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New comptuer $2000 budget

Greg DAlessandro
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Greg DAlessandro polycounter lvl 6
Here are the parts:
http://www.amazon.com/lm/R1CZYBH8BISQC9/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&lm_bb=&tag=topgc13-20

Is this the best computer I can get for around $2000? Or is there something better? Thanks.

Edit: I would be using the computer for zbrush, photoshop, Unreal Engine 4, gaming, and other programs.

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  • James Ordner
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    I really recommend getting an nvidia card, for CUDA mainly. I've also heard that nvidia cards work better with some game dev software, but I can't say for sure having never used an AMD card. Everything else looks pretty good to me, nothing obvious that needs changing.
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    Get ATI openCL is the future.
  • Greg DAlessandro
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    Greg DAlessandro polycounter lvl 6
    what is ATI openCL?
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    Same thing as cuda just its more open and easier to program. OpenCL works on ATI and Nvidia cards but ATI ones are cheaper while still delivering same performance.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    Video card is overkill for doing what you want, only advantage that will have is in gaming and even then some of the mid tier cards in 300 dollar range will be prefect.

    Those high end cards really only exceed the mid if you go above 1080p or use double monitors or something. For a single screen display at 1920x1080 a mid card will be perfect.

    Other parts looks good, im not a huge fan of some of the brands but all will work
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    As far as I know, no professional software that game artists would use, use openCL, so it's pointless right now, (expect for Knald which works any either GPU manufacture).

    OpenCL is basically CPU processing done on the GPU to accelerate tasks. You're most likely going to see it being used for texturing and baking first. It's open so it can work on Nvidia and ATI cards, but it has to be implemented by the software developer to work on both. ATI has less of a market share in GPUs right now, and I'd assume even less of a market share for game developers, so I don't really seeing there being any Software openCL implementations exclusive to ATI. People often say ATI is faster or has better openCL, but that's all do to crypto-currency mining, which doesn't have any impact or relevance to software tasks for game artists.

    I agree with skyline5gtr, as a game artist you will want to get newer series of video cards quicker than most gamers, so it's better to get a mid range card now, and then get a newer one in 2 years. Newer cards often get newer features, those features will not show up in games for a while, but you'll see software packages add them right away, things like tessellation, bokeh depth of field, better shader model, better stereoscopic 3D support, better anti aliasing, where added with DX11, and DX12 is coming out next year, and you'll need a card that will support it, I'm not saying you should wait to buy a GPU, just that it's better to buy the best bang for your buck card more often, than the best card on the market.
  • Target_Renegade
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    Target_Renegade polycounter lvl 11
    Another option would be to get an iMac. Before the rage - I'm a professional Objective-C programmer, love to produce music - since Logic on the PC 5.5, and I already have a i7 3770k 16GB RAM SSD HDD.

    Macs aren't just a brand - they work well - with Parallels you can get a Virtual Machine on the go - it does go wrong sometimes though. PCs and Macs are awesome!
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    iMac is overpriced for 2k$ he could get a better PC which wouldn't use mobile variants of GPU.I can understand someone getting MacPro but iMac is just overpriced.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Also, I'd never want to have my display fused with my computer. What if I want to upgrade my PC? What if I wanted to upgrade my display?
  • Target_Renegade
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    Target_Renegade polycounter lvl 11
    The Operating System and the way the pieces of hardware work together are very specific. Much like a console, it's more about getting proprietary performance than cobbling pieces of hardware together. I'm playing devil's advocate because $2000 is too much, I spent £750 on my latest PC build and that was over a year ago - not much has changed, apart from Windows 8 being shit.

    edit:

    The 27" display is something like 2400 x 1440 with really good clarity.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    The iMac has a solid display, the problem is it's hard to get a matching monitor second monitor. The iMac's have a very large bezel, are glossy, and are pretty tall. You'd have to get a monitor mount to match the height, but your still going to have to deal with a large bezel and going from a matte to glossy display.
  • EarthQuake
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    Yeah, really can't see why an iMac would be appropriate for a workstation. The lack of a proper GPU is a total dealbreaker.
  • MattQ86
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    MattQ86 polycounter lvl 15
    http://www.logicalincrements.com/ is a pretty good place to start. You can narrow your search down a lot then get more specific from there. As Skyline said a video card isn't the most important thing for this build. From my own anecdotal experience I can say every ATI card I've ever had has been a disappointment. For a proper Zbrush machine you'll want to invest in a good CPU.
  • Greg DAlessandro
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    Greg DAlessandro polycounter lvl 6
    Hmm, http://www.logicalincrements.com/ just made it more difficult in choosing a computer. Is it better to buy the best on that list, or buy a roughly 2k ish computer now, and in a few years buy a better one that is cheaper/better than the best currently on that list? (since technology only gets better and better and quicker)
  • Blaizer
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    Blaizer interpolator
    AMD GPUS = Driver issues all the days... = Bad for work = good with some games but updating drivers 2 times per month lol

    My experience with all the AMD products has been HORRIBLE.

    Do you need such huge and ultra expensive case? are you going to do super OC with that expensive mobo? are you going to build a sli config? the build does not make sense at all. It's like you were choosing only the most expensive parts, and "expensive" = not good at all, but bad for our wallet.

    You are going for the latest and most expensive i7 of the 1050 platform, it's a good cpu, but don't you think you won't be taking advantage of it at all? An i5 4690, 4670 is enough for all our needs and it's cheaper. Or are you planning to be rendering and encoding all the days? if that's the case, go for a i7 six core cpu with HT and quadchannel memory support.

