buying new machines

[sanjapavelic]

Hi,

i m using HP xw 8400 workstation (5 years old) as a rendering machine.

Although it served well so far, I d like to invest into two new machines

(to form a small rendering farm).

Should i continue upgrading pc/HP, PC/something else or maybe turn to MAC?

Any opinion?

Thanks in advance

Sanja

[Chris MacDonald]

Truth be told it doesn't matter who the manufacturer is; it's all about the components inside. For rendering it is simply a case of throwing as much power as you can afford at it.

[Jason Matthews]

Agreed. I would start by establishing a budget. Will you be buying the system from a vendor or building it yourself? That will greatly impact the cost. You can expect a 50% cost increase by buying the system from say Dell or HP (at least here in the US). As far as bang for your buck, a Mac is not the way to go. You will end up paying double for a system with the same components. Given that your system is 5 years old, finding components for it should be relatively inexpensive when compared to a new system. However, you will be limited by the hardware in your machine. For example, upgrading RAM may be an issue because of the limitation of the motherboard. I assume that the machine is a Xeon machine which, if I recall correctly, takes ECC registered RAM which also comes at a premium.

 

Bottom line, find out how much you want to spend, determine if you will order the parts and build it yourself, research how much it will cost to maximize your current system.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Current Mac Pros are a bit behind hardware wise, and also kinda pricier than the HP/Dell/Lenovo workstastions for the same specs (if at par).

 

The "go mac" question, is not something you ask others. It is something you know you want to do as it comes with some pros but many cons, usually the cons are the different UI logic that is easy to overcome, ofc the price for sticking with Apple labeled hardware (irrelevant for many) and lastly the sofware compatibility.

 

Getting a Mac for 3DS is a Non sequitur - i.e. makes no sense. 3DS runs in windows only. Lends itself to PCs.

 

Getting a Mac to run parallel desktops for random lil stuff is one thing, using parallels to run intensive windows apps is a Non sequitur as it penalizes performance.

 

Getting a Mac machine to run Windows, is a Non sequitur, unless all you want is the looks of a Mac, while you need a PC. The "apple has better hardware" is a myth. Same x86 intel CPUs, same ref. design boards with all OEMs. Prettier/better cases? Sure. But if you spend that kind of money, all hardware that matters, screens included, are sourced from manufacturers that make their products available to other companies too.

 

So, there are workarounds if you already have a Mac or you mainly need/want MacOS and you want to run your occasional WinOS app.

 

But if you start a workstation for scratch aimed to run WinOS programs, please, just get a PC to begin with...

 

The only hybrid alternative that makes sense, is should you want to build your own machine and you need/prefer MacOS, you can build a "hackintosh" i.e. a custom PC running MacOS. Doing so is breaking EULA with MacOS, but it is NOT illegal if you have purchased MacOS. Completely different situation with installing pirated OS. A hackintosh is vastly better value than a original mac, as it costs far less than a Mac (actually costs less than a Win-PC too due to software costs, as Windows is sold for profit, while MacOS X not really, you get it for $30 or so), has access to more hardware options.

Edited March 14, 2013 by dtolios