AJLynn Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 An i7 is a quad core, and it's the latest technology. Even the lowest spec version will outperform the CPUs in the laptops you listed. Boxx even makes one that's been overclocked and is competitive with most dual-quad Xeons of the Core2 generation, but two of those wouldn't fit inside the $6000 budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted March 10, 2009 Author Share Posted March 10, 2009 Well there you go ! I had no idea ( obviously )... now if I can only find a manufacturer that has an i7 with 12 gig and a FireGL card... hmmmm I can get it in a dell with a Radeon card but it seems Revit prefers FireGL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I did a writeup on this a while back, you can see it here. The Revit information was based on my firm's experience and reading up on the AUGI forums where the Revit section had a lot of talk on video cards and the moderator distilled it down to: -Geforce cards have too many bugs in the OpenGL driver -FireGL cards are best -Radeon cards also work correctly but they're not in the "approved" card list -Quadro cards don't work as well as ATI cards but they can be in the "approved" list anyway As for the 12GB thing - with i7s you want to use matched triples (instead of matched pairs) of RAM because the RAM is triple channel and good motherboards have 6 slots, so the standard configurations are 3, 6 or 12GB, but not 4 or 8 which are usual on Core2 machines. If you get a computer from a major vendor that has 6GB and 3 slots free you can use the memory chooser on crucial.com to get the other 6GB and it might come out cheaper (but Crucial memory is at least as good as what manufacturers us and comes with warranty). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Well there you go ! I had no idea ( obviously )... now if I can only find a manufacturer that has an i7 with 12 gig and a FireGL card... hmmmm I can get it in a dell with a Radeon card but it seems Revit prefers FireGL we have i7 configurations with 12GB and ATI Fire Pro... (I'm just sayin') Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted March 10, 2009 Author Share Posted March 10, 2009 Im lookin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soulctrla Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 "...The laptop will suffer from battery life so badly with all that kit in it if operating at full chat that its practically a static machine anyway...." Actually, GoBOXX should get from 1 1/2 to 2 hours under fairly heavy use. Fair play... I got a Dell and I get 1.5 to 2 hours from it doing 3d stuff. Its a Core 2 Duo with 4 gig ram and 15.4 screen. That kind of batter life is ok but not enough that I can get any meaningful work done. I just dont see an untethered laptop is a viable 3D solution - Sure on the mains its fine.. Powerful enough to do most stuff- infact my Laptop is currently quicker than my Decrepit old Dual Xeon 2.8 at home... But off the mains its just not got enough power to allow me to do anything serious on the move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 Well, if Boxx gets 1.5-2 hours running a quad desktop CPU and Dell can only run a mobile duo for 1.5-2 hours, Boxx wins. Sorry, that wasn't fair, but I couldn't resist. BTW my 1st gen Macbook Pro 17 has a recently replaced battery and goes for more than 3 hours. (Again, not fair, that's under light load.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spacelord Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I haven'r read the whole thread but thought I through in this link to Eurocoms latest laptop. I don't think its out yet but looks impressive. Eurocom launches World's First i7 Notebook with Intel i7 Quad Core and Xeon Processors; 1GB NVIDIA GeForce Go GTX 280M or Quadro FX3700M; 1.5TB of storage with RAID 0/1/5 for On-the-Road Mobile Workstation or Mobile Server use. http://anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=578 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notjeff Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 I would buy a "cheaper" desktop at home and a more expensive desktop at the office to render off of. Or vice versa if you want lol! $6K can get you a sick amount of performance today. Set up a way to access all of your files in the office from you home computer via log in and shared folder, or by the old school archive file in max and a portable HD as mentioned before. The advice you have gotten IMO is very sound (unless someone is trying to sell you a machine.) I would just forget the laptop. It will be heavy to carry around, it may run hot, and if you are running it on a battery while rendering, it will die quickly. Just not a good idea IMO. Also as a laptop heats up it may run slower. The only thing i think would be useful on the laptop is to tweak the files, send em in and render that way. Dont bother rendering on one. The screen on a laptop will likely never be close to as good high end consumer monitor as well. You can have 2 good 24" monitors as mentioned before. The other thing to think of is that there will soon be dual Nahalem chips on a workstation in PC, and the price will be very low for the power. Apple has a deal with Intel where they get great prices for their chips, and get them before anybody else for their macs. There are already dual Nahalem Xeons in the power macs on apple. It hasnt been released for PC yet, but they will be out soon. If you cant wait, which i assume u cant........ You can always see prices of parts on a site like pricewatch or zipzoomfly. to get an idea of what someone like Dell or Boxx is charging and what the parts cost and how much people are making off of their systems. You can tweak your graphics card or ram very easily by getting the minimum even from apple for a power mac and putting in a real graphics card and a bunch or ram. Dont believe the fear tactics that things wont work and it will be so hard, etc. When the last Xeons came out, the best buy was a power mac. If you tweaked the graphics card and ram, and run boot camp. I rendered with it. Incredibly stable. It was simply cheaper than any PC. I assume their agreement w/Intel will make this the same for the near future as well. What i would do is the following if you can get two machines and the best bang for your buck IMO. Forget the "pro" graphics cards, they are just a way for Boxx and Dell to make more $ and they are so powerful now, that truthfully these apps cant use all of the power, only a high end video game can. They work just as well. I