Thread: New Desktop set-up required

Originally Posted by Solihull

My daughter has recently graduted with a fine arts degree specialising in animation.

Given the difficulty of getting employment in today's market I want to help her to become self-employed in the field.

To this end she wil need a professional desktop set-up.

Problem is that I don't know where to start and I have no idea of budget (perhaps given the circumstances that will have to be what it takes).

She wants to be able to work on animation, backgrounds and video as well as perhaps some game design work. I'm given to understand that rendering can be a problem and can be time consuming without the right kit (rendering farm?) you can see I know very little about all this.

So to the questions:
1. What specification should I be looking at for a professional desktop set-up?
2. What budget should I set to pay for?

Many thanks in andvance for your help/guidance.

Having discussed this with her a little more here is a list of the software she is hoping to be able to run on the new system - hope it helps define that which will be required a little better!

For Work
Corel Painter 12
Systemax PaintTool SAI
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5
Videolan VLC Media Player

For Play
Valve steam software
Blizzard World of Warcraft
iTunes

Originally Posted by Solihull

Having discussed this with her a little more here is a list of the software she is hoping to be able to run on the new system - hope it helps define that which will be required a little better!

For Work
Corel Painter 12
Systemax PaintTool SAI
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5
Videolan VLC Media Player

For Play
Valve steam software
Blizzard World of Warcraft
iTunes

I too am looking into developing and creating video and work a lot with Photoshop. I am also in the process of putting, trying to put together a nice computer to handle my new endeavors. To that end and in the mists of my research I have come up with the follow;

Processor : Intel i7 2600k chip
Mother Board: Asus V68 Pro Motherboard
Operating system: MS 7 running 64bit ….. might wait for ms 8 …
Corair: 100H Rad/cooler
Graphics card: (Unsure at this time) – Dual Dislay
Memory: Corsair vengeance blue 16gb ddr3 sdram
HD – for Operating system and applications – at least 1TB :
Extra storage and scratch disk: E-Sata (fast seek) – traditional HD will do just fine
Case: HafX-942 tower
Power supply: (Unsure at this time) – will be at least 850watts

Hope this at least get you in the right direction.

Have a look here at the Dell Workstation. If your looking for a reliable and beefy workhorse which I think here you might well be. You can if you like tell them what you want to do and they will build the spec for you. Animation seems to be growing in popularity so well done to your daughter.

The render part of the programme is very memory hungry so the more the better. As for what you should pay, well the more you can afford the better the results. There is nothing worse than having the know how and the software, and the machine is not quite up to the job. As you are looking to start from scratch with the expense of the hardware you need to make sure you get this right first time, in your case don't try cut corners. Sure you can build your own machine and save a bit of money. Personally I prefer to buy the thing complete and start work straight away. At least you get warranties updates and all the usual stuff with it.

Hope this helps