Building a 3-D animation rig ($1,200)

[kamita]

Ok, so firstly I'm not sure if this is the place to post this, so if it's not or my time would be best spent looking elsewhere feel free to let me know or point me in said direction (thanks)

I've got a friend who does some real 3-D animation work, he's made a little money doing this already through a friend of a friend. His old computer was some EDITED FOR LANGUAGE Compaq from a couple of years ago which if anything barely works at all for his needs. He would like me to build for him a rig that can run the top of the line programs like 3-D Max, Maya, Z Brush, and Photoshop Premiere, as well as other editing suites.

Our budget is $1,200 with a little room to nudge either way. The important function of this computer is to let him work smoothly with his editing, the secondary functions of this computer are for gaming/entertainment but that's really only the last priority. This is really a no frills work computer. I'd like to save as much money on the small things, I.E. case, CD/DVD drive.

My questions are really I suppose are that we need a quad core processor if at all possible, but the real question is what is the recommended Video Card for this rig... Are there some cards that are more efficient for this type of work load?


I'd dearly love all full rig suggestions, with explanations so that I may pick more wisely the best setup for our pricing and needs.

Thank you all very much, my friend thanks you also he is very committed to this.

Despite your post count, you've been a registered member here for over 3 years. That's plenty of time to have learned and understood our profanity policy - it is not acceptable.

Jon
Forum Moderator

 

[Ben333]

there are some workstation cards for this purpose like the nvidia quadro (?)... Madagascar was rendered on an amd opteron (says the ending credits )

 

[Ben333]

This isn't too related... but a fun fact: For the movie Toy Story, Pixar steup a cluster of 117 SPARCstation 20s for rendering

 

[White_Pawn]

first question, will you be overclocking?

Q6600
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4 gigs of cruicial ballistix ddr-800 (just get two sets of 2 x 1 kits.)
graphics card is your choice... If you want to fork out the money for a 8800GTS, that'd be your choice. Otherwise, something like a x1950pro will be fine.
for psu, i'd say atleast the corsair 520HX, stepping up to the 620HX would be a good choice imo.
Cooling: i'd say go get yourself a ultra-120-x to cool the quad core.
case, just pick w/e.
For hardrives, i'd say just pick up a 500gig seagate 7200.10 drive, and if you need more space, just grab another one. The 750gig drives are way too expensive.

 

[Elluzion]

Look in my sig, I think I have a pretty good rig put together, and it is around $1200 or so. But things can be modified.

 

[AtomicMonkey]

first question, will you be overclocking?

Q6600
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4 gigs of cruicial ballistix ddr-800 (just get two sets of 2 x 1 kits.)
graphics card is your choice... If you want to fork out the money for a 8800GTS, that'd be your choice. Otherwise, something like a x1950pro will be fine.
for psu, i'd say atleast the corsair 520HX, stepping up to the 620HX would be a good choice imo.
Cooling: i'd say go get yourself a ultra-120-x to cool the quad core.
case, just pick w/e.
For hardrives, i'd say just pick up a 500gig seagate 7200.10 drive, and if you need more space, just grab another one. The 750gig drives are way too expensive.

That would be my pick as well. I would definitely not waste money on an 8800 as it will give you no gains for what he needs workwise over say 7800/7900 which is ok for games even.

If your buddy is used to doing things on a craptastic Compaq this setup would just blow him away.

 

[batboy]

Quad core is preferable for this work if it will fit in the budget. Personally, I think the Abit IP35 or Asus P5K is a better choice for motherboard. Don't skimp on PSU, get a Corsair 520HX or 620HX (the 520HX is $81 after rebate at ClubIT). Either Ballistix or G. Skill (CAS4) RAM will work fine. If this is not going to be overclocked much, just get the cheaper CAS4 G. Skill. If you run 4 gig of RAM, that means getting Vista or XP 64. Don't need the best gaming vid card for this project, so a X1950 as suggested would be fine. If you want to use DirectX10, then maybe the 8600.

 

[splat]

yes, he will benefit from the quad core when rendering. When modeling, he will benefit from a professional workstation card like the ATI FireGL or Nvidia Quadro. You might want to look at Boxx Computers http://www.boxxtech.com/ and use those as a guideline for building your own.

