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VFX Workstation rig advice

M

manoduv

n00b
Joined
Nov 5, 2010
Messages
2
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
VFX projects, i.e. Maya modeling and animating, Zbrush texturing, Heavy rendering, Compositing with Nuke and After Effects, a bit of video editing in Premiere of FCP if I can get a OSX rocking.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Budget is about 1400 after tax and shipping

3) Where do you live?
Tax crazy CA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.
Case, Power supply, CPU, GPU, Harddrive, CPU Cooling, DVD drive, SATA reader, etc. Everything except keyboard, mouse and display.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Nill.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Unlikely.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
1920 X 1050, would like to get another.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Newegg, possibly more RAM from Fry's on Black Friday.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
RAID, SLI, SATA 3Gb/s is fine, USB 3.0 isn't needed.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I'll begin with Ubuntu, move on to Win7 in a bit, then attempt an OSX boot eventually, all 64bit.

Here is my shopping list as of today:
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP Black Steel + Plastic and Mesh Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

GIGABYTE GV-N470D5-13I-B GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1681S-0B - OEM

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power ...

nMEDIAPC ZE-C118 All-in-one USB2.0 & eSATA Card Reader with Black Face Panel

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL

MSI P55-GD65 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-870 Lynnfield 2.93GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor

COOLER MASTER Intel Core i7 compatible V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler

I'd just like your advice, and to make sure it's all compatible and wisely chosen. I was very close to buying DDR3 Ram but caught it before I hit the order button, so I am second guessing myself on everything now. I wouldn't say I know a lot about computers, but I'm a quick study so this is based on research over the past few weeks.
As a side note, I'll be expanding this to 16GB of ram very soon, as well as constantly adding storage. So I'd like this to be a good starting point for expansion for a few years, I'm hoping none of it will be outdated tomorrow.

Thanks for any input, it's all welcomed.
 
Question 8 is asking WHEN, not where, are you buying the PC. Please answer that question again.

Oh and ditch that 160GB hard drive. You can get this 3-4x faster and 3x larger hard drive for almost the same price:
$46.54 - Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

PSU wise, I'd spend the extra cash for this newer, better quality, and slightly more powerful 750W PSU instead:
$116 - Antec Truepower New TP-750 750W PSU

Motherboard wise, I'd go with this cheaper but still good quality Asus motherboard
$150 - Asus P7P55D Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard

HSF wise, I don't see a need for that particular Coolermaster HSF at all considering that you're not overclocking. But if you still want a 3rd party HSF for when summertime comes around, I recommend this more suitable HSF isntead:
$26 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

Also, don't bother with a DVD rom drive. They cost just as much as a DVD burner so zero reason to get a DVD-rom drive. Something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Liteon-24X-DV...?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1289197738&sr=1-18

The rest of the parts you chose seems fine to me. If you're wondering about the Amazon.com links: Amazon.com does not charge CA residents tax and usually has free shipping. So you can save quite a bit of money that. One forum poster from CA recently found that he could save $106 by getting most of his parts from Amazon.com. So yeah, you could see similar savings as well.
 
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