40k Rig

Nir-V-aNa

Nir-V-aNa

Disciple
Hi guys :)

I am into Animation and work on Maya mostly and am also a heavy duty gamer. And its high time I replace my 5 yr old rig with a brand new one to meet my needs. My budget is roughly 40k and I saw DarkAngel's PC buying guide for March (tyvm, very helpful) and my focus was on the 45k Med end gaming rig. I am mainly interested in a good CPU, I can make do with my current monitor and kb/mouse + altec lansing 2.1 speaker set and LG DVD-writer if needed. I asked the IT guy in my college (was planning to buy the rig from him) and the rig he suggested went upto 40.5k. I wanted to compare these 2 rigs and see which one is better and obviously i will go by what you guys suggest for obvious reasons. So here goes...

Processor : He is suggesting an Intel i3 2.6Ghz as compared to the AMD Phenom and states that in terms of usage for animation the MB tends to heat up bcuz of the AMD Proc :huh: AFAIK, everyone suggests an AMD proc for animation n gaming, so i'm unsure about his claims.

MB : To go along with the proc, he obviously suggested an original Intel MB (not sure abt the model) and says that Asus will make me run around a lot in case something goes wrong and MSI will not replace my MB with a new one but will give me some other customers' repaired MB if something goes wrong with mine.

RAM : He suggested the same specs as these but is asking to go for Transcend. Which one is better...Transcend or Kingston? and why?

HDD : Same spec

GPU : He insisted that I go for Nvidia and not ATI and the general feedback from ppl around tells me that as well. But on TE I am reading posts from a lot of ATI users as well and obviously they are satisfied so I am open to buying an ATI as well. Going by my budget I think the Nvidia GTX 260M 896mb card is the option from Nvidia while the Sapphire HD5770 DDR5 1 GB is the card from ATI, as suggested by DA. So which one do I go for? also i see that the HD5770 is DDR5 and im guessing the GTX 260 is DDR3? Unless i'm mistaken abt the Nvidia card, that gives the ATI card an edge...not to mention the extra RAM on it...?

Cabinet : He says to go for a VIP cabinet + PSU. Says its on par with CM and is more reliable + all the branded companies like Dell and HP use VIP PSUs in them. I have no way to verify this apart from TE! :hap2:

So the total budget comes to :

DA's rig (45450) - Monitor (7650) - KB/Mouse (2000) - DVD-Writer (1100) - Speakers (2200) = 32500.

I will also be selling my rig so a little more breathing space (just a little, not too much :bleh:) So i just may be able to fit in that monitor. Also DA has mentioned a 20" monitor whereas I would prefer a 22" one if i do go for it.

Monitor : He says he generally recommends Viewsonic but the new HD range from Samsung is really good and I should go for that. So if I do go for it then which one? Samsung, BenQ or Viewsonic??

Finally, thank you for your valuable time spent in reading all this and especially for you comments or suggestions. Cheers! :clap:

btw I live in Mumbai :)
 
You can go for a Core i-5 750 proccy if you wanna run Maya and animation work. You have the budget for it and the processor will be like a dream upgrade from a 5 yrs old rig.

Components Description Price (INR)

Processor Intel Core i-5 750 9900

Motherboard Intel DH55TC 5500

RAM 4(2*2GB) 1333MHz Kingston DDRIII RAM 5300

HDD 500 GB WD Blue 2350

GPU Sapphire HD5770 1GB GDDR5 9800

Cabinet CM Elite 310 1550

PSU/SMPS Corsair VX450 3600(Buygamingstuff)

Total 38000


  • Keep your monitor if you are satisfied with it as it lets you buy a very powerful processor.

  • VIP PSU for a PC with 10k worth GPU. Never ask him for advice again. Boss no branded PC comes with a 10k GPU except the ultra high end ones(Rs. 1 lakh+).

  • You cant judge a GPU on amount of RAM. For around 10k the HD5770 is a good choice. Though performance wise it slightly lags behind the GT260, but compensates for it with amazing low power consumption(both at idle and load) and DX11 support.


  • You can also opt for GSkill/ Corsair RAM's. Would cost you 500rs. more than the Kingston for 4Gigs of 1333MHz DDR3.

  • Ya Intel mobos are pretty decent if you are not gonna O.C. But get Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2~6.5k if its available. Very good budget P55 mobo
 
You should buy the rig DarkAngel suggested with closed eyes, and get the Gigabyte mobo 'coz that'll give OC options if you decide to OC sometime in the future.. plus Gigabyte Mobo's have quite a few power-saving options as compared to Intel Mobo's...

If you have no intentions of OC'ing your processor any time even in the future go with the Intel board..

And since this is CPU & GPU intensive work.. I'd suggest you also install 2 * 120 mm fans to keep the insides of the sys cool... that's about 1 Grand more...

GT260 is going to be replaced by fermi this year anyways, and with 5770 you also get Eyefinity and DX 11 support....
 
