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Hi.

Im about to buy a new computer to my office. Its mostly for rendering (Maxwell & Mental Ray), but some modelling to (Maya). I have some questions:

1. What grafic card would you prefer? Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 or ATI FireGL V7300 / V7350?

I read in issue 80 of 3D World Magazine a test where the Xwork X20a-64 won, and it had the ATI-card.

2. Is it a good idéa to buy one of the "render-machines" in the test or build my own, and earn some cash?

3. What card works best with maxwell?

Machines in the test:
Boxx 7400
CAD2 Vision A280GT-64
Gladiator 2X270 3DW
Scan 3XS
Xwork X20a-64

4. Do you own any of the machines, and if so, Is it THAT good?

Thanks.

I see no reason to get such an expensive card as the Nvidia Quadro FX 4500.........it's over £1000 on ebuyer.
Surely an nVidia7 series would be more than ample......twin 7800gt's 'bridged' will cost you less than half the fx4500 and will scream more than you'll ever need..........

Build your own.........I built two AthlonX2 +4800s last January and that cost me around 4400Euros.......will be cheaper now.

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Unless you work with a very large set of different models on the screen at one time, a 7800 Gforce will be very sufficient for you.

nvidia vs ATI is really your own prefernece, but unless you are really pushing really high poly models a fx 4500 is overkill the 3450 or 3500 is plenty of card to handle a lot

Building your own :

Pros: cheaper
Cons: ...can be frustrating getting everything set perfectly that also means downtime spent on it.

Buying one:

Pros: Expertly setup with OS installed, ....ready to go.
Cons: more $$$

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It really depends what type of person you are, ....if you like to be hands- on, ....then, ...buy the parts.

If your busy as hell and rarely open your pc case, ...or have never done that, ...then just buy a pre-made box. The extra money spent will be made up in productivity , ....at least that's the idea.
The unit comes, .....install software, ....your running.

I use Macs and Dells, until I got the bug to build my own Shuttle XPC machine. BUiding is fun but......

I spent extra $ to get a fancy 3D card (ATi FireGL) and have found it has not made any real difference compared to my cheaper Nvidia Quadro 550's in our Dells (we don not do animation though). The extra video RAM helps with large number of objects, but that's minor.

The first 6 months were plagued with the ATi card and the computer. Finally got that right (finding the right driver that my bios and machine liked I guess). Then the DVD burner decided to stop working, but putting it in a friends machine showed it to be fine (he got it free as I bought a new one). Seems every time an update is installed for something there was a small chance I would get a bug. Lots of down time ! The initial savings was pointless.

Dell - not fancy, not cool, but nothing bad happens.

Frankly, I would consider building another machine, but I would simply copy the exact hardware specs from a proven tested magazine article.
Too many brands with finicky problems when combined with other brands of hardware.

adamwade wrote:I use Macs and Dells, until I got the bug to build my own Shuttle XPC machine. BUiding is fun but......

I spent extra $ to get a fancy 3D card (ATi FireGL) and have found it has not made any real difference compared to my cheaper Nvidia Quadro 550's in our Dells (we don not do animation though). The extra video RAM helps with large number of objects, but that's minor.

The first 6 months were plagued with the ATi card and the computer. Finally got that right (finding the right driver that my bios and machine liked I guess). Then the DVD burner decided to stop working, but putting it in a friends machine showed it to be fine (he got it free as I bought a new one). Seems every time an update is installed for something there was a small chance I would get a bug. Lots of down time ! The initial savings was pointless.

Dell - not fancy, not cool, but nothing bad happens.

Frankly, I would consider building another machine, but I would simply copy the exact hardware specs from a proven tested magazine article.
Too many brands with finicky problems when combined with other brands of hardware.

Thats what Im afraid for. I got to bad experiences with homebuilt computers. Nothing works for sure. Matbe if I let a pro config it for me.

Thanks to all btw.