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a bit clueless with pcs. always just bought a bottom of the range laptop at curry's
I've now started 3d printing and need a decent kit for it to process. my laptop just about copes with lychee, I want to get into digital sculpting too at some point, relatively soon modifying existing stls.
and I need a pretty hefty hard drive as the image sizes are massive.
so a. where should I look and what sort of spec and b. what is a 'sensible' budget I should be laying the ground work for with my wife
I have the space for a desktop and no need to carry it round do I figure your money gets s better spec
is a graphics card essential for rendering?
any pointers appreciated
Dell refurb for whatever spec you fancy https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/lp/outlet
No ones got sacked for buying IBM Dell!
Just good solid stuff.
Dont bother with pre-built stuff like Dell etc as the upgrade path will be limited and as you get into 3d stuff you will find you will need to upgrade both CPU and GPU. Find a reputable pc builder local to you and go from there. Alternatively look at Facebook Market Place or Ebay for complete built systems, 32gb Ryzen 7 5700x with a 3060ti / rx6800 graphics card shold be had for around £500 2nd hand.
Keep an eye out on Hotukdeals for complete systems too.
is a graphics card essential for rendering?
It depends on what software you are using, some stuff is more heavy on the CPU, some stuff can offload a lot of compute onto the graphics card.
So as always..it depends.
I'd start by looking at what software packages you will want to be using and what the system hardware requirements are to use them, aim for reccomended specs, rather than minimum.
Dell etc as the upgrade path will be limited and as you get into 3d stuff you will find you will need to upgrade both CPU and GPU.
The power supply is also often proprietary, and fairly low power on such machines, also.
This doesn't really matter for basic office work, but if you are upgrading teh graphics card for example, you may find you can't due to the extra power demands.
I've just built my own PC for the first time ever (a media centre NAS). I have to say: it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be - so think about whether it's something that you want to do before diving in.
I think probably mine was more difficult because it was a small form factor build and generally a bit unusual.
I think if you bought a big, common, good quality case (like something from Fractal) choosing the parts and getting them all fitted and up and running would be a breeze.
What your looking at using it for seems pretty technical, so building your own shouldn't be too much of a stretch - and helpful at the point you want to upgrade bits.
What you need is the new macbook pro with M3 max processor and all of the biggest bestest upgrades.
To you Sir, an absolute snip at £7,800
https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-inch-space-black-apple-m3-max-with-16-core-cpu-and-40-core-gpu-48gb-memory-1tb
small form factor build and generally a bit unusual.
I agree... small form factor always has complications, limited choice of PSU, limited cooling potential, limited size of graphics card, the list goes on and on.
I'd ALWAYS reccomend a mid, or midi 'ATX' tower case (or bigger) so you have that flexibility for swapping out components, or adding expansion cards, etc.
Anything smaller than ATX standard, assuming you have the physical space for an ATX case, is always going to be a harsh compromise.
And a benefit is, if you buy a fancy one, you'll never have to buy a new PC case again, you can simply build a new PC into the existing case.
I disagree with the comment about Dell. They are Ok but nowhere near the quality of Lenovo.
I disagree with the comment about Dell. They are Ok but nowhere near the quality of Lenovo.
It makes no odds.. if it's a slim line/small factor box, you're not going to be able to put a full size graphics card in it for a start, and the power supply wouldn't be able to power it anyway.
Even if you could, the heat would get so high.
Pre-built Dell/lenovo/HP are office machines, they are very good for what they are, but they are what they are.
got to say I'm not sure about building a pc, I'm sure I could but I'll have to go from zero to hero and I really just want to get up and running. I wasn't prepared for the amount of other 'stuff' I'd need to actually use the printer effectively and safely....
im told this is a good deal at £1300
it's about double what I was hoping to spend though....
I know nothing about apple either, other than the designers at work use them and my ipads have been flawless over the years
Yeah, don't get into building one yourself.
I'd say find a UK-based PC custom building operation that can spec exactly what you need at a fair price. People on here can probably recommend.
I can't suggest the place that did mine, as they got done for VAT fraud and don't do B2C anymore. Banging computer though.
A few observations.
1) Established wisdom for "what computer...?" is something with an SSD or its modern replacement (an M.2 drive) but you'd be hard pressed to find a machine with a spinnydisk as its system drive these days. Similarly, the more RAM the better with the caveat that depending on what you're doing this will become diminishing returns; there's little point in pouring half a pint into a pint pot. I think I'd be looking at 16GB in the format of 2x8GB modules so you've the option to stick a couple more in there at a a later date if you want.