Components Model Description Price (INR)

CPU Intel Core i5 750 9800

Mobo Intel DH55TC 5500

RAM 4(2x2GB) 1333MHz Kingston DDRIII RAM 5300

HDD Seagate 500GB 7200.12 2300

GPU Sapphire HD5770 1GB GDDR5 9800

Cabinet CM Elite 310 1500

PSU/SMPS Corsair VX 450 4100

Total 38100
 
Which model is the WD Blue that gets recommended around here? Is it a good performer compared to the 640 Blue/1tb Black? I have to get another hdd so if it is a fast one then I can make it the OS drive.
 
Hi Guys,

Sorry for bumping this almost 2 month old thread, but i finally bought my new comp yest :clap:

First of all i'd like to thank DA and Anubis for their suggestions, i bought my comps according to your suggestions and the damage was an exact 40k :p

The final config i went for is :-

Processor : Intel Core i5 750 = Rs. 14900 (CPU+Mobo)

Mobo : Intel DH55TC

Ram : Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 Mhz Platinum Series = Rs. 6800

GPU : XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 = Rs. 9600

HDD : WD Caviar Blue 500 GB = Rs. 2200

Cabinet : CoolerMaster Elite 310 = Rs. 1600

PSU : Corsair VX450 = Rs. 3700

DVD-RW : HP dvd1260i 24x = Rs. 1200

Now to discuss the buy :)

The processor was fixed right from the outset, since you guys had unanimously suggested it so no confusion there. As for the mobo, i had 2 options...the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD2 and the Intel DH55TC. I wanted to go for the Gigabyte board as u guys had said that it gives me OC options and has better power saving features than the Intel board but when i got in touch with my dealer he said the GB board will take 3 days for delivery and costs more which overshot my already stretched budget (i5+DH55TC = 14900, i5+GA-P55-UD2 = 17600). I also got a quotation from Prime ABGB for this and they said that the UD2 board is unavailable and asked me to go for the UD4 board instead and quoted me the combo price of Rs. 23400 :mad:

As for the RAM, i was deciding between Corsair, G-skill and Kingston ( No Transcend :p). I was quoted Kingston = Rs. 2700, G-skill = Rs. 2850 and Corsair = Rs. 2900 for single 2 GB chips. Since the price difference wasnt much, it was down to warranty and Corsair was offering a 10 yr warranty as compared to 5 yrs offered by G-skill and Kingston with the total coming to Rs. 5800 for the 4 gb set. But then he showed me the platinum series 4gb kit offered by Corsair that came with their own heat sinks at an extra cost of a thousand bucks. I thought it might be worth it so i went for it at Rs. 6800. Plz tell me it was a good buy :huh:

HDD, WD Blue Caviar 500 GB, no issues there.

GPU, I had asked him for the Sapphire card as u guys had suggested it and he quoted me Rs. 9600 for it but when i went to buy the pc Sapphire was out of stock and so he gave me an XFX card instead. He said the XFX card costs around 300-400 bucks more than sapphire but since he had quoted me 9600 for it he would give me the XFX card at the same rate. I know XFX has a good rep with all the Nvidia cards it makes, still I wasnt sure when it came to ATI. But I have used an XFX card for 5 yrs now without any probs so i went for it. I hope thats a good decision too. Prime ABGB quoted me Rs. 9800 for a Sapphire card so i guess i got the XFX card for a good 500-600 bucks cheaper from this guy.

Cabinet, no issues again, just that i wanted the black n orange but it was out of stock so i went for black n red.

PSU, initially he called up all the stockists he could but he couldnt get his hands on a VX450 and so he showed me the Gigabyte 460W PSU and said its performance is also good and it was costing Rs. 3200 in comparison to the VX450's 3700 bucks. But Corsair was offering twice the warranty on its RAMs than its competitors so i was a lil curious as to how much warranty it offered on its PSU so i told him i'm willing to wait for a couple of hrs if he wants but i atleast want to see the VX450 once. So he called some more ppl and finally got a VX450 and just as i suspected, Corsair was offering a 5 yr warranty as compared to Gigabyte's 3 yr warranty. I thought the extra 500 bucks for 2 yrs of warranty is well worth it so i went for the VX450 :)

DVD-RW, he was suggesting a Sony but i've had problems with Sony before so i decided to go for an HP this time.

I guess that's about it, finally got the much needed upgrade over my 5 yr old rig. Thank you to the guys and TE once again, really appreciate the help a lot :hap2::clap:

P.S.: A couple of things i forgot to mention. You guys might already know it, but just in case. The DH55TC board does not come with an onboard gfx card, so incase the GPU goes kaput, i'll be without a comp for a few days. Also, the guy who assembled my comp told me that i cannot run Win XP SP2 on it bcuz Intel has not released the drivers for XP. So its Win7 Ultimate 64-bit for now. Hope it helps :)
 
@Nirvana
A minor correction, I think that it is the i5 750 that does not come with an onboard GPU, but your motherboard DH55TC being a H55 supports it if you put in a i3 or i5 series processor which has an onboard gpu

Also any reason for going with H55 rather than P55?
 
