I do most of works on my school computer, but I hate to stay in school every late nights, also I work better alone in my own place.
I am using macbookpro 17" for my own computer, but I couldn't even open .hip file that i have been working on my school computer on my macbookpro.
so.. I am trying to build a PC computer just for houdini… and my budget is 2k ~ 2.5k
Do you think I can build a decent computer that can handle most of houdini works..?
if so… could you tell me the recommended specification for the computer, please… ?
I don't know much about computer.. but I am trying to show the answers to my friend, so he can build the computer for me..

Thank you so much…

I think you'll get a fine Houdini workstation for that $$$.
I'd build something along the lines of:
- Intel i7 980 6-core processor
- 24 gigs memory
- SSD drive
- Nvidia GeForce 580 3gig

Might wanna look at the i7 2600k as well. More bang for the buck.

Erik_JE
Might wanna look at the i7 2600k as well. More bang for the buck.

True, that's the best bang/buck. But, if one's budget permits the higher absolute performance, I say go for it

I appreciate your answers ! !!

You can also get the slightly less expensive Intel 17 570 6 core which is almost as fast as the 980/990 series and about $400 less. I am using that chipset with the geforce 590 which has twice the cuda cores as the 580 but otherwise is the same basic card.

s

Maybe i`m out of date,
but currently most of the software in the market are not
able to use more then 1 GPU unit.

also in the gtx 590 every gpu have only 1.5gm of ram available while the
gtx580 1 gpu works with 3gb (more important for GPU renderer).

In this case I guess i would spend the money on faster SSD or RAID 0…

or
you can wait for the Nvidia Kepler architecture and Intel Ivy Bridge technoligies to arrive :-)

sl0throp
You can also get the slightly less expensive Intel 17 570 6 core which is almost as fast as the 980/990 series and about $400 less. I am using that chipset with the geforce 590 which has twice the cuda cores as the 580 but otherwise is the same basic card.

Hmm, 570?

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processor-comparison/compare-intel-processors.html?select=desktop [intel.com]

The only 6-cores I can spot are 980/970 (about the same price), plus the extremes.

My setup is:

i7 980 extreme (6 core)
16GB Corsair ram
2x western digital 1TB drives
Nvidia 470GTX 1GB

With an antec 1200 gaming case, it all come to about £1700 (I bought the parts and built it myself). Runs super smooth, and multi-tasking is a dream. Fluid sims are nice and speedy.

Well worth every penny!

I am actually in the same thought process of thinking about building a machine and would strongly suggest an SSD drive for doing fluid sims and even perhaps rendering. The faster I/O with the fluid caches really makes a difference- at least my friends running Maya say it does!

I would also suggest the 2600K. It is a lot cheaper and set up for overclocking and can apparently easily be overclocked to 4 gHz (if you are interested in that).

I would also suggest the GPU with the most RAM since that is going to be an important constraint on doing Fluid Sims on the GPU.

My guess is you could build a decent machine for around $1500 (unless you want to use a workstation graphics card), so why not save the money for software, etc?

Here is a good write-up on a similar home-built $2K system: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-cpu-sli-ssd,3031.html [tomshardware.com]

Toms Hardware is a good source for information on building your own system.