My brother needs a strong desktop

[Ramsey]

school me, here is what he thought would be good.

 

Operating system - Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit) edit

Processor - Intel® Core i7-940 processor (2.93GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache

with QPI Technology) edit

Memory - 12GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [6x2048] edit

Hard drive - FREE UPGRADE! 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 500GB edit

Graphics card - 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters] edit

Primary optical drive - LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive edit

Networking Integrated - 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) Ethernet, No wireless LAN edit

Sound Card Integrated - 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports edit

Front Productivity Ports - 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio edit

TV & entertainment experience - No TV Tuner w/remote control edit

Speakers - No speakers edit

Keyboard and Mouse - HP wireless keyboard and HP wireless optical mouse edit

Productivity software - Microsoft® Works 9.0 edit

Security software - Norton 360(TM ) - 15 month edit

Your additional options:

Click edit to modify. NOTE: These items are in stock and will ship immediately.

Monitor HP 2159m 21.5-inch 16:9 Full HD Widescreen Monitor

 

hp quoted him 1950, can you beat it? recomend something better?

 

He needs it for school. He will running CAD and other arch programs, along with large photo software and his big problems now are his rendering times.

[justinwebb]

im sure you might be able to piece it together for a little less yourself, I didnt take the time to look up it but I'm sure it would be less.

[87GT]

Quad core processor gets my vote. If you bought each piece separately and built it then it would cost a lot cheaper. But you wouldn't have a warranty this way. How much cheaper? I don't know go to http://www.pricewatch.com and figure out the price of each piece and add it up yourself. Trust me if you can take apart an engine you can build a PC from scratch.

[Ramsey]

What size power supply would he need?

[datsunissan28]

Quad core processor gets my vote. If you bought each piece separately and built it then it would cost a lot cheaper. But you wouldn't have a warranty this way. How much cheaper? I don't know go to http://www.pricewatch.com and figure out the price of each piece and add it up yourself. Trust me if you can take apart an engine you can build a PC from scratch.

 

Look into what other architectural software he is using. I know autodesk revit and navisworks only use one processor (found this out after a company I worked for thought went out and bought an expensive quad core (2-3 years ago) and found out it only utilized one processor.

[87GT]

Look into what other architectural software he is using. I know autodesk revit and navisworks only use one processor (found this out after a company I worked for thought went out and bought an expensive quad core (2-3 years ago) and found out it only utilized one processor.

 

Yes but according to the original post he is also using photo software (photochop maybe) with the problem being large rendering times. Having the highest end processor helps with render times for sure.

[justinwebb]

I am sure here soon now that the multi core processors are getting to be vastly popular more and more stuff will be coded to use how ever many cores there are, so better to have them now then to build then have to upgrade shortly down the road.

[87GT]

What size power supply would he need?

 

With a PCIe video card like that I honestly wouldn't use anything lower then 600 watts. I have a video card that is similar and I am running 600 watts.

[Ramsey]

He will be using autodesk and revit. Let me check on the photo stuff, i know he uses shop but he may use more.

[Ramsey]

he just sent me:

 

all autodesks,all revits, 3d max,maya, rhino, all of adobe, office, kirkatheya, google earth, ecotech,

[jerrodh]

If your wanting to save some money is 12gigs of ddr3 really needed? I'm sure 6gigs is plunty. Also as for the dvd-drive he could down grade from the lighscribe drive and buy a sharpie marker and probably save $25 or so.

 

Also definitly tell him to buy as much software, hardware like his monitor and keyboard/mouse from newegg.com or somewhere else. Their ship seperately anyway so he might as well buy them seperately and save some coin.

 

I'm building a high-end gaming rig and have heard great things about the coolmaster 850watt PSU, for running quad-sli rigs. Its reasonably priced and has great reviews and you dont want to cut your rig short on power. Also with that processor you may want to run a coolmaster V8 processor cooler.

[Ramsey]

I just talked to him. He is leaning building his own. He wants the 12 gigs and the i7940 and everything based arround that. I need to know what motherboard to use with it. lightscribe is not needed, either is the norton or works.

 

I really just need to know what motherboard, fans,power/case, and video card.

[justinwebb]

I have always used ASUS as all my motherboards never had one problem with them. Antec cases usually seem to be the most popular and have really good cooling. As for the power supply you can search Google for a power supply calculator, you type in what components you have and it will tell you what it will use at peak then you just get a bit larger than that for extra stuff.

