PC for rendering, animation and games

[pingyao]

I'd value your opinion on the spec for this PC. I'm needing a new PC for architectural rendering, animation and the occasional game. I want a good work horse without spending an absolute fortune, which I know wouldn't be hard, but my limit is £1400. I'm going for 2x Nvidia Geforce GTX465 for added umphh! My main concern is whether the system has ample cooling. Is there a way to pay for extra fans? All advice welcome.

ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO - UK, The Ultimate Gaming Case, Evolved

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache

Motherboard ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM) 12GB SAMSUNG DDR3 TRI-DDR3 1333MHz (3 x 4GB)

Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX465 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11 + MAFIA II

2nd Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX465 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11 + MAFIA II

Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply & Case Cooling CORSAIR 850W PSU (TX850) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£99)

Processor Cooling COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)

Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT

USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Price (excluding VAT) £1,191.49
Price £1,400.00

 

[Sleinous]

V good choice on the 465s, more Cuda cores than the 460s. Consider upgrading the 1tb hdd to the wd10ears 64mb cached drive for £5 more. Instead of the 16mb cached version. Cooling shouldnt be a problem here!

 

[pingyao]

Thnx very much Sleinous. Good call on the hdd upgrade. I considered briefly an SSD too, until I saw the extra cost - gotta be realistic. Glad to know the cooling should be fine.

 

[Phoenix]

I'm pretty sure that 2xGTX465's will only benefit you in gaming so it would be a better idea to just get a better single graphics card for your rendering and animation. The antec 902 is a cool case so you don't need to worry about heat problems with it.

 

[PCS]

Based on your usage - "architectural rendering, animation and the occasional game" I assume you're mainly working in 2D? If this is the case I would recommend a system based around the Nvidia Quadro range of graphics cards. You can configure this type of system here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel3_ddr3/

Other than that - great spec, and the cooling will be more than sufficient!

 

[Sleinous]

I'm pretty sure that 2xGTX465's will only benefit you in gaming so it would be a better idea to just get a better single graphics card for your rendering and animation. The antec 902 is a cool case so you don't need to worry about heat problems with it.

and occasional game, not quite sure how heavy the gaming is that pingy intends to do. SLI may well be worth doing later on.

 

[neewhom]

For what you want to do, you definitely want an Nvidia card/s with as many cuda cores as you can afford so check out the cards specs and decide yourself based on budget. I'd do that myself but it's much more difficult with an iPhone

 

[Sleinous]

But not impossible I do 40% ish of my posts via iphone. Easy for admins to see as incoming ip is probably somewhere random as I dunno how cell towers deal with ips, or is it the mobile operator that assigns it? You get what I mean