It breaks down like this, I can spend $1600 for a great mid level rig or $4,000 on high end one. The $1600 computer is designed to last me 18 months and then I get a new one. The $4,000 rig will have to last 3-4 years at least to be worth it money wise. The second $1600 computer will be as fast or faster than the high end workstation from 18 months before.
I can tell you that a hand built (by you @ newegg) will not be THAT much slower than a $4,000 computer to begin with. More importantly, what is slower is ok to be slower. If you're doing particle/fluid simulations, or 3d rendering, then the slowness will cost you in time, which is just inconvienient not costing you money or frags. Small freelance gigs will be manageable with the newish proc and won't be significantly slower.
The difference will be ram size and proc count, not ram or proc speed as much, esp if you get into even minor overclocking. The sad truth is hardware depreciates to "nothing" so fast whatever you spend on a computer is money being slowly thrown away. Keep it at midlevel and keep it fresh, and you'll be fast and always up to date with the most bang for your buck.
I'll end on this story. My friend got a $4,000 workstation at the same time I got my $1600 one. His was 8 core (2 quad @ $1500 each) His computer is fast and so is mine. One night his one proc burned out due to a cpu fan lock up. He didn't have a warentee and didn't buy a whole system from a company like Dell, totally his responsibility. He couldn't afford another $1500 proc and the other didn't work with just one. He had to buy 2 new procs at a lower speed in order to get back up and running. Another reason to buy a computer where any fail component is easily replaced.
EDIT/UPDATE:
newegg.com sponsors a build of the month ($1500) for CPU magazine. A great reference for what to get in the ever changing DIY Computer build.
6 comments:
Each time what's the most bang for your buck will be different. Each person will have components they want to promote to their new rig giving different amount of funds to be placed elsewhere.
Dual to quad SLR is cool and also easily upgradeable when the price drops on your original card. I have 1 graphics card currently.
And when you only spend $1600, there is lots of money left to buy your wife expensive shoes and jewelry ;)
After 4 years I just upgraded... I usually spent 1k for a system but this time I spent 2300... And this is what it may sense to me: the least expensive i920 over clocked from 2.8 to 3.6, 8 threads, 4 cores, solid state hard drive, 12 GB ram... almost as good as the i950 not too shabby compared to the i975... Amazingly fast, faster than the 2 quad core 3.2 boxx at work, great gamer card, blue ray burner... done for a few years... $ 100 left for my wife's expensive shoes ;)
Jimmy,
yeah not bad. I might get a blue ray drive too. Solid State seems too pricey for me still. It would be the next upgrade I'm still waiting on the prices to come down. But drop those two things off and you're close to what I was sayin'.
Hello David,
I just read this post. I would like to buy a computer, but I don't have any idea how to. I think I have to look in three main thinks, proc, video card and ram. I want to buy a computer for fx animation. I have 1500 dlls. could you give me a hint?.. I was looking inside DELL site.
Thanks in advance.
Humberto sounds like you might not want to build your own computer like I did. Yeah Dell is good, most companies have a deal that will work in that price range. Look for Core i7 and at least 4 gigs of ram and you'll be happy with it.
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