[Miller]

2 gigs could run those programs, 6 would be monstrous. He could save some $$$ by cutting back the ram.

[justinwebb]

the extra RAM will help in rendering in CAD and such my brother has a mac book pro and is an engineering student and i want to say he has 6 or 8 gigs and its not enough for fast rendering of CAD stuff

[Miller]

Weird, cad at my high school ran on the computers we had (ok not great). And, well, those were garbage.

[Ramsey]

kirkatheya uses everybit of his 4gigs he has now and it can take up to a day to do renders.

[Ramsey]

Here are some of his renderings.

 

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs028.snc1/3167_663414515040_20916794_38611195_2164305_n.jpg

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs028.snc1/3167_663414530010_20916794_38611198_5713988_n.jpg

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs028.snc1/3167_663414544980_20916794_38611201_6839572_n.jpg

[Ramsey]

Can hold about 5,000lbs.

 

http://www.concretenetwork.com/photo-gallery/images/400x400Max/concrete-furniture_33/concrete-filing-cabinet-j-m-lifestyles_3980.jpg

http://www.concretenetwork.com/photo-gallery/images/400x400Max/concrete-furniture_33/concrete-desk-concrete-shelves-j-m-lifestyles_3979.jpg

 

Thank you. I will foward this on.

[datsunissan28]

Yes but according to the original post he is also using photo software (photochop maybe) with the problem being large rendering times. Having the highest end processor helps with render times for sure.

 

He will be using autodesk and revit. Let me check on the photo stuff, i know he uses shop but he may use more.

 

 

Revit has its own rendering software built in. I know autodesk was starting to use multiple core processors for its rendering at least.

Revit is a pretty cool program you can run the lighting, natural and artificial, through an entire day for any day of the year and in location on earth.

 

Weird, cad at my high school ran on the computers we had (ok not great). And, well, those were garbage.

 

CAD is primarily 2D whereas the whole point of

 

Autodesk Revit uses a ton of RAM, especially on larger structures like the ones you are showing. When I was using that software I had 8gigs and wish I could of had more.

 

Where is he going to school for architecture? I went to OSU for construction management and just picked these programs up during internships and would have loved some more formal instruction on Revit. Also he might want to grab Studio 3Ds Max as more places in real life seem to use that as well. (Nevermind I see that Autodesk now owns that as well)

[datsunissan28]

kirkatheya uses everybit of his 4gigs he has now and it can take up to a day to do renders.

 

That was the most frustrating part of my internship is that I would have to leave the computer to render overnight, just to find out the power went out, the program crashed or something else that would waste hours upon hours.

[Ramsey]

Revit has its own rendering software built in. I know autodesk was starting to use multiple core processors for its rendering at least.

Revit is a pretty cool program you can run the lighting, natural and artificial, through an entire day for any day of the year and in location on earth.

 

 

 

CAD is primarily 2D whereas the whole point of

 

Autodesk Revit uses a ton of RAM, especially on larger structures like the ones you are showing. When I was using that software I had 8gigs and wish I could of had more.

 

Where is he going to school for architecture? I went to OSU for construction management and just picked these programs up during internships and would have loved some more formal instruction on Revit. Also he might want to grab Studio 3Ds Max as more places in real life seem to use that as well. (Nevermind I see that Autodesk now owns that as well)

 

He is entering his 5th year at BG. He wasted the first year on business law.

 

That was the most frustrating part of my internship is that I would have to leave the computer to render overnight, just to find out the power went out, the program crashed or something else that would waste hours upon hours.

 

Pretty much why he wants the best that he can afford.

[morabu]

your brother could save a pretty penny this week

MicroCenter is selling the Core i7 920 for only $199

that's $150 off MSRP only good thru the 22nd

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0302727

[unfunnyryan]

I'd see if any of the programs hes using takes advantage of CUDA or a Quadro card.. It might be worth investing in one of those.

[Nitrousbird]

your brother could save a pretty penny this week

MicroCenter is selling the Core i7 920 for only $199

that's $150 off MSRP only good thru the 22nd

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0302727

 

This is like the 3rd time I have seen them list the 920 for that price...I am willing to bet it will be listed that price again some time next month.