New config help

[Bajablo]

RenCutypoison said:

Bajablo said:

RenCutypoison said:

So, my gf is a computer graphic designer in last year of school. She has a shitload of money and she doesn't know what to do with it so she wants her first desktop.

She has something like 1000 $ to put in it but has no idea what to buy. I can help her a little but I'm no expert in big configs.

The main question is for the GPU actually, though any help is welcome. AMD vs Nvidia has been discussed over and over, but as far as gaming PC were concerned. As Nvidia's main advantage are the drivers, mostly for gaming, wouldn't AMD take the upper hand for a 3D artist PC ?

The only thing you don't describe though.. and it is the most important part.

what does your GF want to run on the machine, program + version. does she run several of them at the same time? that needs to be taken into account too.

so give us some more info and you can expect some thought-out answers :)

A typical use would be Maya + Photoshop, on dual screen, working in real time on high res textures. But now she also started working on vg and I'm not sure (she doesn't know yet either) what she will use.

So she needs a good amount of RAM or that, more than you would need on a typical gamer PC (most games be fine with 4-6GB), and of course high end CPU and GPU.

RAM is cheap nowdays.. go for a 2x8GB or 2x16GB pack (i use 2x16GB in my rig, with slots for 2more)
16GB should keep Swapping to a minimum even with large files & multiple programs etc., DO get a SSD for OS & programs atleast, 120GB is the bare minimum but nowdays i wouldn't settle for less than a 250GB drive, samsungs 840 drives are superb in terms of price per GB/performance

If you think about GPU, i don't think you need to go THAT high end if you arn't going to do some insane rendering tasks.. used as a 3d modeling program you probably only want to keep the VRAM on the board high, 2-3GB should keep you without needing to swap even if you work with lots of textures with high resolution.
the circuit is probably less important to be honest because (I'm guessing now) she won't be modeling some ultra-highpolygon models with 2GB of textures on a detailed enviroment all at once. So i'd go from midrange->lower enthusiast models of GPU's that still hold up in the VRAM department, Swapping is what makes stuff feel sluggish.

In terms of prioritys i'd say:
SSD->RAM->VRAM for the responsiveness of the system, SSD for making loading go quick, RAM to keep the need for swapping when the programs are loaded to a bare minimum (the harddrive is still the bottleneck of the system)

As for CPU, an i5 - i7 cpu of the latest / last gen depending on how much of the budget that is left with a corresponding motherboard (CPU & RAM is more important for photoshop almost no photoshop plugins/addons run on the GPU, a thing to remember), check the RAM compability in the manual of the board though, if you want to be sure that it is going to work you usually have a list of certified modules in certan configs in the manual (there are times when 2 modules work, but when you go up to 4 you have problems, if you have alot of those notices in the manual, look for anothter motherboard)

uhm.. so.. yeah.. thats my thoughts.

just some background on me:
I work as a IT consultant (SMB to Enterprise) and have been building computers for friends and family since i was about 11..(28 now) worked with some media companies with picking out hardware for their workstations, though they did advanced rendering work so we had multi-gpu setups for them instead of more towards RAM & CPU.
Looking on how you describe what she is going to do i'd say you should lean more towards CPU/RAM than on the GPU.