Oops..my hardware knowledge isnt really great, whatever i know is primarily from TE . Till now i kept thinking that onboard gfx comes in the mobo which has an inbuilt gfx chipset :p

My budget was initially 35k but i knew i had to dole out a lil more to fit in the HD5770 or the GTX260 so i stretched it to 40k. If i would have gone for the P55 it would have cost me another 2700 bucks which i couldnt afford so the H55 it was :)
 
Nir[V]aNa said:
Ram : Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 Mhz Platinum Series = Rs. 6800

GPU : XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5 = Rs. 9600

As for the RAM, i was deciding between Corsair, G-skill and Kingston ( No Transcend :p). I was quoted Kingston = Rs. 2700, G-skill = Rs. 2850 and Corsair = Rs. 2900 for single 2 GB chips. Since the price difference wasnt much, it was down to warranty and Corsair was offering a 10 yr warranty as compared to 5 yrs offered by G-skill and Kingston with the total coming to Rs. 5800 for the 4 gb set. But then he showed me the platinum series 4gb kit offered by Corsair that came with their own heat sinks at an extra cost of a thousand bucks. I thought it might be worth it so i went for it at Rs. 6800. Plz tell me it was a good buy :huh:
Click to expand...
i am going for Kingston 2x2 GB ddr3 1333,,,,,,, b4 purchasing have compared performance of Corsair n kingston RAMS ???

Also whats Performance difference in ATI HD5670(nearly 6K) n HD5770(nearly 10k) ?? ...

i m confused in these 2 points.....:(
 
I can't believe my own eyes . Brother let me tell you one thing , 2 days makes a whole lot of differences in the PC industry let alone 2 months . I gave you the suggestion according to circumstances prevailing 2 months earlier . Now lots of things have changed . When there is Phenom II x6 available @ same price as Core i5 750 , you can imagine what the difference is . You could have gotten a 6 core Processor had you asked us again before buying

Anyways Congratz for your rig bro
 
The 1055T and i-5 750 trades blows depending on the apps and the 1055T is not a clear winner. So the i-5 750 is not that bad a purchase.

AMD 6 cores has barely managed to catch up with the i-5/i-7 four cores. So the number of cores doesn't count much. Still AMD architecture is not as good as Intel's. Hope they come up with better ones next year with the Bulldozer.

Hope the bulldozer sinks the sandy bridge like a quick sand ;) Monopoly is bad for consumers.
 
Rrmember that as games become multi threaded and begin to optimize more cores, the 1055T will spank the i5 750 into oblivion.
 
Oh well, whats done is done. I'm just happy I got a heavy upgrade and can now work in peace (and game :bleh:). I see it as a continuous cycle, no matter what and when i buy, a few weeks later something newer will come out and my rig will be obsolete. Guess one can only look at the bright side...new comp! :clap: Thx for ur wishes :cool2:

I'm still waiting for comments on the XFX card and the extra cash i spent for the heat sink rams. Hope its all good :ashamed:

I have a query abt the RAMs as well. These are screenshots from CPU-Z. Why do I not see the no. 1333 Mhz anywhere in this? Sry for my limited hardware knowledge :(

gpuzi.jpg


gpuz1m.jpg


I also have a few questions abt the memory on the GPUs...the Nvidia cards seem to have GDDR3 whilst the ATI ones come with GDDR5. Isnt that quite an upgrade over the Nvidia cards?? or is there some catch? and pardon my ignorance, but what happened to the "GDDR4" in between?

P.S.: Had forgotten earlier...Reps for DA and Anubis :thanx:
 
read dram freq. X 2 (665 X 2 = 1330)

btw GDDR5 is based on DDR3 and they are insanely faster and have large bandwidth... GDDR4/3 are based on DDR2. so yes it is quite an upgrade :p

_
 
@DD
Where's the x2 part? or is it taken for granted? Is this the dual channel thing?

And abt the GPUs...if GDDR5 is so much faster than GDDR3, then why are GTX 260 and HD 5770 considered as competitors and priced around the same range..considering the former is GDDR3 and the latter, GDDR5?

Geez, a lot to be learnt abt hardware.. :)
 
Nir[V]aNa said:
@DD

Where's the x2 part? or is it taken for granted? Is this the dual channel thing?

And abt the GPUs...if GDDR5 is so much faster than GDDR3, then why are GTX 260 and HD 5770 considered as competitors and priced around the same range..considering the former is GDDR3 and the latter, GDDR5?

Geez, a lot to be learnt abt hardware.. :)
Click to expand...

cpu-z i never bothered to find it out just take for granted...

the GTX 260 has more memory bus width (~512bit) while 5770 has less (~128 I guess) but anyway GDDR5 compensates for this while GTX 260 has just GDDR3. also the tech of the actual processor cores in the card differs bet Nvidia and ATI this also contributes.

Anubis said:
I don't know why , but those who never experience this always give the speeches :tongue::tongue:
Click to expand...

:bleh: we can't experience everything in life before hand.. in that case we can go by other's experiences via benchmarks, demos or videos. this applies to everything :eek:hyeah: if you get my drift :ashamed:

_
 
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