It’s time for me to upgrade to a better PC but i am unsure what are the best options. For now i know GPU rendering is better than CPU, though at times only CPU is possible. Nvidia cards are better than ATI but driver support is coming. Intel CPU are better than AMD especially in the high end department.
Currently i am thinking of such a build (i dont really have money for a better)(searching for better 2nd hand parts like gpu and cpu)
intel i5-4460
nvidia GTX960 2gb
8gb ram (or more, at least ram is cheap)
unsure of best chipset
Could someone give an opinion on how is it. Would the 2gb vram and i5 series be enough. Another option would be 2 GPUs in parallel (could of taken 2x770 but missed my chance). Would be great if someone sheds some light on whats a good bang for the buck CPU (maybe older 3000 series).
Any help is appreciated.
Edit: I have found 2nd hand gtx titan 6gb for about 300dollars, worth id say?
Has this Titan competed in some Open Arena battle :D? If i compare today’s price and had a slightest chance to get one in working condition i wouldn’t think twice.
I don’t think you’ll be disappointed having this piece of hardware in your rig.
8 Gig RAM for starters is fine, i’d suggest 2x though.
If you’re not limited in financial resources, Intel Xeons are told to be ‘super fast’. Price? Same link suggested $2236 each yesterday, mainboard for two - around $500 ;).
Well donno about the titan, a friend is concerned it might have been a bitcoin miner, but some sources say the constant temp is better compared to gaming set ups where temps go up and down. The price is kinda fishy and low but still impressive. There is a gtx770 for about 220$ and sounds like a cheaper safe bet and is twin frozr cooling instead of cyclone like the titan.
RAM is always nice to have and i probably will start off with 8 but if i have an extra buck would get 16.
Ahh the Xeons, legendary performance and freakishly high prices. Those 12-18core xeons are damn epic but sadly cost more than i can spend for the whole rig :D. Currently god my eye set on a i5-4670 again 2nd hand for cheap.
But there is a slight dilemma, since i cant render everything with the GPU somethings require CPU render. Would it be better to get some higher end cpu with a cheapo GPU vs average cpu + gpu.
Just to note I am a student and finances here in Bulgaria are a bit more difficult.
It’s true that constant temp is better rather than up’n downs. Might be that somebody got bored mining but price is still as you say - fishy.
Then again, i think there is a reason why 770 cost 1/2 of 4 Gig 980 (even considering only 3.5Gig useable).
There’s even GTX 960 4 Gblisted $240.
Finances are issue here also - one of the reasons i choose AMD CPUs for my builds. Another was upgrade-ability. Intel did set me back 1/2 year after i chose it’s flagship time ago - they decided to simply cancel the branch. With amd i so far had much bigger flexibility.
Not trying to convince you into, though.
For the one time huge CPU renders you could consider cloud rendering - tech is there and price is reasonable especially if you have some return.
3.5 Gb VRAM on your PC could handle quite a lot.
Well amd are a bit more flexible since they don’t update their architecture as often as intel, but intel has a much higher IPC (instructions per cycle) so the many cores of an AMD aren’t better in many cases. Of course i would pick a new CPU if won’t upgradability but i think if i will id try to transition directly into skylake architecture which is said to be highly customized for Windows 10.
The GTX960 4gb version looks very nice but the bandwith is rather low. Nice consideration though.