Boxx 4150 Xtreme?
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Hi All,
The time has come for a new machine and I stumbled across the BOXX website. After talking with what seemed to be a knowledgeable sales guy, he pointed me towards the 4150 Xtreme http://www.boxxtech.com/Products/3dboxx-4150-xtreme[/url][/url] I can get this machine for $3000+/- depending on options. That price would have an NVIDIA quadro k600 1gb video card. Anyone have any experience with BOXX machines or an opinion of if this is an appropriate machine for sketchup? I am a one man architecture firm that does mostly residential work . I use sketchup for design of most projects. I typically export images right out of skup and put presentations together using CS6 (no rendering at this point). I also use Acad's building design suite for working drawings. My primary question is about the video card, but I'd also like confirmation that this machine would allow me to run multiple programs and bounce back and forth without ridiculous delays. Obviously, I am a user and not real knowledgeable about hardware... Any input is welcome.J
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The easy answer (my opinion)
Boxx has earned a great reputation with architectural firms that use programs like Maya, Max, ISI, ACAD, etc They are built to do what they advertise and they are not by any means cheap.
Personally for what you need that machine is an over kill, unless you are wanting to render or use a program that unlike Sketchup uses more than one core.If I may ask, why upgrade your machine? the reason I ask is Sketchup is still using 2004 computer requirements, heck 32 bit machines run it smooth and you cannot use more than 3GB ram anyway.
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Thanks for the response. My current machine is about 6 yrs old (1.86ghz, 1.98 gb of ram). It runs sketchup fairly well unless I have other applications running in which case everything slows way down. It's been getting slower over time and Autocad in particular becomes painfully slow to work with when other applications are open. Often times I use Autocad, Sketchup, and CS6 and need to be able to move back and forth quickly. That is painful to do with my current set up. I suspect I could probably improve my existing machine, but I am hesitant to put money into it based on age. I am also concerned about reliability. This machine has been good, but I am concerned that given it's age, a hardware failure could be a reality at any time and I'd like to hedge against that possibility- since unplanned down time for a 1 man firm can be a major problem. When I buy equipment, I am more of the mindset that I'd like to buy better stuff that lasts longer even if it is overkill for the way I use the machine today. So that is how I ended up looking at BOXX. A little overkill doesn't bother me. Too much is foolish. If only there was a way to quantify...
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Sounds fair, I'd concentrate on higher clock speeds rather than more clocks so a good quad core like the i7-4770K 3.50 GHz will be more than enough.
8gb Ram will be more than needed but enough to run many things concurrently.
I have never bought a Quadro card as I believe they are over rated and limited, I would look at a decent Geforce however at a fraction of it's price, however stay clear of AMD cards as they have compatibility issues.
I believe you could get a great machine at these specs under $1000.
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do you have a preffered source/ mfr?
And, if I want to keep the option open for rendering in the future what do I need to consider in terms of specs?
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@joshvt said:
do you have a preffered source/ mfr?
And, if I want to keep the option open for rendering in the future what do I need to consider in terms of specs?
Where are you located? as my sources are in US mainland only.
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north carolina
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while we are at it, I am considering a new monitor as well- prob 24", maybe 27" what do you think of this one http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T24B350ND-24-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B007ILEHNU
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@joshvt said:
while we are at it, I am considering a new monitor as well- prob 24", maybe 27" what do you think of this one http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T24B350ND-24-Inch-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B007ILEHNU
I have two 27" Samsung's same base and all, I highly recommend them.
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@unknownuser said:
INTEL I7 QUAD CORE ENHANCED PERFORMANCE PROCESSOR 4.3 GHZ 1
16GBDDR3-1600 (2 DIMMS) 1
NVIDIA QUADRO K2000 2GB 1
240GB SSD SATA 6GB/S 1
20X DUAL LAYER DVD±RW WRITER 1
MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 PROFESSIONAL EDITION 64-BIT 1
USB KEYBOARD 1
LOGITECH M500 LASER CORDED MOUSE 1
BOXX PREMIUM SUPPORT 1 YEAR (YEARS 2 AND 3 STANDARD) - US AND CANADA ONLY 1
BOXX 3 YEAR LIMITED Warranty FREE
SYSTEM TOTAL: $4,733.00This is w/o VAT, right?!?
I took the K2000, because it is the cheapest nvidia option with 2GB RAM. The GTX780 is overprized (and oversized) and there is no GTX760/770 available (unbelievable).
I would take 2x8GB today even if you don't plan to do renderings at the moment, but there are also other things like photoshop that can eat up RAM quickly (my PS is using 25GB right now
). And if you consider to use it for rendering as you said, i would say 16GB is a must, and i would take 2x8GB, so that you can add another 16GB later.
I really would add a SSD. Either 120GB + a HDD or maybe only a 240GB SSD if you store your data on a server or NAS. The 240/250GB version is usually faster at write speeds. They don't say which brand they are using...I don't know what you chose for your $3000 configuration but today i wouldn't go below a config like the one listed above.
I think BOXX is building some nice machines, but they are horribly overpriced... You can build a similar system for ~$1600 w/o VAT. So this is ~$3000 only for the support (only 1 year premium) and the overclock!!! This is just insane...
