Which Alien???

[carlangas]

Hi all,

 

I need help on deciding which system to get, I can only spend about 2500 bucks. I've been looking at different companies and i think alien has the best bang for the buck. I use max/vray for stills although I will be doing animations in the future. I ended up with these two systems and wanted to get your opinion on these or other systems you know of.

 

MJ-12® 5500i

 

Processor: Intel® Pentium® Processor 840 w/ Dual Core Technology 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Power Supply: Alienware® 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply with Active PFC

Motherboard: Alienware® PCI Express Motherboard with Intel® 955X Chipset

Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB

Graphics Accelerator: NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 540 PCI-E 128MB DDR w/ Breakout Box

System Drive: High Performance - 80GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache

A/V Work Drives: High Performance - 80GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache

Primary Optical Drive: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive

Secondary Optical Drive: 52x32x52x CD-RW Drive

 

price is $2422.00

 

and the other system is:

 

MJ-12® 7550i

 

Processor/s: Dual Processor - Dual Intel® Xeon™ Processors 3.0GHz w/ EM64T 800 MHz FSB w/1MB Cache

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Power Supply: Enermax EG465P-VE 24P 460 Watt Power Supply

Motherboard: Alienware® X2 Dual Xeon™ Motherboard

Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 Registered ECC SDRAM at 400MHz - 2 x 1024MB

Graphics Accelerator: NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 540 PCI-E 128MB DDR w/ Breakout Box

System Drive: High Performance - 80GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache

A/V Work Drives: High Performance - 80GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache

Primary Optical Drive: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive

Secondary Optical Drive: 52x32x52x CD-RW Drive

 

price is $2,492.00

 

thanks for your help

[carlangas]

One more question, In order to get two buckets rendering at the same time in vray, do you need a dual precessor pc or will the dual cores do it too.

[J.C]

Que onda Carlos,

Un consejo si me permites

I just bought a new workstation with about the same budget as yours $2589 USD to be exact. A dual core opteron 265, 2 gb ram, 160 gb HD, geforce 6600 gt (wich can run as a Quadro fx 540 using rivatuner) but cheaper. supermicro motherboard dvdr dual layer and the usual stuff. The thing is very fast I would say its somewhat faster than the xeon setup you are after. You might want to consider taking a look at http://www.monarchcomputer.com thats where I got it from. I must say I'm pleased with the workstation and I think is a good deal for this budget.

Ofcourse I ended up paying well over $3,000 for the shipping, customs etc.

Yo creo que estas pagando mucho por la marca pero claro es tu desicion.

JC

[carlangas]

Hi JC, thanks for the input. Ill check out that website. im not very good with precessor types/configurations thats why i was cuoting the dual xeons.

[gfa2]

You get 2 buckets with vray on a PC that has hyperthreading, you don't even need 2 real processors. I have an Alienware m7700 with a 3.8Ghz P4, 2GB ram, 256MB video and (2) 80GB 7200rpm drives in raid 0. This is a great machine but it is very heavy, runs hot and the battery isn't worth a crap (maybe 40 minutes on a full charge), but when you have it plugged in...it is awesome.

[carlangas]

ok, here is a monarch's system. still open to suggestions.

 

Monarch Empro Custom Workstation

 

Power Supply: 100362 - PS 550W - CoolerMaster Real Power ATX 2.0

Case Fan: 100933 - 80mm - Thermaltake 80mm Case Fan

Motherboard: 110681 - Supermicro/Monarch A0110681 (H8DA8) GB-L

Processor: 120775 - AMD Opteron 265 Dual-Core 1.8GHz 1MB

Heat Sink Fan: 130956 - Thermaltake A1770 AMD Opteron/64 Heatsink

Memory: 140258 - DDR (400) 3200 REG ECC - 2 GB (2 pcs 1GB)

Hard Drive: 150935 - SATA - Western Digital (WD800JD) 80 GB/72

2nd Hard Drive: 150935 - SATA - Western Digital (WD800JD) 80 GB/72

RAID Setup: None

CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW: 160949 - DVD±RW - Samsung SH-W162C/BEBN 16x Dual L

CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160021 - CD-RW - Lite-On SOHR-5239S 52X32X52 CD-RW

Video Card: 190038 - eVGA Geforce 6200 256MB DDR/AGP/TV-Out/DV

price is $2,342.39