Dell PC’s

What?

Well, what it is, is he works for some company or other that is supplied by Dell, so he is building it, but out of dell parts, or something like that. And $600 is more or less a deal, he says. He says that is the cost of a pretty basic system, but can be built up some more with a little more cash. He's a respectable guy, I trust him to not jip me.

And he also says he can get me the 3D programs too. I don't know "how" he's gonna get them for me, or if it's gonna cost me, but I'm just telling it like he said it.

I anticipate on using the computer for basic school work, and will probably eventually use it for rendering and such. But I understand that won't be right away with a $600 computer, but I can upgrade as needed.

Edited by DeTrevni - 13 May 2007 at 11:42pm

Ask him for the specs of this PC, its possible it will be worth it.

Dell's sometimes or often have shoddy parts, plus they are very limited with what you can do with them to upgrade them, but the same can be said of any assembled computer. 

It should be noted if you plan on doing modeling as a career, the industry uses Maya and 3D Studio Max for the most part, so if your going to learn it, those are the best options.  The downside is they each cost a lot.

If hes simply going to be slapping dell parts together, I'd recommend you try to get a Processor, RAM and maybe a graphics card cheap from dell, then ask him to pick out a new motherboard and power supply from newegg or somewhere like that.  The dell motherboards will be your main limitation when you upgrade.

I personally think using Maya on a $600 computer would be annoying more than anything.

DeTrevni wrote: He said he can put in a Pentium processor in there. Well, I don't know how he's gonna "build" one for me. Maybe he's gonna get a basic Dell for cheap and upgrade it for me. I trust him to do it, I've seen a computer he built, it was pretty nice (as far as I know.) Another option, in case he is giving me some poo, is building my own. Problem is, I honestly don't have the slightest idea how. Any good way to learn about computers? Or should I just peruse Newegg and Tigerdirect for reviews? I have a general idea on how they work, but I'm not a tech wiz. Or just buying a prebuilt and learning to up it.

I tend to come from the mindset that you should learn how to build them yourself.  Its not terribly hard, but it will take a long time.  A great place to lurk for this stuff is ocforums.  They are very friendly and helpful over there. 

I have no idea how much you know about PCs, so I'd recommend you just read up on what the components are, then start reading up on brands and what each brand offers you.  Wikipedia is very helpful here.

Hopefully by the time your ready to build, you'll have saved up enough money to make a very nice rig.

I will say though that unless that dell is being sold to you for half what they'd charge, you'll have a hard time working with it.

Since the computer is primarily used for 3d rendering and simple work apps, I would suggest putting the most money towards the processor and memory. You can get by with a crappy video card or even integrated video (built into the motherboard) since 3d rendering is done by the processor. I just took a modeling class myself last semester using Blender (nice, free program to learn with) and upgrading to a dual-core processor was awesome for that. I used to have an athlon 64 3500+ and then I upgraded to an opteron 165 and overclocked the crap out of it. Since the opteron has 2 cores, it can literally render at twice the speed of the other chip at the same frequency when running multiple threads. Blender supports up to 8 threads and I'm sure Maya and 3D studio support at least 2. If that doesn't make much sense then think of a CPU with multiple cores as basically just multiple CPU's combined.

You could build a computer similar to the one I'm using right now for probably around $1000. Mine was made for gaming in addition to school work and 3d rendering so there is the added expense of video cards and such but you don't need that. If you want to make something cheap, I would look into the older AMD stuff (socket 939) or intel's LGA775. The last generation of AMD stuff is pretty cheap now since intel kicked the crap out of it with the Core2 line of chips but you can find those fairly cheap in some places too. I would price both and see what an intel system would cost compared to AMD. Look up benchmarks (performance tests) and reviews for the specific hardware you plan on buying too. I've been building computers for a few years now so if you have questions, feel free to ask. My email is vscuorzo@hotmail.com, i'll respond to an email sooner than a forum post since I may not see it. I have a terrible addiction to computer stuff so I don't mind answering a buttload of questions, even the noob ones .

My favorite computer hardware sites:

www.newegg.com

www.tigerdirect.com

www.zipzoomfly.com (prices may be slightly higher but there is no shipping charge, which usually makes up for it)

www.xoxide.com

One last thing, don't buy a pre-built unless you are really uncomfortable putting one together yourself. I got a Dell last year to use at school since I didn't have time to make one (and we got a school discount) but I ended up regretting it quite a bit. The thing worked fine but since I'm also into gaming, that thing just couldn't take what I was throwing at it. When I took a look inside to see what kind of upgrades I could get, I almost threw it at the wall. The computer industry has a lot of standards when it comes to hardware. For example, the motherboard almost always mounts on the right side of the case with the back panel and connectors at the top left corner of the board. Dell found it necessary to have foxconn make some retarted motherboard for them that reversed this, making the case basically useless unless you used that motherboard. To make things worse, the motherboard didn't let you overclock or really do much of anything. You might say that overclocking is no big deal but it can actually save you quite a bit of money and cut down render times significantly. My $180 opteron comes clocked at 1.8GHz out of the box and I got it to 2.6GHz, the same speed as the FX60 which goes for like $400. A lot of people with this chip got it over 3GHz too, making it even faster than the FX60.

Anyway, the point is, Dell likes to gimp their computers in terms of hardware because they don't want you to upgrade, they want you to buy a completely new one. I suggest you indirectly tell them to shove their backwards motherboards up their "butt" by making your own PC. Even if it's a tad more expensive, it will probably pay off in the long run when you're looking for a slight upgrade since you can reuse a lot of stuff.


Edited by mod98commando - 14 May 2007 at 2:34am

Crap. That was really helpful. Thanks. I may just have to drop you a line!

Well, here's that Socket 939 Mod98 was talking about.

And here's the AM2 that Darur was talking about.

I can afford both barebones, and I don't really know which way to go. Upgrading is good, and Darur said the AM2 was the best for that? Ugh. I have so much to learn...

I'm pretty sure we established that's what I was gonna do...

I see.