New Year's Special (?) - Custom built I7 950, 12 GB, Win7-64, 48.0 FPS

[br3ttman]

Enamored with Keyshot, yet troubled by my old slow PC, I spent the last half of 2010 researching a number of PC suppliers to build the best rendering machine I could for $1250 to $1500.  New Year’s Eve I finally locked into a year-end special I built through IBuyPower for $1458:

Make: Intel
CPU: Core I7 950 (4x 3.06GHz), No Overclocking
RAM: 12 GB DDR3-1333
OS: Windows 7, 64 bit
GPU: GTX460
Keyshot Rendering Speed: 48.0 FPS

Questions for Keyshot Community
   â€¢ I can expand my RAM up to 24 GB.  Is it worth the upgrade?
   â€¢ Is overclocking worth the risk?  And what % overclocking is a good rule of thumb?
   â€¢ I’ve since learned that Quadro cards are typically better for CAD and rendering, but would they make much of a difference for Keyshot?
   â€¢ I’d sure be interested to know what others are investing in their systems!  Pau1, thanks for putting together your “Table of All the Benchmarks”.  I don’t know if others would want to share their PC costs in this table, but if so, it’d be a helpful way to judge approximate cost for higher FPS. 

[Chad Holton]

Hi br3ttman,

"I can expand my RAM up to 24 GB.  Is it worth the upgrade?" 12 GB is good. So, probably not, unless you start running out.

"Is overclocking worth the risk?  And what % overclocking is a good rule of thumb?" Do you have an after market cooler? If not, I have a good suggestion. Overclocking is probably your best bang for the buck. I'd say you could get up to around 60+ FPS running around 4 GHz without much of a heat issue (with aftermarket cooling of course). If you are doing a bunch of rendering, I would recommend looking into this more.

"I’ve since learned that Quadro cards are typically better for CAD and rendering, but would they make much of a difference for Keyshot?" No, don't waste your money on this one.