Seen allots of these but never in my range. Going to be saving up for a new computer (part by part if need be) and it’s going to take At lest 4 months just to save up $400. My need is to get a pretty reasonable computer up and running for Blender Only (gaming doesn’t matter) before Fall. It needs to handle cycles and better than my computer that just burned out (it was a Core2 quad, with a 1gb nvidia pcie 1.0 with 8GB of ddr3 ram). Any suggestion on the hardware I might need?
Note: have at lest 8gb in ddr3 ram, a hard drive, and a case to put it in. My only need is a CPU, mobo, Power supply, and a good graphic card. I know of Newegg, but I’ve been out of the loop in buying computer stuff for a while and haven’t a Clue on what is better vs what is Garbage.
If it’s for rendering only, I would suggest a professional GPU like a Winfast or a FirePro. Current gen integrated graphics isn’t a bad option either as rendering is more of a CPU task. If you spend your money on a new model Intel board, you may just be able to skip the GPU all together, or put it off until later. For Cycles though, you may have to get one with an N-Force chipset.
I’m using 8gb of 1333 and my system renders just fine; so you may be able to put off more RAM for a while.
Okay, got another question. What would be better, AMD or INTEL? I’ve heard INTEL is good but it’s was used for gaming. I’m planning on my computer to be just a Blender workstation only. Could I cut cost and just buy the AMD 8320 8 Core $140, or should I just save for the Intel i5 Quad Core 4570s $200? Sorry I’m so clueless, I basically want to buy what will met my needs as a Blender artist to excel in all I do. All I keep getting from the internet (outside of here) is what’s good for a gaming computer which doesn’t help me.
On a budget; I would say go with AMD. Believe it or not you can find them with N-Force chipsets. I have a an AM3+ board with one though it’s getting old.
You may want to check to see if you need Cuda cores for Cycles though. In that case a Winfast would be a good choice for discrete graphics. They are kind of pricey though.
I would look at both amazon and ebay if you are parting one together on a budget. Amazon occasionally has some very good deals on end of stock and used parts, And with e-bay its always a crap-shot.
I part together desktops as a sideline, And for the most part if you are willing to put in 30 minutes of search time a night you can find some very good deals often enough to put together a decent desktop in the 300 to 500 dollar price range. Sometimes significantly less.
And if you are just building a workstation for blender, You could do worse then to look at retired server hardware as well. But expect to put in a significant amount of learning time inorder to get those up and running. (and they are loud and hot as well ) But a retired dell poweredge r905 will price out for around 400 and can have upto 128 gig of ram at that price. Just keep in mind this is going into risktaking area.
Okay got up and running again with a new motherboard and Core i5 4460 CPU. Still have to get a good GPU (preferably the Geforce 750 Ti)
Did a test cycles render, just the CPU and got this.
Not bad at all. You may have to separate the hair along the hairline and place them very carefully to fix it. It’s hard to get slicked back hair to look right.