Maybe you are able to find a local store or another shop that can build an overclocked system for you - maybe for $1800-$2000, or even $2500 or $3000... so much headroom here to $4700
(but for $2000-$3000 you could better build an i7 4930K an overclock it...
)edit:
How about this one:
http://www.jncs.com/php/Custom-Desktop-Computer/Intel-Core-I7-Overclocked-Processor/JNCS-D982.php (4770K overclocked to 4,5GHz - i can't see anything about the cooling, but i would definitely add a good(!) water cooler if you overclock it)
I remember that some members bought with a special sketchucation discount from them and where very pleased with the build quality and support. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=50941 But maybe ask one of them (solo? ). And i'm not sure if you could still use the discount.
Much cheaper and you know the components! Not sure how they prove the stable overclock, this would have to be checked, but there is still the warranty...JNCS Model D982 - 4.5Ghz
- i7 4770K@4,5GHz
- Case: Antec 300
- PSU: CoolerMaster 650GX
- Board: Asus Z87 Deluxe
- RAM: 16gb DDR3-1600 Kingston (2 modules)
- Video Card: EVGA GTX770 2GB
- SSD: Intel 520 240GB (no Samsung available, maybe ask them)
- DVD
- Windows 7 Pro 64bit OEM
$2,363.00
This is also interesting, but i would change the CPU to a 4930K now - 4.3-4.4GHz should be possible
http://www.jncs.com/php/Custom-Desktop-Computer/Intel-Core-I7-Overclocked-Processor/JNCS-D990.php -
the quote i have for the boxx is for $2800. specs that differ from your assumptions are:
8GB DDR3-1600 (figure I can add more later if needed)
NVIDIA Quadro K600 1GB (what compromises am I making here?)
1TB 7200rpm sata -rep suggested this would be ok since it has 24GB SSD Cache- would like some input here. I need the 1TB capacity as I have a lot of data that needs to exist on this machine.
When I go to jncs and select options that seem close, it says the price is $2271 (that is using a gtx770 video card which i am guessing is better than the boxx card- I don't know which one listed would be more comparable?) That is also before liquid cooling which the BOXX includes. The gap is narrower than you mentioned.
If you can't tell by now, my knowledge of hardware is elementary- i replaced a power supply once and added a new hard drive but that is about the extent. A lot of the forums I have been on suggest modding or building systems to save some money. Frankly, while tinkering actually sounds fun, I have my hands full running a business and meeting deadlines. Downtime is expensive so I place a fair amount of value on a machine that will be reliable out of the box/ doesn't need to have the hood up on day 1, will perform and today and for a reasonably long time, and offers the piece of mind of a warranty for when something does go wrong. I am willing to pay a bit more for these things. Given this, I would love to know if anyone has experience with JNCS from this perspective.
Thanks!
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@joshvt said:
8GB DDR3-1600 (figure I can add more later if needed)
if you take 2x4GB now, you can have 24GB max later with 4 banks without exchanging the modules. If you think 8GB now and 24GB later is enough for you, go for it.
@joshvt said:
NVIDIA Quadro K600 1GB (what compromises am I making here?)
I can't say anything about the sketchup performance of the K600. The latest Quadro-GeForce comparison in Sketchup and 3DSmax viewport that i know is from 2010! http://www.cgarchitect.com/2010/07/cgarchitects-graphics-card-round-up This is a very long time and i'm not sure about the performance of the latest quadro cards in sketchup. For 3DSmax it has turned towards the Geforce in the last versions i think. I haven't seen any review of the Kepler based Quadro cards. I'm waiting for a new comparison for a long time now... Maybe a K600 is working good, because sketchup is based on opengl, but i don't know. Looking at the opengl benchmarks on tomshardware, there is no clear winner for me. Very different results depending on application and scene.
Based on the specs the K600 is very weak. It has the same chip like a entry level geforce GT630 http://www.anandtech.com/show/6813/nvidia-launches-quadro-k4000-k2000-k2000d-k600
For GPU-rendering it's definitely the wrong card with only 192 Cuda cores...@joshvt said:
1TB 7200rpm sata -rep suggested this would be ok since it has 24GB SSD Cache- would like some input here. I need the 1TB capacity as I have a lot of data that needs to exist on this machine.
I have no experience with SSD caching, but maybe it works ok. But it looks quite expensive as BOXX option... more than $300 for 1TB HDD with 24GB cache?!? wow!
A "small" 1TB HDD costs $60-70 today and a good "full size" SSD with 250GB $180...I have banned all HDDs from my workstation last year because they where the loudest part of my system. I'm using only a 256GB + 512GB SSD now.
@joshvt said:
When I go to jncs and select options that seem close, it says the price is $2271 (that is using a gtx770 video card which i am guessing is better than the boxx card- I don't know which one listed would be more comparable?) That is also before liquid cooling which the BOXX includes. The gap is narrower than you mentioned.
Which card? The K600?
The jcns config has 4.5GHz instead of 4.3GHz. You clearly pay for the GHz here. But i think the price is ok for what you get, if you can't/want do it yourself. But i think i wouldn't pay more.
I don't know which cooler they are using, but without a watercooler it will be very hard to reach the 4.5GHz with acceptable temps and noise.
But as i said above you can build a watercooled system with the specs above for ~$1600.
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