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**frip51** · 13-04-2010, 12:27 AM

Re: NEW WORKSTATION (rhino, vray, ps)

Welcome!
Your system specs always relate to what you're planning to do with the computer.
For instance,
- Are you a student, teacher, freelancing professional, company owner, hobbyist,...?
- Are you focusing on designing or visualising?
- Are you going to do animations?

The heavier a scene and/or the larger the output format, the more rendertime it'll eat up. So, rendering a cellphone design proposal for an internal on-screen presentation might be not as complex as an aerial night shot of a sports stadium for a billboard ad.

i7 and 8gigs of RAM sounds good to start with, as long as you're running a 64bit system.
The GPU is used by Rhino, as it is to calculate real-time imaging. You can set Rhino to use hardware acceleration pipelines for every viewport layout, independently (see Appearance in Rhino Options menu). I am using nVidia QuadroFX cards with 1gig of memory, which seems enough. But, as graphics cards are the most expensive part of a computer, deciding on which way to go mostly depends on your budget.
V-Ray uses available processor and RAM capacities, not the GPU. Therefore, it can be a plus to have fast (and expensive) RAM chips.
Large scenes should be rendered to hard disk - then, a fast HDD is a good choice.

Consider setting up a small and fast LAN (connecting you old machine) to make use of Distributed Rendering, if you need more computing power.

Go have a look what different computer manufacturers have to offer (Dell/Alienware, HP, IBM/Lenovo and the like) and check their specs.

Hope that helps a little

Cheers,
matt

**pastafraese** · 13-04-2010, 02:00 AM

Re: NEW WORKSTATION (rhino, vray, ps)

hi matt,

really thanks for you help.
distributed renderings sounds great to me. i keep my old computer anyway. use it as an multimedia pc for the homecinema.

i work as a freelancer in productdesign. i mostly render small objects up to interiors for bars or restaurants with freaky lights.

yes, you are totally right. the budget decides what to get.

do i really need an nvidia card (quadro)? which model do you use?
as far i know rhino uses the quadro support just to render the hardwareshade and helps exellerating objects when you want them to turn.
is there an card that works for the most things and is not so expensive?

i want to build the computer with a friend. he is a seller and knows very good about the hardwarecombination. ... but he does not know
what the programms really support. thats why i was asking you guys.

and v ray? does v ray uses the gpu? ... i think memory and processor speed is most important for renderingspower, or?

cheers,
cle

**frip51** · 13-04-2010, 11:25 AM

Re: NEW WORKSTATION (rhino, vray, ps)

Cle,
yea - keep that old machine and connect it via LAN (the fastest option you can get, let's say a 1GB/s network), this can improve things significantly. I've got no experience with WLAN connexions, but as they are slower (we're still waiting for the Gigabit standard, IEEE 802.11ad) I can imagine the results will be not optimal.

I've got a QuadroFX 4600 and a 3700M, highly satisfying! But pricy. There are ways to crack similar Geforce cards (in my case 8800 GTS/GTX and 9800M GTX) with QuadroFX Open-GL forceware drivers. But unless you really know what you're doing, let it be or your machine goes up in flames

Don't know, what the regular drivers are capable of, though.

As for the GPU usage, it's just as you say: rendering is a matter of processor speed and RAM availability.

Cheers,
m

**pastafraese** · 13-04-2010, 12:17 PM

Re: NEW WORKSTATION (rhino, vray, ps)

hi matt,
thanks for you info.

i will see what i can get for my money.

as soon i have my new machine, i will try to render with two computers.

enjoy your evening and thanks for your help.

cle as

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