I’ve got about $2000. I will work with modo and ZBrush. I don’t care about bells and whistles.
Can you recommend a desktop?
I think for cg better have a pc with 4 gb or 8gb and good CPU (quad core), also nice to have BIG widescreen monitor, or even 2 
The best thing is to build your own comp. I built a super duper computer for 700 bucks. quad core (OVERCLOCKED), 4 gigs ram 1 tb hd and two sli video cards. When you buy a premade desktop you are paying more for the name than you are for the parts inside.
You can start comparing prices on like with zipzoomfly.com if you are in the americas then Directron and microcenter are great places to start your search.
That way you can spend the rest of the money on two monitors, which is pretty close to a necessity in the CG realm.
I saw this $1500 build at Maximum PC. But, a Dell 420 with a 8800 GT card would cost me only a little more than this build and I get a cool monitor. I’m confused. BTW, I can’t pay online with credit card for parts.
Videocard
XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Alpha Dog Edition
$350, www.xfxforce.com
<LI>Motherboard
MSI P35 Neo2-FR
$120, www.msi.com.tw <LI>CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
$275, www.intel.com <LI>Memory
Patriot 4GB DDR2/800
$120, www.patriotmem.com <LI>Case
Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-T01-UW
$120, www.coolermaster.com <LI>Power Supply
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610
$120, www.pcpower.com <LI>Operating System
Windows XP Media Center Edition*
$120, www.microsoft.com <LI>Hard Drive
Seagate 750GB Barracuda AS 7200.10
$184, www.seagate.com <LI>Optical Drive
Optiarc AD-7190A
$25, www.sonynec-optiarc.com <LI>Soundcard
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
$80, www.soundblaster.com
If you go their site you will be paying full price. If you go to outlets such as the ones i have suggested to you then you will pay less. Like your video card is priced at $350 for the 8800 but i got a 9600gt 512 for $199 at Microcenter.com.
The operating systems you COULD buy but is hardly ever necessary if you network correctly 
Again dont go directly to their sites. They never discount their merchandise. Its always much more expensive to buy directly from their site, which is kinda weird. But thats how they usually operate.
All the items you listed you can compare prices at zipzoomfly.com. just type in the name of what you want.
You could save yourself a grand easy by doing a little footwork. Ofcourse, if you got money to throw around with no worries then you could buy a premade comp. Unfortunately, PC makers that cater to us, also exploit us with the prices they charge. If you are paying over 1k for a super duper computer you got ripped off.
Without a credit card, online shopping isn’t possible with MicroCenter, for example. I do have stores around here in Toronto though that have retail stores with deals. If I build a system with a 8800GTS, can you recommend a mobo?
Do you know anyone with a debit or credit card that you can give them the money and then they order it for you?
MotherBoard? I would just research that online. If you get a Quad Core then make sure the mobo can actually utilize the processor. Abit is a good company. Its what i have on my machine and my PC has never crashed.
Is it a big advantage to have a quadcore cpu?
If you will not be running multiple apps then you can get a dual core.
If I am running just one 3D app at a time, then wouldn’t a single core 3.06 MHz be better than a dual core 2.13 MHz?
Thing is, that when you start rendering, you will probably have more than one processor intensive program running at the same time. It always helps to have more than one processor.
2shokan
I had AMD Athlon 3200+ - 1 processor, now i have Intel Quad core Q6600 - 4 processors 
so when i render somthing, in mental ray for example - i see 4 quads that running on image instead of 1. So it’s better to have as many cores as you can get )
Built the following for my digital crack habits (aka ZB and the occasional gaming)…
- Lian Li PC-65B Black Tower Computer Case
- Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000W Power Supply
- Asus P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz CPU
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
- Mushkin 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM
- 1 Raptor 150GB SATA Hard Drive (OS Only)
- 2 Samsung SpinPoint 500GB SATA Hard Drive (Apps & Storage)
- 1 BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTX 768MB PCIE Video Card
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro 7.1 Sound Card
- Atech 11-in-1 USB 2.0 Internal card reader
- 1 Lite-On 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
- Razer Copperhead Tempest Mouse
- Win 64-bit Vista Ultimate (OEM)
Everything above was ~$2,300 at NewEgg.com but that was back in November…should be cheaper now.
