Regarding Game Design and using UDK 12-2011 version best computer setup

[gmoney93079]

So I'm thinking of building my own getting an Asus motherboard Motherboards P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Intel i7 quad core
The Best Nvidia card?
Dual monitors?
Awesome power supply
24gbRAM at least
1-2TB Hardrive
Dvd/CD Rw drive

This is my idea, so far, I'm not sure what I really can get with 2k, since it will be my first time building my own computer. Since you maybe already in the industry for the career or may know what the industry uses, I would like to know what you would reccommend. Programs I use are 3ds Max, Maya, Adobe CS5 Master Collection, MS Office, Windows 7 64 bit Eclipse, MS Visual Studios, UDK, Gamemaker, Audacity, Virtual DJ, and Skype and other presentation/meeting software due to school. I have basiclly the most recent versions of all above software. Thanks I appreciate it for I plan to do this, this week once I get my tax return. I recently found out the hardway for the levels I design my laptop just can't handle it, you can see that scenario/situation under reporting issues forum. Thanks in advance for your opinions and advice I appreciate it.

[darthviper107]

Wait until the next Intel processors get released--at that time, you can choose either to build a system with new hardware, or I would imagine the current hardware will go down in price.

Besides that---I'd look into getting a good SSD. Memory is super cheap but I'd look into getting a GTX 580 3GB since as a gaming card it's super fast and it has a lot of video memory.

[ADF86]

If you can find a 3930K a 2011 setup would be the way to go, quad-channel support, six physical cores, 12MB L3, etc. X79 boards aren't too bad in pricing either, if you could find somebody with the 3930k in stock and grab a decent mid-range motherboard you could probably get up and running for a little over a grand, like viper said ram is pretty cheap, if you go with the aforementioned 2011 setup you could pick up 32GB ram for ~200 bucks. Add in the 580 GTX, a couple SSDs and a high-volume storage hdd or two, and you'll have a rockin' machine. Might be hard to get a couple decent monitors on top of it with said build though.

[Rogdor]

An i7 setup like that is more than sufficient.

I know people will tell you how to improve it, what's better, stuff to add (SSDs) etc. but that system would already be well above the threshold of what you need for development. By all means follow some of the advice if you want the best system possible. Any improvements above and beyond might be a lot of fun, but they'll be marginal differences for your development work.

[gmoney93079]

Any of you got any links to throw up for what your mentioning so I can do some comparisons, and prices with it would help too Thanks for the advice so far keep it coming

[Amadeus]

I've got the P8Z68-V PRO with a i7 2600k processor and an Asus GTX 580 Direct CUII.
Windows 7 running off an SSD and 2TB of hardrive storage.
Got 16gb and not gotten close to using that up.

All that's running off a Corsair AX850 which is overkill but i'll be going SLI in the next year or so.

2 monitors are very handy.

One thing I would say though is that you don't want to move too far ahead of the game compared to your potential customers.

[ambershee]

Pick up an i7 quad, something like a 460/560/580 and have 6+Gb of memory (the faster the better). Two displays is ridiculously handy working with Unreal. Once you have all this, then worry about other upgrades

[Archie_Vision]

Hello,

This is a subjective topic really. It really depends on the person, and the amount you have to spend. If you had unlimited capital, you could go with your setup and add 2 595gtx, 16 gig ddr3 ram, and so on. But that is really dependent on what you will be doing with UDK. I had a quad core AMD, 4 gigs ddr2, and a 460gtx. My Quad bit the dust 2 weeks ago, and I didn't have the money to replace it, so I settled for a Phenom x3, It works fine for level design. With a 1 monitor setup, I can get what I need done in a decent amount of time. The only things that slow me down are building lightmass, and baking out projection maps in Max. I have a total of $450 in my rig, including my ViewSonic 23" 1080P LDC monitor. Now, If I had the money, I would have 16 gig of memory to render faster in Max, build lights faster in UDK, and lag less when working in SubD. But, I am totally satisfied with what I have. That is the main thing you need to worry about. what will make you satisfied to where you will concintrate on working, and not worrying about upgrading a computer you are unhappy with.

Thanks,

Lee

[darthviper107]

I advise against getting the GTX 595, since it's two lower power GPU's together, not all programs can take advantage of it and then you end up with a less performance. As for AMD vs Intel--AMD is cheaper, but Intel has better performance.

And RAM does not improve rendering speed unless you get faster memory, increasing the amount only allows you to render larger scenes, because 3ds Max will load the textures and geometry into memory for rendering. On the GPU side, higher memory will allow you better performance with multi-monitor setups along with allowing you more geometry and textures in your maps. Then for 3ds Max you can use the GPU for rendering with things like iRay or Vray RT in which case the entire scene needs to be able to fit into the GPU memory for the GPU to be used.