Serious candidate to my next system

[PAQUITO]

While expecting a nice incoming of money in a few days (I hope), this baby is by now a serious candidate to be placed on my desktop. What do you guys think about the specs/price balance?

[rappet]

What is the mobo, can you add another card later?
and do you got graphic card onboard?
Have you thought about an extra ssd harddisk?
Maybe 16 memory ram is not enough.
Greetz,

[FrankPooleFloating]

Hey pal - I really think this is a mistake... That is $2,910US!

Remember this:

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30863

You could almost build two of these + one 690 for the same price. Seriously, you look like an
intelligent fellow.. I am sure that you would be able to build a non-custom-water pc in less
than a couple hours - regardless of how much experience you have. We will be here to help
you bro!.. We can help you with anything from how much thermal grease to apply.. to where
to stick your fans. Please consider (again) building this yourself. Or maybe find a pc modder
locally to build you a custom workstation. You can have top-shelf components and future-
proof your workstation, way more, for far less.

And if there is one single proprietary item in that entire system, I would say no... No. No. No.

And 875W!!!... that can't be correct.. you aren't seriously getting less than 1200W, are you?
I think 875W would be the absolute minimum for a 690 and one other card.. maybe...

Shit, you could get the system I outlined for you + a Titan... and still keep some moolah in
your pocket!

And I just saw a used Titan go for $860 on eBay today... could save a couple hundred more
going that route...

Edit: But, time IS money. If you don't have spare time at all, that does change things. But I
think that no matter what, you should get nothing less than something that will accommodate
3 or 4 double-slot GPUs. And nothing shy of 1200 watts. Period. Most everyone here will agree.

[PAQUITO]

Well, honestly, I have less tha a very little idea on building systems, I heard of that Alien comps and they looked fine to me. I saw the link you posted, and I must confess I had that thread very ignored, didn´t notice I had responses

Seeing that, I think you are right, I´m gonna go for custom built system based on that specs.

Thanks so much for saving from my ignorance (and save me money, lol)

[badmilk69]

Wait for Nvidia 780 (aka Titan LE)!

[FrankPooleFloating]

Paq - I suggested that mobo because it is supposedly pretty solid... yes, it only
takes 3 double-slot GPUs. But you can save a lot of dough by going with an AMD
based mb. Unfortunately, there are not many that accommodate 4 GPUs. But in my
opinion, the savings are worth it, if, like myself, you are unlikely to ever see yourself
with more than 3 Titans in the beast. And that AMD FX-8350 would be fine for voxing
or occasional CPU rendering.. and even AE, PS etc. It is nothing to be ashamed of.
And it sounds like the vast majority of your rendering will be GPU rendering...

But there are other mobos. There are other cases.. power supplies.. but the ones
I list have been looked into and considered very carefully. They all have high marks
on Amazon and NewEgg.

That NZXT case comes highly recommended on OverClockers.net. Great value for
$150 or so - and is great for air or water. And it supports E-ATX / XL-ATX mobos.
But if you want something really, really nice, go for a CoolerMaster Comos II case.
Perhaps the Rolls Royce of cases? Or maybe Corsair 900D, which should be available
in mere days.

Anyone else have suggestions? Disagree with my suggestions?... Let's help
this bro!

[glimpse]

paquito, drop a line with Your budget, needs & guys here surelly help You to get balanced rig =) to asemble a piece is a piece of cake, just like building from lego =) so don't worry - You'll handle this easily!

cheers.

as for the ri in a picture..690 is a waste of mone compared to titan, if You take titan then 16gb of ram is to little, etc..

[PAQUITO]

Mmmm... doubts and more doubts. A gtx690 is not worthy? I have read somewhere that they perform better than a Titan. My general idea is to base my system in the best GPU I can use. I´m not afraid to spend 1000€ in a graphics card, but I want the best choice for Octane. Which one will be then?

The other thing is about the RAM. You say 16 GBs is not enough for a 690, but how comes RAM depends on GPU?

If this info is worthy, my main work base are interiors, generally not too heavy scenes, and with not much GPU load (I nearly always work with the AO shader)

[FrankPooleFloating]

Another thing Paq - rather than handing off your (still boxed) parts to this
dude you know - and him bringing your new pc back the next day - why don't
you get a 12-pack and a pizza (or wine and cheese, if that is your thing) and
you blokes slap this bad-boy together some night.

Building your own pc/workstation is nothing to be boasting about, or any
kind of big deal. However, building your workstation (under his supervision) will
bring not only a little bit of pride, but more importantly, you will know your
workstation intimately... inside and out. That is nice knowledge to have.

Something to consider.

[Leonardo]

Hola Paquito

I agree with the lads, building your own makes much more sense (in pure financial terms) once you go beyond the €1000 price tag. It's not rocket science, especially if you have somebody supervising you, and a box of Mahou
Dell/Alienware will give you a 2 year warranty on the whole system I think, but many of their components (motherboard, power supply, etc.) are absolute crap and WILL fail. If you assemble your own and something goes wrong, it may not be that obvious to identify, but once you got it, components have much better warranties (e.g. Corsair PSUs have 7 years, EVGA have lifetime warranties, some SSDs have 5 years....)
Another VERY important factor to keep in mind is that, while you have now a €2K budget, maybe in a few months you land another job and get another €1000 to spend, so you want room to expand - i.e. add more graphic cards, more RAM etc. Pre-made PCs are very difficult to upgrade, possibly don't have expansion slots, not to mention that doing so voids all warranty automatically.

For me it's a no brainer - make your own. We'll be very happy to help!

My suggestion is going for a motherboard based on a Z77 chipset or similar, which will allow you to unlock the integrated graphics of the CPU, drive the monitor with it, and dedicate the TITAN solely to octane render. Make sure the motherboard has at least 3 slots for big graphic cards - don't be afraid to spend €200 or more on it.
Also, a power supply of 750W or more, at least 1kW if you want headroom for a second graphics card. That's another €200.
SSD 128Gb (enough I think) €100, Hard drive as secondary storage + optical drive €100
Processor i5 (with K suffix to overclock) €200
TITAN €1000
16Gb RAM €100 (2x 8Gb sticks, you can another 2 later)
Case and fans €100
Windows 7 retail version (windows 8 is a torture) €100

This makes all €2000, but the numbers are just approximate