2) "Build your own" is both pointless and silly when your opening gambit was "I'm a bit clueless with PCs." There's a time and place for a self-build and this isn't it. What you generally want is a reputable brand with a decent warranty. Ordinarily the answer here would be either Dell Refurb for a bargain or Lenovo for build quality but given the requirements for Lychee Slicer I'd be leaning into what Matty is saying, get somewhere like CCL or Scan to build you something. With an off-the-shelf box you're likely to hit issues with things like available power connectors when you come to add extra storage.
3) "How much should I be looking to spend" is the wrong question. Again draw an analogy with bikes; you can get a half-decent hardtail from Halfords/Decathlon for, what, £400? Or you could spend thousands. Rather, what's your budget?
Official budget is zero £ as this is an unplanned and consequential spend. I'm trying to understand what my budget needs to be, roughly, in order to go and have a difficult conversation with my financial controller (wife)
No point in asking a clueless customer what their budget is, as they are, well clueless.
I don't want to be paying for something just a bit better than my old laptop and then find out I need to pay out again
From a couple of days research it looks like I'm talking closer to £1k than £500, which is a good deal more than I expected and will involve a difficult chat about my 'bargain' 3d printer !!!
Won't be buying until the new year, so maybe I'll find I'm ok with the laptop. It takes ages to process though, makes me think it might not be slicing correctly and result in failed prints (which is tbc once I finish the enclosure for it)
my current ASUS laptops specs:
11th Gen i5-1135G7 @2.40 ghz
8GB ram
is all I know presume it has a built in graphics card rather than a dedicated one
It just about runs lychee for the simple tasks I've tried so far, I can't see it working with sculpting or modelling
What about something like this? https://www.ebuyer.com/1896716-medion-recon-e20-gaming-pc-10025141
At the risk of repeating and quoting myself,
I’d start by looking at what software packages you will want to be using and what the system hardware requirements are to use them, aim for reccomended specs, rather than minimum.
Also consider what size monitor you need, a 27inch IPS 1440p is a good place to start, but it's basicaly impossible to spec something further without more info.
What about something like this?
That graphics card is a pile of shit...and it doesn't list what specification the power supply is. So I'll assume that's a pile of shit too.
But it's all relative...you need to look at the requirements of the software you plan to use.... it might be great for 3d printing a Spork, not so good for designing a new engine!
If your budget is tight, is there anything we can do with the existing laptop? Go to Cruical's website and run their scanning tool, see what it suggests. More RAM and/or an SSD if it doesn't already have one will be a shot in the arm for it.
see, that desktop linked looked fine to me, how do I know the graphics card is shit or the power supply? Complete minefield. Seems to be so many different 123445656 versions of what look like the same thing trying to look up reviews is near impossible too.
And yes, I have looked at system requirements of (some) of the software I want to trial, but, they don't go into significant detail. At this stage I don't have a preferred suite of software I've settled on, I've tested out 3 slicers and played about with them, thats it.
I'm about to head out for the afternoon will look at crucial when I get a chance to have some quiet time
So from the OP it sounds like you'll mostly be slicing models to print and doing some (smaller scale?) 3D modelling? (again what software?) But you mentioned rendering too, so are you getting into animation and/or 3D graphics also?
Here's another suggestion, it sounds like you're just getting into "3D stuff" generally mainly led by a 3D printing business(?)
So if you have the space (and inclination) I'd suggest just buying refurb major brand (Dell/HP) PC's as cost effective, specific workstations for each activity you need to cover;
-Need a basic slicing/print manager machine? then get a Bogo i5/8GB/128GB-SSD/1TB-HDD machine for ~<£150 off ebay (get 2 maybe so you have a backup) there's no real need for stunning graphical capability or huge processing power there, but you'll probably want some disc space to save your old jobs in case of repeat customers.
-Doing more modelling/CAD work? buy a Similar machine but dial up the memory (16GB+), possibly pop for an i7 and look for a full sized tower case to take a decent (not fancy) Graphics cards down the line perhaps.
-Find you're in demand for lots of Rendering and animation work? Maybe then start looking at a specific build as that machine is going to be the one that need to be able to process lots of graphics and sit churning through jobs overnight. but is that what you need yet?
Remember they're just tools, so figure out what the job is before you choose between ball-peen, claw or sledge-hammer.
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