    The mobo, a micro atx one is cheaper and good enough. You put on the list memories at 1600mhz, not the best for OC, but you choose components like that cpu and that expensive mobo for extreme oc. And... you choose a cpu cooler not good enough for OC :D

    If you want a good and cheap system, with that i7 (4ghz sells very well and sounds cool), i'd choose a micro-atx mobo without too many useless features i won't use.

    New gpus from nvidia will ship for the last quarter of this year, with 8GB/16GB.. paying 500$+ for a gpu is insane. A single GTX 660 and GTX 760 is enough nowadays.

    Think well your future purchase.
  • Greg DAlessandro
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    Greg DAlessandro polycounter lvl 6
    I understand that buying the most expensive isn't always the best solution, but I'm also not very tech savvy. I do plan on running 2 monitors for game developing and gaming.

    I'm not sure what parts would be my best option. I'm also not sure what parts work best with each other either.
  • Skamander
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    Skamander triangle
    Here are the parts:
    http://www.amazon.com/lm/R1CZYBH8BISQC9/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&lm_bb=&tag=topgc13-20

    Is this the best computer I can get for around $2000? Or is there something better? Thanks.

    No, you could get a better PC for the price (6 Cores, more RAM, better PSU etc.)
    Hmm, http://www.logicalincrements.com/ just made it more difficult in choosing a computer. Is it better to buy the best on that list, or buy a roughly 2k ish computer now, and in a few years buy a better one that is cheaper/better than the best currently on that list? (since technology only gets better and better and quicker)

    I would build a $1000-1500 PC now and upgrade in 3-5 years. Since the performance benefit one gets from upgrades has slowed down you don't need to upgrade as often as in the past.

    For example: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x8KJmG

    The build is fast and at the same time silent (quiet but good cooler, most quiet GTX 770, quiet and efficient PSU, well finished and noise dampened case). Put aside the ~$750 you save and buy additional 16 GByte memory down the road if you should need it, buy a 20/16nm GPU which will arrive 2015 (the new AMD and Nvidia cards this year will still be 28nm just like the cards from 2011) or buy substance designer/painter or the new quixel suite etc.
  • EarthQuake
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    I would tend to agree, try to keep it under $1500, when you go over that, you're buying expensive stuff just because its expensive. The top end GPUs and CPUs, you pay a disproportionate amount of money for a little extra performance. A GTX 760 or 770 is all that is really reasonable to get (and buy a new one in 2-3 years), and an I7 4790 is an extremely fast cpu. Unless you're doing video encoding all day like Blaizer says there is no reason to go beyond that (and if you do, you probably want dual Xeons or something). I would go all the way down to an I5, as the price difference in the US isn't huge, and an I7 based system should last you longer. I5 4690 vs i7 4790, both are comparable in terms of performance for money spent, aka value. Edit: I see the OP's initial post has the 4790, this is a good choice, its not crazy expensive, but extremely fast to the point where it should last you a solid 4 years.

    If you really want to spend $2000, put $1300-1500 into the system and buy yourself a nice 24 or 27 inch IPS monitor.

    Skamnder's build above looks very reasonable, though maybe a good idea to get the 4GB 770, which isn't much extra.

    GPU performance: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
    CPU performance: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

    The R9 2x offers basically nothing over the 770 GTX except being more expensive.

    For a 770 GTX I would go with a high quality 650W PSU though, I say this after blowing out a 550W one, and then running BSODs under full load on another 550W PSU with my 770.
  • Gnutmi
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    Gnutmi polycounter lvl 10
    As others have mentioned, 2000k is maybe an overkill for a pc. 1300-1500 can get you a nice PC and leave you extra for 1-2 nice screens. After all screens are the ones you are going to stare at for most part of your life. Treat your eyes nicely:)
    Theres no point getting the best gpu on the market. Get something decent (670/770) and upgrade later as the new technology comes. Sometimes drivers are the biggest performance increase.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    Gnutmi wrote: »
    As others have mentioned, 2000k is maybe an overkill for a pc. 1300-1500 can get you a nice PC and leave you extra for 1-2 nice screens. After all screens are the ones you are going to stare at for most part of your life. Treat your eyes nicely:)
    Theres no point getting the best gpu on the market. Get something decent (670/770) and upgrade later as the new technology comes. Sometimes drivers are the biggest performance increase.

    typicall 1 card every 3 series. They usually just reuse and rehash the same GPU for 3 series line and develop new during
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    Maxwell (nivdia's new cards) is not one of these, so if you can wait it may be worth it, the lower levels of power usage can be helpful considering how long your computer may be on high loads for
  • Greg DAlessandro
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    Greg DAlessandro polycounter lvl 6
    Robeomega wrote: »
    Maxwell (nivdia's new cards) is not one of these, so if you can wait it may be worth it, the lower levels of power usage can be helpful considering how long your computer may be on high loads for

    would that be able to be able to plug into this MOBO:

    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Motherboards-Z97-PRO-Wi-Fi-AC/dp/B00K2R6GDQ/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3"]Amazon.com: ASUS ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97-PRO (Wi-Fi AC): Computers & Accessories[/ame]
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    Mobo doesn't really matter for GPU since every MBO has PCI-e.Pay attention to CPU,its cheaper to upgrade GPU then its to upgrade the CPU.That MBO supports i7 proccesor which requires Z-97. Although you wont be getting any bottlenecks with that CPU :).
  • EarthQuake
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    That mobo is overkill unless you plan on overclocking and going SLI, neither of which I would recommend for a workstation. I7s overclock automatically when needed, and SLI won't improve performance in max, zbrush, etc (though may in UE4 or Marmoset Toolbag).
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