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need an "Ultimate Graphics Workstation"

T

TaK

Gawd
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Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Messages
991
looking to build a new system for myself, something i render all my digital artwork and computer animation on without any lag or anything.

i already chose the Lian-Li PC-V2000 full tower for my case. all in all i'm looking to spend about 4 grand. i think i'm gonna go with a WD 74gb Raptor 10k for my Windows drive, and maybe 2 pairs of striped 250gb HDDs for my storage. i need about a TB of space, but more or less depending on speed. ar there any other options as for as a RAID array?

also, should i go Intel, AMD? Opteron? LGA775? whatever will be the fastest for me. as for RAM, i already know i need about 2 gigs. one thing i need help with is my choice of video card. im thinking Quattro, but i could be off.

could someone help me design this system, maybe a good MB/Proc combo i could go with? any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
badasscomputer.jpg
 
2 opteron 250
tyan nforce 4 pro board SLI
4gb ram mayber more
wd raptor
2 400gb hd (don't stripe, less reliable)
one quadro 3400. (then buy another in a year when price is v.low)
one ocz powerstream 600w
dvdrw etc.
 
freddiepm61 said:
2 opteron 250
tyan nforce 4 pro board SLI
4gb ram mayber more
wd raptor
2 400gb hd (don't stripe, less reliable)
one quadro 3400. (then buy another in a year when price is v.low)
one ocz powerstream 600w
dvdrw etc.
Click to expand...

2 things:
i need this system NOW, not in a couple months. i have no idea where i could get that Tyan board now

that would prolly be a little more than 5 grand
 
don't, because you can't do a graphics doubling upgrade for like $200 NEXT YEAR.
also, is about half as good as 3400, and costs almost the same
f
 
k, i came up with this:

Lian-Li PC-V2000 Case - $240
Tyan Thunder K8W M/B - $400
2x AMD Opteron 246 CPU's - $450ea
3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200 Video 512mbDDR3 - $850
5x Crucial 512mb ECC Registered PC-2700 RAM - $130ea
WD Raptor 74gb 10,000RPM HDD - $180
2x Seagate 400gb HDD - $370ea
Enermax Noisetaker 600w PSU - $170
Plextor 16xDL DVD+-RW - $140
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum - $200
Logitech MX1000 Laser Mouse - $80
Logitech Black KBD - $25
13-in-1 Card Reader - $20
Clear, Lighted 120mm fan - $10
2x Thermaltake 80mm fans - $10ea
2x Cold Cathode Lights - $15ea
Black Floppy Drive - $10

tho one other thing i need is a REALLY good LCD monitor, maybe 2. i cant get a Dell 2001fp, are there any other really good options?
 
also, with the same components as above is there a good Intel option for this? maybe a dual xeon system?
 
what programs do you use?

I use maya, and in my experience, Xeons are a bit faster compared to Opterons when rendering on-the-fly.

How do I know? When or computer lab was getting some computers for our animation class, I was the one of the students that got to test out the systems. :)
 
You might be able to get better performance running 4 sticks of pc3200 instead of 5 sticks of pc2700 since you'll be able to run them as dual channel plus they'll have a faster bus speed.

Hopefully somebody who knows more about memory than me can clarify which would be better.
 
http://www.sgi.com/products/visualization/prism/configs.html

Get the one with 16 fireGL cards and 256 Itanium 2 procesors in it, a NAS with a few TB's and an LCD theatre projector. :)

Seriously though, I'd go for something like a Mac G5 because they're actually IBM POWER's that run OS X instead of Unix and have a lot of creative apps for them. I've got two Intel boxes and even with 1GB of dual channel PC3200 RAM its a bit laggy for an Anisotropic diffusion on a 550MB TIF in PS CS. www.apple.com

Sun makes good Dual Opteron workstations too with AGP support. www.sun.com
 
Did I miss where you defined "graphics?" 2D or 3D? It makes a big difference. "Digital artwork and computer animation" doesn't really help.
 
MovieMan80 said:
You might be able to get better performance running 4 sticks of pc3200 instead of 5 sticks of pc2700 since you'll be able to run them as dual channel plus they'll have a faster bus speed.

Hopefully somebody who knows more about memory than me can clarify which would be better.
Click to expand...

Those opterons don't actually support dual channel.
 
Actually Dual Opteron Do support PC3200 ram in dual channel mode. I know I had a workstation using 246's and 4 sticks of 1 Gig Pc3200 ram.
I would get a Quadro 4000.

Wildcat sucks.

Most CG stuff doesn't use rendering on the fly because it flat out sucks, no point in rendering on the fly either because you can just play the animation in the prog itself. All the 3D progs I know use software renderers since they are ten times better then hardware, they are extremly dependant on CPU's oh and Opteron will hand a Xeon's ass on a plate when it comes to rendering.

If you want to boost rendering times then you get dedicated or add on card that handles Ray tracing.

SGI workstation Suck they are overprices and underpowered.
 
Wrench00 said:
SGI workstation Suck they are overprices and underpowered.
Click to expand...



*GASP*

take that back!


;) i bought three SGI servers off of ebay with the following specs:

225mhz CPU (i believe r10000)
512MB RAM
2x 9gb SCSI
2x 2gb SCSI

this is my dedicated renderfarm, and it works decently well, all for the price of 300 including shipping :)
 
Apple Cinema Displays are the best LCD's I've ever seen. I just got my Diamondtron 93sb about two hours ago, but my computer hasn't arrived from the US yet. I'll let you know how I like that monitor, and for graphics work I'd stick with CRT like I did. Its cheaper and you'll get a better color and image quality no matter what 2001fp owners will say.
 
The Eizo display I linked to is probably the best LCD money can buy, at least from the graphics point of view.
 
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