gig (which isn't that expensive now).