Hi all, I want to upgrade my PC, and i was wondering since i'm using Poser & 3d max & bryce which is better Amd or INtel as a rendering processor??

I prefer Intel Pentium MMX based products.

AMD. Go for the Athlon if you can afford it. And a good gfx-card if you work alot with MAX.

I've always heard that Intel's math coprocessor is better optimized.

AMD Athlon is the way to go for sure. Way better render times with much less memory then Intel. Chris

I went with AMD as well. Better priced and I believe a better performer though I haven't checked the stats of late. Get the Asus K7M motherboard and an Athlon chip.

OK, here's the deal. If you need something now, get a coppermine. If you can afford to wait a few weeks, get something with a socketed Athlon. Under no circumstances should you buy a slotted Athlon at this point in time.

Intel is better for games and has AMD beat on that. But I like the Cyrix or AMD Chipsets for rendering/ modelling because as the others have said its faster. -Matt

You get what you pay for. Ask a good tech about component stability. And which one of these is built with weak parts. I won't say which one. I don't want to start any chip wars. ;-) ScottA

i went from an amd k6 450mhz to a pII350 celeron clocked at 450 and my poser render times where cut by a third......though i'm hearing good things about the athalon........Steve

For an objective and distinctly non religious view on hardware issues, visit http://www.tomshardware.com. There is comparison of AMD and Intel there in abundance. Bear in mind that the main concerns for 3D rendering are floating point performance (FPU) and stability. Also bear in mind that having the latest and fastest hardware will cost megabucks. The difference between the cost of a 1Ghz processor and a 600Mhz version is more than the cost of Poser, and will buy you a lot of models from Zygote, etc, etc. Since you intend to run 3DStudio Max, you should ideally be using WindowsNT (Win2000 not fully supported as yet). Using this OS enables you use two (or more) processors. You'll most likely find that running Max on a dual CPU system running at 600Mhz will be faster and more flexible than a single CPU system at 1Ghz. Poser will not benefit speedwise from two processors, other than being able to render safely in its own 'space' while you use the machine for other things. Win9x multitasking isn't nearly as good. Last waffle from me: for serious CGI work, 256mb of extra memory will be more than ten times as useful to you than 256Mhz of extra CPU speed.

I'm pretty sure kinetix say max will not run on Amd PC's ....it does but they say it doesn't.......Steve

Max 3.1 runs under Win 2K without a glitch. Darkness: You need to decide if you need two processors or one. If two, then you have to go with the Intel platform. However, I strenously advise against the 820/840 chipsets. If money is not a problem, I'd recomend something with ServerSetIII chipset. If money is a concern and you want a single cpu, then wait until socketed Athlons come out with on-die cache, which should take place in about two weeks if AMD doesn't delay.

Hi, Albertosaurus Is 100% right! I work in a Computers Lab and I delt lots of computers and Since the 370 Socket is the Next Generation of CPUs (for time been) you should go for the Coppermine 133Mhz Bus CPU and if your interested in a MotherBoard to go with it I would mention that you'll go for one with 133 support and also the Memory Chip should be 133 as well (Not Down to 100 couse the Board can't handle the 133) also go for X4 AGP slot and Card - GeForce is good I can't tell you much about it - I don't know about the Voodoo 5!!???? All of the above means lots of money! Be careful before you ruch and buy a New Computer - Consult anyone you know and get the fare deal of each and every Card you buy. I only can suggest that a good MotherBoard is the main thing you need to deal first and I'm for ASUS!!! not the version with the RDRam chips the 2000 version - that can be enough for you. And Memory should be above 128MB something like 256Mb (Expensive). Hope I helped Regards, Arye Guetta

Well... to keep things balanced here. I believe PJF said that MAX was not FULLY (Fully being the key word)supported. As steve said. MAX works with AMD's even though they say it doesn't. My point is. These guys are just trying to keep Darkness on a known good path. Not into the testing zone. Where things may or may not work. I myself have seen much more noticeable speed gains from upgrading to faster CPU's. Than by adding ram. But I work with relatively low end machines. So that may be a different story once you climb in to the 400+ mhz. processor range. ScottA

Just an aside: the new PIII 1 GHZ processors test much better than Athlons, BUT are in VERY scarce demand (thus high prices, if you can find them). Between 600 and 1 GHZ, Athlons are faster processors, and in general a better choice, and are easier to locate - however, athlons have been going UP in price due to demand. I've been trying to get a 550 PIII to replace my 266 PII for months now, but none have been available, or when they were it was "pulled" CPUs, removed from the casing etc. I don't think this is a good time to upgrade, actually; it might be best to wait a few months to see how prices will settle and if Intel has fixed it's supply problems...

I have an AMD K6-2 500 with 64 megs of memory. I run Max, Rhino, Strata, poser, bryce, turbocad,amorphium, Canoma, Photoshop, PSP without any problem at all. Quake II runs well enough on it to satisfy a non-game freak. I'm very happy with mine, save I need more memory and a better video card. The only problem I've ever had with Max is if I try to run it while I'm online. It gets weird errors then.

I upgraded to the Asus K7M and the Athlon 700. I am overclocking at 800Mhz which seems to be the maximum allowed without modifications to the processor board. I have been VERY happy with the stable results and bought 512MB of SDRAM-133 with the money I saved vs Intel at a high speed. I did a motherboard/processor upgrade to a system with an ATI All-in-Wonder graphics card 8MB PCI, and a Maxtor 13.0GB Harddrive (the slow one 5400RPM). All works very fine!