Cheap PC for 3D modelling / rendering / possibly a bit of gaming

[mihbur258]

Hi

I'm in dire need of a cheap setup which can perform decently on architectural 3D modeling and rendering. I'm really looking to squeeze the most out of my budget, which is capped at £600.

It seems to me that an AMD version is not cost effective at this point, so what I came up is this:

Case STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7600 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® H110M-R: Micro-ATX, DDR4, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM) 8GB Kingston DUAL DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050 - DVI, HDMI, DP
1st Hard Disk 240GB KINGSTON UV400 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (550MB/R, 490MB/W)

Power Supply CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £490.83
Price £589.00

Can anyone hardware-savvy give me any advice on what I could improve while staying under the £600 cap? Also, if you see any bottlenecks that could be avoided or conflicts, please let me know.

 

[Alexwise]

If you are aiming for a high poly count you are going to need as much RAM as you can afford because, for example, sub-dividing eats up your RAM extremely fast.

 

[mihbur258]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Oussebon]

You may want to consider the Enigma 6003B case for £1 more. At least it has one or two extra fan mounting points (I think..) which will help if you ever upgrade your GPU to something beefier. It also has front-facing USB3, which is handy if you ever use USB pens or external HDDs (which you probably should be to back up data)

You didn't mention if you were getting a DVD drive, but if you're not (it's often hardly needed these days) you can economise that and reinvest into a better case.

 

[mihbur258]

Thanks, I will indeed switch to the Enigma case, it looks better too.

No DVD drive in this case. It seems like they're on their way to being phased out completely, am I right or are there still future uses for them?

 

[Oussebon]

There is a DVD drive in that case, which case are you looking at?

The Enigma 6003B is, in my view, a very rudimentary case, it's just not quite as terrible as the 'stylish piano black' cases.

It's true that quite a lot of cases these days don't have space for a DVD drive - most games are downloaded, and a lot of people have their music and dvd collections digitised or buy new media digitally as well.