Jon Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Hello All, Long time reader first time poster here and hopefully you will be able to give me some advice. I do most of the 3d Rendering for the firm I work for and I am getting a new computer and they said, within reason, I can design what I want for it. I am relatively new to the 3d side of things and well to architecture itself therefore I have not used many "high end" machines and have had no experience with dual processors. My problem arises when I pitched my specs to the company "computer advisor". First off my specs: Dell Precision 470 dual 3.0 Xeon 2mb L2 cache xp pro 2gb mem 74gig 10k rpm hd 128mb ati fire gl v3100 run ADT 3.3, Viz 2k5, Photoshop cs "computer advisor/IT guy" said he had other companys that had single procesor xeon workstations that are not even used because they are so buggy and always crash and he is saying that xeon are not as good as a chip and recommended that configuration with a 304 pentium 4 and gforce 6800. Any advice you guys/gals can give me about dual processors, the xeon chips, dual 3.0s or the video card would be great. I am trying to find people with first hand knowledge that can help give a newbie some advice. Thanks in advance for your help, Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclasvegas Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I'm using the Dell Precision 670 with the same specs as yours. I've have nothing to say except--- this system rocks. I have had no problems with it or my last 3D Boxx with dual Xeons. With the dual 3.0 gig processors it is about 50% faster than the Boxx (with dual 1.7), 35% faster than the dual 2.0 gig 3d Boxx in the office. and more than twice as fast as the standard Dell single P4 2.7s in the office. And this is render speed. I set up a render farm with 3 standard dells and the Boxx and this Precision 670 will easily keep up with all the other rendering computeers in number of frames rendered. The nice things about the Dell is the price compared to the 3D Boxx machines. It worked out to be about $1000 less and 100 times quieter than the Boxx machines (those suckers are loud). I use 3DSmax, CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12, Illustrator CS Graphics Suite, Adobe Premier, Adobe After Effects and non of the software has any issues. I highly recommend the Dell (I would have never done that in the past). mc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 Jon, I pretty much have the same system you spec, and it rocks. I will never go back to a single processor. The computer is fast and quiet- dell is good in making the workstations very quiet as mc stated! I never had any problems running software. My recomendation is go for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 If within reason means getting the Dell you specced, then I would get that one. Dual processer is the only way to go. And doing Viz work, you are going to want to get the best graphics card you can afford. One other thing to look into if you haven't already, get dual monitors. You will never ever want to go back to a single monitor once you have used dual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 your IT guys is just trying to get you to spec an inferior system so he can get it a cheaper price and make his budget look good for the quarter. probably the easiest thing to do is to research speed tests on various 3d boards where people have posted benchmarks. i have been on a dual xeon 2ghz at work now for about a year and half. it is an IBM and not Dell, but it has crashed less than 10 times since i have had it. it is probably the stable'st' machine i have ever used. i can't say the same about ATI cards, they left a bad taste in my mouth several years ago, and have never went back. i think everyone agrees that the best thing to do is push for a quadro card, but if you are having trouble getting the system through in the first place, that is probably not going to happen. you can soft mod the geforce cards to behave at about 90% of the lowest quadro, but it is still not the same. the only downfall in a xeon over a p4 in this case is the reluctance of the computer guy in the fist place. if he already does not want to get a xeon, then he probably is not going to want to upgrade you when the time comes. on the other hand if you had a p4, he would probably be more likely to give your machine to someone doing general cad work, and buy you a new machine on a yearly basis. just a thought. maybe it is best the two of you work out a yearly budget for 3d hardware, and work that method. you have an allowance, you decide how to spend, but it you have to prove that purchases are wise, and you have to get approval to buy equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenoe12 Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 Check out the "Dual AMD Opteron" systems (e.g. by HP or Boxx), I think this latest system will kick the butts of Xeons, specially when the 64-bit Windows arrives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 Matt, Thanks very much that is exactly what I was looking for! I have heard the same thing from a couple different people now. Its nice to hear that they are quiet. I am pretty much looking at anything is going to be an upgrade from that AMD1900 with a 64mb gforce4400 card and 512mb memory.! I'm using the Dell Precision 670 with the same specs as yours. I've have nothing to say except--- this system rocks. I have had no problems with it or my last 3D Boxx with dual Xeons. With the dual 3.0 gig processors it is about 50% faster than the Boxx (with dual 1.7), 