have had problems w/high-end cards for 3d for what it is worth as well. For rendering and your #1 machine get a mac pro minimum specs except for ram, get 8 gig for extra $100. Upgrade on your own to a radeon 4870 1 gb graphics card at $200 and buy another 2 pieces of 2bg ram to get u to 12 gb, or if you want to go wild go higher w/ram. Get one more HD and install your windows OS on it. Get one nice monitor. Maybe a samsung 24" tft? If you like Apple monitors, samsung makes them and the right model is better for color and other things. Run boot camp and XP 64 or Vista 64. I assume you maybe a bit over $4.5k. Next machine is a beater, but now you can get a very fast machine for like $500. The monitor is up to you. Likely this machine will be good enough for what you want to do anyways. Believe me, i use my beater all the time, and its not chopped liver if you know what you are doing. That is what i would do, and w/the performance you will get w/that mac now, simply unbeatable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redav Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 128GB Dell Mobility Solid State Drive For what it's worth, we had several users test Dell's SSD's mid last year and on average, apart from boot up, we found that the machines were slower than your typical drives. No idea if they have improved this technology since then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOXXLABS Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 For what it's worth, we had several users test Dell's SSD's mid last year and on average, apart from boot up, we found that the machines were slower than your typical drives. No idea if they have improved this technology since then. With two intel X25 SSD's we're getting about 500MB/s in RAID0 in our GoBOXX W2500. That's enough disc bandwidth to play back five (5) uncompressed HD720 (AVI, RAW) streams simultaneously without dropping frames. We can play back two streams of 1080P uncompressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redav Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 With two intel X25 SSD's we're getting about 500MB/s in RAID0 in our GoBOXX W2500. That's enough disc bandwidth to play back five (5) uncompressed HD720 (AVI, RAW) streams simultaneously without dropping frames. We can play back two streams of 1080P uncompressed. Gee... very nice. Wonder if Dell has done the same? Our testing was for normal machines with single drives. As they were CAD machines, they didn't need a flash setup. Wouldn't mind some of your gear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 Thanks to all again. A couple of points. I never plan on running this on batteries. maybe for a demo here and there but not for work. I cant make the jump to apple. I have just never gone there dont think I can now. on the video cards FireGL or NVIDIA FX 570 Is there a big difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 Not the FX 570. It's a very weak performer; the only reason to get it is if you really need a Quadro but really don't want to spend. It's barely faster than my FireGL v5200, which is something like 4 generations old. I'd give you a v5100 for the cost of shipping and you'd be just as happy. Actually, if anybody wants a v5100 for the cost of shipping, PM me. I might also have a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo around here somewhere. I'm feeling generous with my obsolete hardware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 I am soo close how does everyone feel about a ATI FIREGL V7600? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Excellent card, for both Max and Revit. Some numbers here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 OK here is the current set up, I am about to purchase. All criticisms would be appreciated. I know its a great system am looking for improvement suggestions. I decided if I need portability I will lease another Boxx and bill my client monthly CONFIGURATION i7-920 2.66 Ghz 12 gb ddr3 1333 ( 6 dimms) ATI Fire GL V7600 512MB USB External floppy 2 X 250 GB 7,200rpm SATA' 20 Dual layer dvd-rw Writer MS office 2007 small business ( no media ) MS Windows Vista business edition 64 bit USB keyboard logitech MX 400 Corded mouse MODEL SPECS i7 extreme intelfi x 58 / ich10r nvidia nforce 200 three channel DDR3-1066-1600 .....( 6 DIMMS ) (6) Serial ATA 3gb/s ports ...( RAID 0 AND 1 ) (2) SAS ports ....( RAID 0 and 1 ) (2) GIG Ethernet port 7.1 HD Audio .... Front panel mic + audio out (1) S/PDIF Out ( coaxial and optical ) ( 8) USB 2.0 ports ( 2) front (6) rear ( 2) e-SATA ports 700W power supply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Good plan. While you're at it you might as well include a monitor calibrator in the budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 OK... I stopped my order because I found out they are making dual i7's now. My question... are dual 2.26 processors going to be twice as fast as a single 2.95 processor for max / mental ray rendering? Is the dual a much better way to go? Thanks to all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Where are you looking at Dual i7s, I had a bit of a rummage but couldnt find anything....what motherboard and who's making them? Any benchmarks yet? Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 Boxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 mental ray is efficient enough that doubling the cores does approximately double the speed, assuming you have enough ram. (But dual 2.26's wouldn't be twice as fast as one 2.95; dual 2.26's would be almost but not quite twice as fast as one 2.26. I say almost because none of this software scales with 100% efficiency.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 So would dual 2.26's be better than a single 2.93? I would think yes, and considerably better at rendering speeds. duals are the better option? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Yes, better for rendering. Not better for any operation that can't use more than 4 threads. The dual 2.26 configuration will be faster for mental ray rendering. The single 2.93 will be faster for almost any other task, including running Revit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevitGary Posted April 6, 2009 Author Share Posted April 6, 2009 AH! ... Dont let my name confuse you. I am more interested in rendering speeds for MAX. I think a 2.26 will be plenty fast for all other apps. Im going to giver Boxx a call now Thanks!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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