chipw Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Just want to get everyones opinion - with all the new hardware out there. what is the best combination for a workstation for an animator who does primarily architectural animation using 3dsmax? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 how much will this system be used for rendering. If it's strictly a modeling machine go with dual opteron 256's if you intend to render with it go with a pair of 285's on a Tyan S2895 with 4 gigs of ram and xp 64 and a quadro 5500 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 Quadro 5500? That's ambitious, even for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 27, 2006 Share Posted June 27, 2006 lol ~ he opened that can when he said "best" workstation:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Then throw in SCSI RAID - two of them - we decided in another thread that it's better for video editing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Then throw in SCSI RAID - two of them - we decided in another thread that it's better for video editing. definitely... 2 of these in RAID 0 these would be hd bliss! ... 5 year warranty is yummy too : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 back to business though ~ George, if you have a budget go ahead and throw it out there and also let us know when you plan on purchasing a new system/components... right now or in a few months:cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipw Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 back to business though ~ George, if you have a budget go ahead and throw it out there and also let us know when you plan on purchasing a new system/components... right now or in a few months:cool: Thank you very much for your replies - this is the system i am currently using the system below: AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ 200Mhz (Socket 939) MSI SLI Motherboard Kingston 1GB PC400 DDR SDRAM Palit GeForce 6200 TC PCI-E 64MB DDR Seagate 160 GB Hard Disk Drive SATA Duke ATX Casing HEC AcePower 480-Watts Power Supply in your opinion what is the cheapest way to max this system out? - currently using it mostly for test rendering and rendering perspectives (stills) I am planning on purchasing asap. can you give me an estimate? Thanks again guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 The CPU is already fast - you can't get all that much mush faster without going to a dual-dual Opteron - so I'd advise installing more RAM and a better video card. Minimum card would be a better Geforce without Turbocache, a Quadro is nice if you can budget it, or do what I did and get a midrange FireGL cheap on Ebay - this would be in the $200 range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 Thank you very much for your replies - this is the system i am currently using the system below: AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ 200Mhz (Socket 939) MSI SLI Motherboard Kingston 1GB PC400 DDR SDRAM Palit GeForce 6200 TC PCI-E 64MB DDR Seagate 160 GB Hard Disk Drive SATA Duke ATX Casing HEC AcePower 480-Watts Power Supply in your opinion what is the cheapest way to max this system out? - currently using it mostly for test rendering and rendering perspectives (stills) I am planning on purchasing asap. can you give me an estimate? Thanks again guys. I'm still a little confused ~ is this a dedicated rendernode or workstation? The reason I ask is that if we spec out everything to "top off" your current rig with the cost of the latest processor, ram, hd's, psu's... etc, you could build 2 rendernodes. assuming it's a workstation: a basic system overhaul with 939's you can go all the way to a dualcore Opteron 185 (all 1xx Opterons are skt 939) or FX60 for a few hundred less. With either of those chips you will gain 600mhz/core which (IMO) is a noticeable jump in any processor line but you pay through the nose for these high-end chips... IMO (they're not worth it). like AJLynn already mentioned ~ definitely go with at least 2 gb of ram... make sure it matches what you already have or it probably won't work. get to at least the 6800 series graphics cards... they are good but still a step behing the Quadro line (nothing less than a 13/1400) I'd suggest digging up some reivews about your power supply and seeing what kind of marks it gets from the gurus. the PSU is responsible for keeping everything nice and stable and if it goes, it can take other parts of your system with it! HD's ~ put any modern sata hd's in RAID 0 and you have great hd performance. Put 2 - 10k rpm sata drives in RAID 0 and you have super hd performance... may or may not be worth it to you. I'd, at least, pick up a WD 74gb raptor for your OS and programs and use your other drive for storage and get another for more storage if needed. case, just make sure it has adequate airflow... you may need to upgrade to higher cfm fans to keep this little hot rod cool:cool: in your opinion what is the cheapest way to max this system out? ... this is a simple one - overclocking most 939's (esp the x2 3800 and Opteron 165's) are animals and depending on whether or not the rest of your system can handle, or even allow, a moderate oc is the best way to save money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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