35% faster than the dual 2.0 gig 3d Boxx in the office. and more than twice as fast as the standard Dell single P4 2.7s in the office. And this is render speed. I set up a render farm with 3 standard dells and the Boxx and this Precision 670 will easily keep up with all the other rendering computeers in number of frames rendered. The nice things about the Dell is the price compared to the 3D Boxx machines. It worked out to be about $1000 less and 100 times quieter than the Boxx machines (those suckers are loud). I use 3DSmax, CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12, Illustrator CS Graphics Suite, Adobe Premier, Adobe After Effects and non of the software has any issues. I highly recommend the Dell (I would have never done that in the past). mc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 Thank you for your reply! This is going to be a huge upgrade for me. Jon, I pretty much have the same system you spec, and it rocks. I will never go back to a single processor. The computer is fast and quiet- dell is good in making the workstations very quiet as mc stated! I never had any problems running software. My recomendation is go for it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 Thats what I am worried about, the never wanting to go back, that will mean I have to upgrade the computer at home! I had the ATI V3100 which has an AVI and DVI output. I was planning on getting a 19" flat panel and running that along side my 19" CRT that I have now. The way dell is setup to upgrade from the 64mb 2d quattro card to the 128 mb ATI fire card is $70 bucks. To upgrade to the 128mb quattro card from the 128mb ATI card is $450 bucks. I am not sure yet if the upgrade will be worth it. If within reason means getting the Dell you specced, then I would get that one. Dual processer is the only way to go. And doing Viz work, you are going to want to get the best graphics card you can afford. One other thing to look into if you haven't already, get dual monitors. You will never ever want to go back to a single monitor once you have used dual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 Iv'e not used the ATI card. I have a quadro fx 1000 on my dell now. I'm not necessarily happy with it, but I don't think I will ever be happy with a graphics card. I've used graphics cards that cost 6,000 US and still not been impressed. The thing that the quadro has over the ATI is the MAX and Viz specific drivers, which help a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 CHG- Thanks for the insight. As of right now I am working in a smaller firm that is just embracing the new technologies and slowing working towards yearly upgrades etc. Since yearly or bi yearly upgrades are pretty much out I don't have to worry about him dragging his feet. "He" is a outside company too that fixes things when they go bad and advise the mgmt on computers. so if I can convince the mgmt I have a very good chance of getting it through despite what "he" says. I really like the Idea of a yearly 3d budget and I will try to put some numbers together and a presentation and make my pitch. Thank you very much for that. Hopefully I can get one and then tough it out with the ATI card for a year and upgrade to the Quattro, which from everything I have read is a better card just a ton more expensive. your IT guys is just trying to get you to spec an inferior system so he can get it a cheaper price and make his budget look good for the quarter. probably the easiest thing to do is to research speed tests on various 3d boards where people have posted benchmarks. i have been on a dual xeon 2ghz at work now for about a year and half. it is an IBM and not Dell, but it has crashed less than 10 times since i have had it. it is probably the stable'st' machine i have ever used. i can't say the same about ATI cards, they left a bad taste in my mouth several years ago, and have never went back. i think everyone agrees that the best thing to do is push for a quadro card, but if you are having trouble getting the system through in the first place, that is probably not going to happen. you can soft mod the geforce cards to behave at about 90% of the lowest quadro, but it is still not the same. the only downfall in a xeon over a p4 in this case is the reluctance of the computer guy in the fist place. if he already does not want to get a xeon, then he probably is not going to want to upgrade you when the time comes. on the other hand if you had a p4, he would probably be more likely to give your machine to someone doing general cad work, and buy you a new machine on a yearly basis. just a thought. maybe it is best the two of you work out a yearly budget for 3d hardware, and work that method. you have an allowance, you decide how to spend, but it you have to prove that purchases are wise, and you have to get approval to buy equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 would if I could, since I am a huge AMD fan, and this is actually will be the first non amd system I have used in the last 8 years or so, but it has to be from dell and dell doesn't do AMD. Check out the "Dual AMD Opteron" systems (e.g. by HP or Boxx), I think this latest system will kick the butts of Xeons, specially when the 64-bit Windows arrives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 Thank you all for your quick and informative replies. This has been a positive and very helpful experience and I am def. going to stick around and try to contribute to the board! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I've always been skeptical of ATI cards, but I just read a review of the 3200 (it's the newer version of what Dell has) an it got really high marks, where as the Quadro 1300 that costs significantly more, got very poor scores. I've used a few different cards and I can't tell a difference between the Quadros and Geforces. The only advantage I can see with a Quadro is the dual DVI output. I am looking at that exact machine! Probably won't get the 74 gig high speed though, probably a RAID 0 with 250 gigs and a 250 gig back up drive (RAID 5 if they'll do it would be nice). The only reason I'd pay for the Quadro 1400 was because it's teh only card (or cheapest) that will drive Dell's new 24" LCD (I just HAVE to get that!! The price is very reasonable). Yeah, as everyone is pointing out, either your IT guy is scamming you for his budget, or he's a moron and know's nothing about dual processors and high end software. I wouldn't trust him after stating that if I were you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 29, 2005 Author Share Posted March 29, 2005 Thanks GI and MBR- I was reading up on the ATI cards and while the v3100 has the lowest scores by far it had also the lowest price too. There was a website I think it might have been Toms Hardware comparing the price/preformance ratio of the cards and the ATI V3100 had the highest, just cause it was the cheapest relative to the preformance. I am going to get it and Ill be sure to let everyone know on here how it does. Thanks everyone for the advice... and I definitely now take the IT guy with a grain of salt. MBR- whats the reason for the 250gig with the 250gig backup? I can see the benifits for having two drives for swap files in PS and such, for me all of my storage is on the server here at work so am I correct in assuming that I wouldn't need all that space? I was thinking about adding a second 40 gig HD for the swap file? is that even necessary? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 I have a pretty sim setup. Ask your it geek to com to my office & I will show him the difference. I think he may be going off the "well I heard of this guy who had this machine and it crashed every ten minutes" line of thinking. Where you hear an unsubstantiated rumor once and it becomes gospel in your mind. I remember when I bought my seat of max 4 years ago I heard rumors that autidesk was dropping VIZ and only max would be around. I bought max I am happy with it but I payed more just because of a rumor. I have had 2 dual systems. One was a Dell, the new one is a Boxx. So far after 2 months with the Boxx I don't think I could ever go back to Dell. My old computer was buggy and would freeze I could never get it fixed. So far not a glitch with the Boxx they were really helpfull setting it up and I had a real person contact throughout the purchase. And the Boxx is much quiter than the Dell was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 The ideal config I can think of is doing a RAID 5 config, so you have 3 identical hard drives. Two are stripped, so they are running theoretically twice as fast, then you have the thrid drive mirror the first two, so you have a backup if one of the first two drives fail. I really don't know much about this, so in my mind it wouldn't work as fast as just having a RAID 0 config, then a third drive to periodically backup to. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseph alexander Posted March 31, 2005 Share Posted March 31, 2005 I did a lot of research before I speced out the machines for my office. The price point right now is the dual 3.0 xenons with 800 mhz FSB.. this is what you want, per dollar they render faster then AMDs. What I would STRONGLY recomend is to have two computers, one for rendering one for modeling... For your modeling computer.. a price point dell with a graphics card and a fast hadrive... for your render node a dual 3.0 w/ an fx 500 card.. set them up running backburner and remote desktop... this means that you can model and render at the same time.... with one machine they're paying you to watch things render which is, over a year, more expensive for them them and hurts deadlines (you could be modeling or drafting while you render), also other employees can ship renders to that machine, and work.. Right now I run a dual xenon 3.2 with an fx 3400 card and two blades with the same hardware (fx 500) for a rack. All are dells all are noiseless and crashless. Hardware is extremely generic, if something crashes it's because of the user not the hardware. Our IT configes all of our systmes I have no problems. I render with Brazil and often times need 5 renders to cook over night for a 9:00 am presentation.. So I can tell you when I get a crazy deadline being able to render and model at the same time is the only way i can get things done on time. Having a dedicated render node and a good graphics card (FX 500 or better with the viz drivers) will make you and other people in your office more productive... -joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 31, 2005 Author Share Posted March 31, 2005 Joe, Thanks alot for the response. I am going to go with the dell's for sure. Given the amount of rendering that we do in the office, the render node setup would be very much overkill. I usually do the typical model everything and then render at night. So far *knock on wood* I haven't had any crazy deadlines where I have needed to model and render at the same time. I can always "borrow" someone's computer who isn't there. Its good to hear that the dell's are crashless, that was a big worry for me. Thanks. I did a lot of research before I speced out the machines for my office. The price point right now