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Newbie
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Last Login: Monday, October 03, 2011 4:58 PM
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1. Pentium Quad2Core - because they cost about the same as the dual cores now.
2. RAM Requirements - 4 GB minimum
3. ROM Requirements - high-speed hardrive
4. Graphics Cards - I'm torn between the GeForce 8800 and the QuadroFX 1700. The 1700 is good value- that whole new directX 10 compatible series is based on the 8800 GPU. The main reasons to go for QuadroFX are stereo output and the Maxtreme drivers. Note: graphics cards do not speed up rendering. I'd love to see some benchmarks between these cards but have a gut feeling that the 8800 is the only way to go. It's a massive jump beyond previous GeForce cards!
NVIDIA's GeForce comparison sheet-
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1353
5. The 8800s support DirectX 10 which is a strong argument for WindowsXP!
6. Any other things ?
For a personal/home machine, I would buy from these guys because they're the one company that seems to offer quality parts at less cost that I could build one myself. Because I'm lookin' out for YOU!
[url=http://www.ibuypower.com][/url]
For work machines I'd think it's a cost + reliability/support equation. 
The Cajun Modeler!
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Newbie
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Last Login: Monday, October 03, 2011 4:58 PM
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PS. Certainly the QuadroFX cards are the way to go for vis and it sounds like you guys are already making full use of those. The newer ones are based on the GeForce8 series chipsets. I don't think that 3D editing in StudioMax currently makes use of more than one core although it may make a difference when rendering (but if the software only uses one core for editing, why would it make use of additional cores for rendering?) This will probably change in future versions of Max.
Advocates of Quad-core are suggesting to wait for the true quad-chips to come out as the current line consists of 2x dual cores.. We just spec'd a dual-core visualization system that came in much less from TigerDirect and TriStar than Dell or Boxx, with Boxx being the most expensive.
What I'd like to know is just how faster the Quad-core Xeons are overall..
The Cajun Modeler!
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Über Geek
Group: Administrators
Last Login: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 7:07 PM
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| Our fastest machine at this point is a Dell Precision 490 with Dual Quad Core 3.0GHz processors (X5365 Xeon), 4GB of RAM and a QuadroFX 4600 with 768MB or RAM. The new SM4.0 cards are quite impressive and really scream in 3ds max 9 and 2008, though they only can utilize DX9 or SM3.0 functions. Don't expect 3ds max to incorporate any SM4.0 functionality until it has been in the market for at least a few years. You can find a great comparison on the high-end graphics cards here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/09/workstation_shootout/ All in all, the Quadro and Fire GL cards will give you the best performance in applications such as 3ds max, Maya and the like. Both the drivers and the hardware are optimized to work with these software apps. Most of the Geforce cards will perform much better in gaming compared to the Quadros, though they are not always as fast in 3ds max.
Mark Kauffman
Technical Lead / PA
Project Visualization TEC
Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc.
Kauffman@pbworld.com
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Über Geek
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| The Xeons are still faster than the AMDs though with the release of the newest Quad Core AMDs, the gap is much closer than in previous versions. Intel just released their 45nm chips last week and these up the ante just a bit. We (PB Design ViZ) use mostly Intel Duo and Quad core Xeons in our workstations and render farm giving us way more bang for the buck compared to our older AMD Opteron racks. Backburner has a great feature that will show a performance index value for each render machine in the Monitor application giving you real world performance analysis. You can find some good benchmarking between Intel's newest and AMD's newest here: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13633/12 It still looks like the AMD's are trailing a little. Cinebench and 3dsmax render benchmarks will usually give you the best estimates of performance for what we do and also show the absolute extreme performance envelope of the CPU. I do not think AMD will catch up soon but it should be an interesting race. All in all, it's not the speed but the stability and endurance that makes a great processor.
Mark Kauffman
Technical Lead / PA
Project Visualization TEC
Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc.
Kauffman@pbworld.com
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Über Geek
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Newbie
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Last Login: Monday, October 03, 2011 4:58 PM
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I bought a personal gaming machine from these guys and have been happy - no problems at all. They design and build machines for the US military, government agencies, etc:
[url=http://www.avadirect.com/][/url]
The Cajun Modeler!
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