Already had a Wacom Intuous tablet and dual 22" FS monitors. Running ZB3.1 on 64bit Vista Ultimate with absolutely no problems. If you don’t run a 64 bit OS the max RAM you’ll be able to run is 2GB.
I did a quick cost comparison using a dealer in Toronto VS. a Dell 420:
BUILD WITHOUT CASE
ABit IP35 … $160
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600, 2.40-GHz @ 1066Mhz … 230
500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 … 105
2 X 2Gb DDR2 Ram Module, PC5400 … 100
GeForce™ 8800GT w/512Mb … 195
700W SLI ATX 12V Ver 2.2 Power Supply … 125
DELL UltraSharp 2208WFP
22-inch Widescreen … 350
Win XP Pro OEM … 140
$1,405
Canadian tax 200
$1,605
(Note: the build has 4G RAM but will use only 3G under Win XP Pro and the total does not reflect the price of a new case… using my old one)
DELL XPS 420
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 edit
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs) edit
GRAPHICS CARD 512MB nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GT edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability edit
MONITOR 22 inch SP2208WFP widescreen Flat Panel Monitor edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
Starting From $1,918
You Save $249
$1,669
Canadian tax 283
$1,952
Bottom line, why build when you can get it all assembled with a warranty and support plus a lot of bells and whistles for about the same price.
This echoes what Maximum PC mag has said… that it’s not like the old days for someone who wants to build.
1/ XP pro or home cannot work with 4Gig of ram. Unless you tweak the ini file, you’re limited to 2Gig.
2/ You can buy a car that goes 150miles/hour at half the price of another car that won’t go any faster. How come?
You ask for a recommendation, but in fact you have already decided. If you don’t see the advantages of assembling yourself, then the Dell might just be what you are looking for. And you can buy with your credit card.
Happy ZBrushing!
The Dell was on sale for Canada day but I now see it has has returned to it’s original price $219 higher than my quote above. I noted the XP RAM issue in the post above, thinking I can then upgrade to Vista.
I’m still considering a build, and since I don’t have a credit card, I still might get enough of a deal buying piece by piece locally. Or, a used machine form ebay or Craigslist.
Buying Zbrush would be capital idea as well.
Try doing a search on the 'Net about upgrading a Dell. It can be done but your options are limited. If you build it yourself with the right parts you can upgrade for quite a while and as your budget allows.
FYI - a similar powered Dell product as the one I put together was almost double the price I paid and my system had higher quality parts…therefore generally speaking…it will be more reliable.
About limited upgradability for a Dell: yes, for example, the unit I posted above (XPS 420) has the BTX instead of ATX format case, which has very limited upgrade potential so I hear. I had never heard of this type of case before.
I think you are right in general about the high Dell prices compared to a home build, unless it’s on sale as the XPS 420 was this past weekend in Canada. I need to look into this more. I would think that there’s an advantage to not needing to build a machine quickly; this way you can wait till the parts you want come on sale and build slowly.
Are there any things that I might need to know if I do a build for optimum ZBrush performance? I know the more RAM the better is one goal.
This isn’t true. I have done nothing to my ini file, yet my XP Pro has and uses 3GB. And no, it isn’t 64-bit. However, many mobos may be limited to 2GB, and some older–especially mobile–chipsets may be limited.
Getting the full 4GB address space will take some OS tweaking–but 3 is no problem.
I have heard as high as 3.4G. So, if you had 8G, XP would still use around 3G, but Vista could use the full 8?
The OS tweaking? What sort of things can be done?