is the dual 3.0 xenons with 800 mhz FSB.. this is what you want, per dollar they render faster then AMDs. What I would STRONGLY recomend is to have two computers, one for rendering one for modeling... For your modeling computer.. a price point dell with a graphics card and a fast hadrive... for your render node a dual 3.0 w/ an fx 500 card.. set them up running backburner and remote desktop... this means that you can model and render at the same time.... with one machine they're paying you to watch things render which is, over a year, more expensive for them them and hurts deadlines (you could be modeling or drafting while you render), also other employees can ship renders to that machine, and work.. Right now I run a dual xenon 3.2 with an fx 3400 card and two blades with the same hardware (fx 500) for a rack. All are dells all are noiseless and crashless. Hardware is extremely generic, if something crashes it's because of the user not the hardware. Our IT configes all of our systmes I have no problems. I render with Brazil and often times need 5 renders to cook over night for a 9:00 am presentation.. So I can tell you when I get a crazy deadline being able to render and model at the same time is the only way i can get things done on time. Having a dedicated render node and a good graphics card (FX 500 or better with the viz drivers) will make you and other people in your office more productive... -joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted March 31, 2005 Author Share Posted March 31, 2005 The ideal config I can think of is doing a RAID 5 config, so you have 3 identical hard drives. Two are stripped, so they are running theoretically twice as fast, then you have the thrid drive mirror the first two, so you have a backup if one of the first two drives fail. I really don't know much about this, so in my mind it wouldn't work as fast as just having a RAID 0 config, then a third drive to periodically backup to. Anyone else have thoughts on this? I asked out IT guy and he recommended 2 drives RAID 0 , striping i think, and that doubles the theoriticall read write speed of the drives. Then having a 3rd harddrive to manually backup to, or even have a backup program back up to nightly. I decided to go with the dual drives at a RAID 0 for speed and I will be doing all of the rendering and modelling on there and for backup I will be using the server backing up to that manually. I think this is a good compromise for speed and backup safeguards. Here are some of the links that I got information on RAID if any of you are interested: http://www.sohoconsult.ch/raid/raid.html http://www.acnc.com/04_01_05.html http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/index.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 I'm really glad to see there are more people liking Dell Precisions. I have a fully spec'd 670 almost 2 months now and really love it. It does not squeeze all the performance out of the components, but it is very quiet and extremely stable (MAX6/7, LW7/8, FormZ, AFX, DF, etc). I know some guys who have top of the line BOXX's, and they may be a bit faster with the same components, but thay are way more expensive (especially when you compare fully spec'd systems) but they are also very loud: this may not bother some, but for me I would gladly trade in some speed. There are some issues with the 670 however: - The power supply can make some irritating high pitched noise because of the small fans. This may go away after some weeks of heavy use. After 3 reaplcements in 3 days it is acceptable now. - Make sure you have a 16-speed DL NEC DVR-RW drive; the Philips one does not even reach 4 speed. And buy Nero instantly: Sonic Recordnow 7.3 does not even allow you to select the rec.speed, which may give compatibility problems with a lot of media. - Do NOT get a SCSI array INSIDE your case. They make your system way too hot. Just get an external SCSI U320 case put in 2 or 4 drives, get an Interal/External slot adapter and a short external SCSI U320 cable for connecting your case to the adapter. Do NOT buy a terminator: just cut the Dell supplied cable so you have a short piece to connect the adapter to your onboard SCSI connector and the other piece with the terminator to terminate the chain INSIDE the external case. This way you'll have the exact same speed as if they were inside your DELL but your system will stay a lot cooler and quieter plus you can switch of the array if you don't need it. I only use the array for video editing; using SCSI drives as system drives is simply over the top and not neccessary...I have U320 15K Seagate switched in RAID0 which give a sustained rate of about 130-150, which is the best you can get, even if you use a dedicated controller. Using this setup as a system drive you'll gain only 5-10% over a NON-raid setup. With all issues mentioned above I had fast and great help from DELL tech support. This is in the Netherlands and I have 4 years Gold TS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XITIJ412 Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 Hi! friends, Pls.find herewith attached my workstation detail. few days before I bought intel core i7 cpu 2.67 ghz.4gb ram.My hardware given me for trial base Quadro fx_1700. Pls.tell me is it proper for my workstation??? If no pls. suggest me best graphic cards as per my work station. I am doing 3d architectural work and using 3ds max 64bit and V-ray. You can mail me on this id. (xitij412@yahoo.co.in) Thank you. Kshitij mehta India Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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