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So, having in mind to get a decent system, I have the choice of assembling it by myself, or else get one of those pre-built beasts. Then my question is: What would be the best choice? Is it worth to get a pre-built machine or is it better to assembly from spare parts? What about the different pre-builts machines? Alienware or CoolMod? Any other good brand appart from those two that can give a decent Octane-friendly machine?

If you can build it yourself, definitely do that.
With pre made machines, they add a lot of things you wont need for your Octane machine AND charge a large fee for putting it together.
What you should do, is go on Alien Wares website, and make the best Octane machine there, then put the same machine together on like Tiger direct or something like that and see the cost difference.

I don't trust Tiger Direct to be honest so I would look at some other site. If you're in Canada I would recommend Canada Computers or if you're in the US New Egg is pretty good too. But looking at your location just now under your avatar I just realized you're in Spain so I'm not sure what a good company would be for you.

but overall, building it yourself will always be the best option, you only get what you need, and you maximize what's important for your work.

Here is a nice start on an AMD system - if you would like to save some money, but still have a pretty nice beast.
The following list does not include GPU's or HDs - and would be limited to 3 GPU's if you were not using any PCI-E risers.
Some of this is going in my next build. (prices are from Amazon in US dollars)

NZXT Technologies Switch 810 Matte Black Full Tower Chassis with USB 3.0 - NZXT Technologies -- $153.35

Corsair Professional Series AX 1200 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (AX1200)- Corsair -- $279.99

ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - Asus -- $179.99

AMD FX-8350 FX-Series Eight-Core Processor Edition, Black AM3 FD8350FRHKBOX - AMD -- $194.15

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866 MHZ (PC3 15000) - x2 = $142

Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition x4 = $50 (approx)

Corsair Air Series SP120 Quiet Edition x4 = $50 (approx)

Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CWCH80)- Corsair -- $134.68


Edit: after some thought, I yanked the Closed Loop Coolers for GPU's stuff and am going to start a new
thread specifically about that. I figure that might be more info than was called for here...

Thanks so much for the info. I have a friend working on this kind of assemblies, so I will catch him to build me an affordable Octane machine. Will keep you informed

EDIT: By the way, how important is CPU power for an Octane build? Is an i7 really worth? Isn´t it better to invest in GPU power and Vram? You can check the specs of my comp in my signature, and it runs fine in my day to day work. Will I really benefit from a big leap in CPU?

PAQUITO wrote:Thanks so much for the info. I have a friend working on this kind of assemblies, so I will catch him to build me an affordable Octane machine. Will keep you informed

EDIT: By the way, how important is CPU power for an Octane build? Is an i7 really worth? Isn´t it better to invest in GPU power and Vram? You can check the specs of my comp in my signature, and it runs fine in my day to day work. Will I really benefit from a big leap in CPU?

CPU is important for loading the geometry onto the graphics cards. This becomes especially important for animations.

BKEicholtz wrote:

PAQUITO wrote:Thanks so much for the info. I have a friend working on this kind of assemblies, so I will catch him to build me an affordable Octane machine. Will keep you informed

EDIT: By the way, how important is CPU power for an Octane build? Is an i7 really worth? Isn´t it better to invest in GPU power and Vram? You can check the specs of my comp in my signature, and it runs fine in my day to day work. Will I really benefit from a big leap in CPU?

CPU is important for loading the geometry onto the graphics cards. This becomes especially important for animations.

OC'ed i5 (like 3570k) is more than enough - You can run it stable at 4,5ghz on air without any problems. for ~200€ there's no better deal, pluss system based on z77 are cheaper compared to x79 =) - some thoughs from me.

cheers

Just like you guys said, my friend told me he could build a pretty decent beast like I want for about 1,500€.

ping for reference