I’ll concede to the idea that happiness doesn’t cost a thing, but I’d be lying if I told you the machine I’ve ordered hasn’t evoked huge excitement, more so than I care to admit.
After months of research and constant inquiries on a number of forums, I finally made the leap and ordered my PC.
What are the specs?
Case: CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ AIR 740 GAMING CASE – Tons of room for proper ventilation.
Custom Liquid Cooling Kit: Liquid Series High Kit – EK – Wanted the Extreme Kit but an extra Reservoir and pump meant less ventilation .. and more money.
Graphics Card Cooling: EK FC Nickel & Backplate – For Two Identical Graphics Cards! – EK appear to do some of the best liquid cooling parts. Plus, shit looks minimal. I like minimal.
Coolant Colour: Mayhems Pastel Red – I like this colour.
LED Lighting: 2x 50cm Red LED Strip – I like this colour a lot.
Overclocked CPU: Overclocked Intel® Ten Core i7-6950X (3.0GHz @ up to 4.3GHz) – I’ve spoken to more people about PC’s this month thant i hink I have done my entire life. Of those people, each one recommended this chip and to go for an overclocked CPU. I was initially looking into a twelve core with a lower clock count but I was persuaded by numorous ‘experts’ not to – that boost in speed will come in handy if CPU rendering is absolutly required.. Plus it ended up being a little cheaper too.
Motherboard Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming: ATX, LG2011-3, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, RGB Ready – No real reason to be honest, could of bought any.
Memory (RAM): 128GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (8 x 16GB) The biggest decision. 64 or 128 – since the idea is for this to be future proof, I took a leap. A huge f***** leap.
Graphics Card: 11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti – HDMI, 3x DP GeForce – GTX VR Ready! Due to my initial intentions, the GPU’s are the most important part of this machine. At 11GB, interactive rendering will actually be interactive!
2nd Graphics Card: 11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti – HDMI, 3x DP GeForce – GTX VR Ready! – Extra Interactivity!
1st Hard Disk: 250GB Samsung 850 2.5″ EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) SSD will improve the time of OS boot, software and file load times. Not a huge amount of space but it’s meant for just the OS and software. Plus, I always have the opportnity to upgrade.
2nd Hard Disk: 1TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 3.5″ SSHD – UP TO 5X FASTER THAN HDD! – I heard good things about the hybrid. 1TB is enough to store all my work onto along with any other software.
Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET – This thing is very hungry. This should be enough food.
Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND – We’ll see how cool this keeps things.
Extra Case Fans 2x 120mm Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans – Ended up not needing these so if you order a similar set up forget about these.
Sound Card: ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) – I have headphones.
Wireless/Wired Networking: WIRELESS 802.11 AC1300 867Mbps/5GHz, 400Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD – Nothing special. Should be more than adequate.
USB Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS – USB 3.0 was a must. The rest I guess are mandatory.
Operating System: Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence – They did’nt have Mac OSX.
Anti-Virus: BullGuard™ Internet Security – Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode – I’ll probably end up getting Norton after.
Monitor: ASUS 28″ Professional 4K PB287Q – Let’s see what all the hype is about.
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) – If I have problems I’d rather have the peice of mind that’ll get sorted.
Where did I get my PC from?
Having spent a large portion of time comparing sites, prices of parts and the considerations regarding whether I would build it myself, I found that PC Specialist was able to offer me the cheapest and most recently released components.
A month or two prior to rationalising this investment, I noticed a few sites beginning to change the components they had on offer; just when I thought I was ready to order I would go back on the site and a newer component would be available – I’m sure anyone serious about investing in a computer has or is doing their research but a little advice would be not to buy for it the first 3-6 months you’re looking. In my case it was a year but circumstances are each to their own.
Waiting game.
Now is the hardest part. During my time waiting I’ve been looking at the subscriptions fees and price lists for all the software I would like to install onto it. Saying that, I’m trying my best to approach things methodically; I intend on purchasing a new piece of software once I’ve produced enough work exclusively within that software (I have my eyes on Fusion 360) and spending a few months adjusting to that.
With all this new software in the CG industry, it’s going to be an interesting time adopting new and discarding redundant aspects to my workflows. That goes for everybody else too, so if you have any suggestions for some great content for Fusion 360 or anything for that matter, let me know.