Brashen's worksation upgrade help.

[Brashen]

Hey good folks of [H]

Its about time I hunker down seriously and think about upgrading my current workhorse/gaming station and as such I turn to the only forum one can truly trust. So let's get a crackin'.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

I'm a concept artist and designer by trade but am a 3D generalist, and motion graphics artist as well. Programs I use are 3ds max, Zbrush, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Illustrator, After effects, Nuke and Realflow and a spatter of other programs. I'm an exclusive PC gamer and only accept the best in visual fidelity.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

My budget is currently 2k USD but as I usually don't upgrade often this may increase as necessary. I'd like tax to be included if possible shipping may remain out of the equation.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

I live in Lebanon and although we do have a bevy of suppliers Id rather I purchase my items in the states.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Well I'd like to upgrade the main components ie MB, CPU, RAM, and GPU unless advised otherwise. I would like to add extra HDDs.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

My Rig is listed in my sig and apart from a switch of PSU and a replace of my WD Velociraptor with an SSD everything will remain the same. I Might replace my screen with and upgraded version or a 4k display with a side monitor given the colour fidelity is appropriate but that is a later upgrade.

6) Will you be overclocking?

Nope

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

30inch 2560*1600

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

As soon as Nvidia releases their new line of cards. Or of you think I should hold off please let me know why.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.

Im not up to par with the current tech on mobos but it must be able to handle atleast 32 GBs of RAM USB 3.0, has surge protection, has a lot of expansion bays if possible.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

I'm Aok on that front.

P.S.

My manufacturer preferences are Asus Intel Nvidia and corsair. I also like a clean PC, anything that will reduce the clutter that ensues is most welcome. I'd like to be able to do 3D renders fairly quickly for a quick iterative process.

Thank you for the help.

 

[plugwash]

I think you should hold off on CPU/MB/RAM until haswell-e is released unless you are really desperate.

Right now you have to chose between

IB-E on LGA2011, supports up to 64GB of ram with current modules (may or may not support more with future modules), desktop processors available with up to 6 cores (server processors available with much more but probablly out of your price range). But it's an older design, so it's one generation behind on core design and the X79 chipset is lacking many modern features (these can be added with seperate chips but generally the support integrated into intel's chipsets for this sort of thing is better than the seperate chips).

Haswell on LGA1150, gives you the lasest core design and chipset features but because it's a mainstream platform you get a maximum of four cores, a maximum of 32GB of ram with current modules (may or may not support more with future modules)

 

[Brashen]

@plugwash

Thanks for the reply

Well apparently the haswell-es are being released at the same time as the new gpus from nVidia if the rumor mill is to be believed so that shouldn't be a problem. And apparently DDr4 will be out as well, though don't know how much of a performance boost it will give me.

Dont know if I should stave off untill 20nm Maxwell as well... Im not desperate on the upgrade but I do need to get cracking.

 

[Henri108]

I think you will need to stretch budget a bit if you want to go X99 (which you should imo).
If you want to hold of for the 20nm 9xx series of gpu's, then a GTX 680 second hand or 770 new is recommended for Adobe performance within your budget.
The 880 will probably give a noticable increase, but it might not work with Adobe from the start. Also, don't forget to buy reference design cards instead of full custom ones to remain compatible.