 

[thegreek]

4 x seagate 250GB drives in RAID0 on the Intel Matrix would also give a huge boost in handling large work files and they only cost like $70 each

 

[attack]

4 x seagate 250GB drives in RAID0 on the Intel Matrix would also give a huge boost in handling large work files and they only cost like $70 each

I'd recommend against this. Although it is very important to access data fast, it's more important to be able to access it at all!
4 disks in RAID 0, on an onboard RAID controller is a recipe for dissaster. If the mobo, chipset, controller, or even 1 drive fails, your done. If CPU dies or OS craps you can't simply the take the drive out and put it in any other computer and get the data you need.

Stick with RAID1 or no RAID unless he can afford to lose the data.
One is none.

 

[White_Pawn]

how about raid 5? I've heard that gives you a slight performance increase.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

I'd recommend against this. Although it is very important to access data fast, it's more important to be able to access it at all!
4 disks in RAID 0, on an onboard RAID controller is a recipe for dissaster. If the mobo, chipset, controller, or even 1 drive fails, your done. If CPU dies or OS craps you can't simply the take the drive out and put it in any other computer and get the data you need.

Stick with RAID1 or no RAID unless he can afford to lose the data.
One is none.

Intels Ch9 raid controller is one of the best out there today, and raid 0 makes perfect sense as a "working" drive, not something to save on, but as a fast working drive which would help alot, but i would go with a 2 drive raid 0 and possible a raid 1 if you can do 2 raid arrays on the CH9.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

how about raid 5? I've heard that gives you a slight performance increase.

Raid 5 is good but write speeds are slower and access times increase due to the way raid 5 works, raid 5 is more ideal as s storage drive.

 

[attack]

It is a great controller, but it's still onboard which is a limitation. I do agree it's a nice working drive, but putting 4 together is a bad idea IMO. A 2 drive RAID 0 that you can afford to lose or backup is the way to go.

RAID 5 is very expensive and definetly not the best choice for most individual users. A good controller will run you 300, and speeds are better than RAID 1 but not near as good as 0. Your almost always better off with a RAID 1/0 or RAID 0 and backing up the important RAID 0.

 

[thegreek]

you make it sound like drives fail often, maybe a few years ago but now it's getting better and better

 

[kamita]

Oh crap... I'm sorry. I had no realization whatsoever that I used inappropriate language . It was late for me when I posted this and after reading it twice I still didn't pick up on it. I sincerely apologize.

Aside from that all of the feedback so far has been tremendous and I think I may go very close to White Pawns suggestions as well as Elluzion's similar build. My main concerns have been addressed and I can take this information on and make better decisions.

Thanks!

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

true, how often have people had their harddrives fail? 3 years ago i had samsung and seagate drives dieing every other day, for about 2 years now i have not had a single drive in our office die or go bad that i have bought... i have drivers from 5 years ago acting up, but all my newer drives (2 years or newer) havent had any issues.

 

[-maddog-]

The question is are you doing some serious 3d work or minor stuff(ie: are you going to need 64bit and 8gb+ ram). Also, is the rendering going to be handled by this computer partially, completely, or not at all?

 

[kamita]

Ok so I've got a list of parts and we're going to start ordering some of them tonight/tommorow. Please let me know what you guys think.

Case http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817139001
PSU http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128050
Processor (Oc'd to 3.1)http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115017
Mobo http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128050
4 Gigs http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820146565
HD http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148136
DVD ROM http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827151153

One of my real questions is what's the best video card for a setup like this, I'm right on the line for my budget right now, with around $150 for a regular card, and I've picked this http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814130274

I'm not too sure how I feel about the card, there'll be almost no gaming on the rig, and -maddog- there will be an almost daily workload done on this rig with animation software. Mostly 3-D models, but there will be little to no rendering on this system. We're mostly just looking for streamlined use, no hiccups, and being able to run multiple programs at once.


Also what's the recommended OS?

Thanks again.

 

[kamita]

Also Tom's hardware had a write up on a midrange budget pc, which was something like

Current Mid-Priced PC Component Cost
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 $280
CPU Cooler Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme $65
CPU Fan Scythe S-Flex SFF21F $15
Motherboard MSI P6N SLI Platinum $140
RAM PDP Patriot PC2-6400 PDC22G6400LLK $110
Graphics XXXEVGA GeForce 8800GTX PN: 768-P2-N831-AR $520XXX
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS $155
Case SILVERSTONE TEMJIN SST-TJ02SW $100
Power AeroCool ZERODBA-S620 $125
DVD-RW Sony NEC Optiarc 7170 SATA $35

This sounds very similar and doable for us as well minus the GTX for a sub $200 card, and switch PSU's/HD's, I guess the query is about the ram and Mobo.
Thoughts?