buying a new pc need suggestions!

[zuliban]

im buying a new pc but im not sure how much ram ineed i just want a fast viewport and render xD wht really does ram/ prossesor do? any pc recomended? thx in advance

[natty]

well it all depends how much you are willing to spend. but for a mid-range Workstation, i would go for a AMD mp dual machine... on a Tyan tiger motherboard with 1.5 - 2 gig of ram .. a good Nvidia card ..you dont have to spend a fortune to get a good running machine.

[zuliban]

thx natty does the amd get hot too fast? i always have used intel and have afraid to move to amd XD

[cocolas]

hey Zuli,

no...I've used AMD almost exclusevly for the last 2 and ahlf years and never had a problem with them, even when rendering for 48 hours straight at 100% usability.......always realiable.

I would definatly go w/ AMD if you don't have that much money to spent, and put your money into 2 gigs of Ram and a nice 128MB nvidia card......you should get a kick a$$ system...

then only reason I would even consider going w/ Xeons is the ability of hypertreding...but seeing the issues that many people seem to have run into, especially w/ animation...I wouldn't count on it 100%...althought I use dual Xeons at work and I did see a 25 to 30% speed increase w/ vray...haven't really tried them on a heavy-duty animation so I can't say I fully tested that.......


in the end, i think AMD athlons will give you more for your buck, and allow you to invest in a nice amount of Ram and good Vcard...

paul.

[DaForce]

AMD's are great.

The intel Xeon's are good as well.

Get atleast 1gb minimum, 2gb or more is ideal. And go for an Nvidia card as they have better openGL drivers which is what the viewport uses. True they can Directx but its no where near as good.

It all depends on the money.

Best
Dual Xeon 3.2/3.4 ghz with 2gb ram of Corsair RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 3000 would be the best but they are like $2000 cards best to go with a Good gaming card FX 5900 Ultra or something.
Good Asus motherboard or something similar.

Good value
Dual Athlon 3200 or opteron 2gb ram
Nvida Card as above.
Also good Asus motherboard or similar

Also the only that thing makes the viewports fast is the Video card, sure if you have a crap machine everything will be slow, but VC is important for viewport display speed. For rendering only RAM and CPU are important.

Also AMD's dont get to hot, thats a crock of sh*t. They are fine, infact the new Pentiums are far hotter!!
Basically any CPU will get hot unless its cooled properly. And it needs to be cooled depending on use and environment. If you live somewhere HOT and you want to overclock, then you will need a much better coooling solution than someone who lives in the arctic ...heheheh

[reza]

True to some of the comments above.
AMD is much of a choice when it comes to saving a buck or 2.
But dont put aside Xeon just yet. The price of Xeon has gone down dramatically.
The reason people have problem with hyperthreading is still uncertain...but what about those who has not encountered any problem.
I think you should ask a few people who uses hyper and get their setups or configuration.
i bought mine in febuary and have not switch off the machine ever since except for upgrading my disk drive.
from what i hear on this forum...if youre going to use Xeon....you either use Intel or Tyan and even Asus PC-dl Deluxe motherboard...just to be safe. im using intel and no problem so far.

[egz]

AMD are prone to overheating and locking up. I have a dual Athlon 2100+ MP workstation here, and even though it sounds like a jet engine because of the seven fans it still locks up occasionally when rendering for long periods of time, especially in the summer. It's not a huge problem, and it happens very rarely, but you should know about it.

By the way, when rendering in the winter it's a great office heater! The air comes out of the case at a comfortable 45° C

[natty]

yeah as long as you keep em cool you shouldnt have a problem...

[egz]

The problem is keeping them cool
Crossbow (Greg Hess) was the one who helped me add extra cooling to my workstation. He knows his stuff, and his solution works well 99% of the time, it's just those hot-day rendering sessions that still lock them up occasionally. The cooling that came with the workstation was ridiculously underpowered, and it froze up all the time.

[DaForce]

mmm i have an athlon 2700 here, which is overclocked by about 10%. I have an aftermarket heatsink and fan, and its never gotten of 47c. That was in summer when my room temp was above 30c. And its never locked up because of that. And its also fairly quite, i have an aluminium case which helps keep the heat down as well.

The main deal with keeping the AMD's cool is the CPU heatsink and its fan. As long as they work well then the case fans dont play as bigger part. If you have a basic heatsink then the case fans play a bigger part. Thats the way i see it anyway
The money you save on getting an AMD, you can put it towards a decent heatsink and fan anyway.
I would recommend getting after market CPU cooling no matter what you get anyway. As it just lessens the chance of having heat problems.

So i guess it comes down to how the case is design have the layout of its contents. Plus not using the stock heatsink that is probably the biggest factor hehehehe

It is true that the older AMD's were little hotties, especailly yours Egz. But compared to the INTEL Palaminos today, they seem quite tame.

[egz]

It is true that the older AMD's were little hotties, especailly yours Egz. But compared to the INTEL Palaminos today, they seem quite tame.

True, I've had this workstation for 2 years now so the age has a lot to do with it. I'm going to demote it to render-slave soon and get a new workstation. Which is why this thread is pretty interesting to me too.

[reza]

forgive me for budding in.....maybe we should come up with a benchmark to help him choose a processor...

heat to me is not a problem......what is important is to be able to render a fair scene with less than 3 hours. the less time to render the lesser time the computer will need to work.

to me a good casing will take care of the heat.

[percydaman]

these days, I would go with AMD and use the extra money for ram. 1 gb is nearly not enough these days. My next machine is going to have at least 2 gigs. When dual core chips come out, it will knock the socks off hyperthreading.

[zuliban]

hey thx its just about a scene i cant add meshsmooth 2 much polis and vray say unhanded expetion i dont know if is ram but the viewport and max just cant handle it too slow so i was thinking on a dual but not too expensive i have never tried amd but if u say ill try i also was looking for a BOXX but i really want to know
ram is usesfull for what? calculation boots rendertimes?
prosesor
and i want a quadro card too
thx for the info guys

[cocolas]

When dual core chips come out, it will knock the socks off hyperthreading.

can you elaborate?


paul.