There comes a time in every digital artist's  life when the inevitable happens. Must build new system. I know there are lots of other threads on this but I also know things change so I am asking for your help. What are the best components for a new system?

Software I use:

Poser6, Cinema4d, Bodypaint and Vue Infinite plus the new Hexagon2 and of course Photoshop. I do a lot of texture work so the open GL is important. Hope I have stated this properly. As you can tell, I am not too knowledgable with the hardware side.

Thank you for your help.

cheerio   lululee

Checkout    ALIENWARE.COM  or, DELL.COM they have detailed schemes for graphics with detailed hardware, cards, and product id numbers, then you take this info to a local trusted computer shop that will service your glitches when they happen, this will save you hundreds...

Or Check out CGTALK, for advertizers.  I might even look at the new BOOTSTRAPPED APPLE, with the dual Ops system...

Ask freiends

R

Build your own computer by buying parts at Newegg.com. You can save a lot of money, learn a lot, and it is fun. Todays computers are more simple than ever to build yourself even if it is your 1st time. If you want to get ripped off and still have a computer that sucks buy a DELL. Buy AMD dual core either the opteron or the 4200 x2 and up depending on what you want to spend. AMD OC easily and the performance boost is awesome.

lululee; The build it yourself option will get you the best, while minimizing the 'gimmicks' that could be a problem. I'd go with an Athlon X2. IF you are going to be waiting a little longer, I'd wait and see how the new AMR2 socket performs. That will make the Athlons DDR-2 capable, and faster memory is always good. Intel still has heat issues, and AMD has been functional in the real world for over a year, while Intel is still tossing new chips off left and right in paper launches. The Athlon 64's native 32 bit mode is proven and stable, so Win2k or XP will work just as smoothly as the still not fielded 64 bit OS M$ keeps talking about (XP 64 suffers a lack of support in drivers, and Vista is a complete unknown at the moment....but with a 1 gig memory requirement and even larger hard drive footprint, I'm not too eager) Spring for a sexy tower case. The reason being that most motherboards out there now are lousy with hard drive connectors. The Foxconn I'm running has 4 SATA connectors, and the dual IDE connectors for a total of 8 possible drives. Being able to just plug a new drive in makes life easier that trying to back a big one up and install a new one and reloading. One point. Make =sure= that the motherboard says that it supports SATA boot. Many of them don't; they assume, if you use the SATA drives, that you have created a RAID array. Booting off of a single SATA is impossible, although you don't find that out until you try and load the OS... If this is going to be a stict graphics computer, you might want to hunt out a lower end dual chip server board. With the X2 that would give you 4 cores, and more than enough potential memory to go crazy.... ;) SATA vs PATA. It depends. SATA is slightly faster, but the older PATA drives are lots cheaper, and run cooler to boot. If the motherboard supports both types, mixing them is no issue. SLI. Don't bother unless you game. Heat sinks. Since you are doing graphics, make sure whateve memory you buy has heat spreaders. You have to use the provided heat sink if you buy a boxed processor to keep from voiding your warranty, but if you get an OEM chip, or after the warranty expires, look at getting one of the copper monsters.

I just build an AMD X2 system.  I have to say - it beats my Intel system as far as render speed.  I'm setting it up for a render box, so I wanted a case that can take a lot of fans to keep the system cool (plus look cool!).  This is the one item I kinda splurged on - the case was $179, but WOW, it looks neat...  Check out www.XGBox.com and look at the dragon case.

Peggy

Thanks everyone for such valuable info. I have a top quality computer guy who will build it for me. He needed to know the best components for the 3d and graphics. This is a great help.

Please excuse my ignorance. Do the above specs include the video card? I am going to send this link to the gentleman who will build my computer.

cheerio   lululee

The only thing I mentioned regarding video was SLI... basically the capability to plug 2 PCI-E video cards into a motherboard and they tag team on frame rendering. Remember the Voodoo 2 cards? That's basically it. If you game, then the video card can be an issue. If you don't, and none of your apps take advantage of the hardware acceleration, then about all you have to worry about is whether the card has a good OpenGL and Direct X implementation. The caveat is if you plan on upgrading to Vista. That will require a Geforce 4 chipset as a minimum to display the desktop; so the younger and more capable the card is, the better it performs and the longer it lasts. Make sure it supports OpenGl 2.0, and DX9c, and you are good for some time. Neat case, Peggy. I prefer the Lian-Li aluminum cases, myself. The current monster is in the $200 full tower with options for dual power supplies, 6-3-6 drive mounts (6 bays, 3 floppy bays, and 6 internal mounting points). It will mount a full size AT board, so there is almost enough room in it to crawl inside with the mobo.

EVGA NVIDIA 7900 GT or GTX are both good cards. Also, the 7600 is very affordable. Some of my friends prefer ATI & CrossFire over SLI & NVIDIA. I care little about SLI or Crossfire and prefer a single Nvidia 7900 GT.

DaleB is spot on. Don't waste your money on a whizbang grfx card if your never going to use it..Iit won't help with VUE. A decent nvidia 7600gt will suffice. Great card...awesome price bracket.

Gosh, I really appreciate all of your help. My computer is not used for game playing, just Vue, Poser and Cinema4d plus lots of Photoshop and of course video editing.

  I am sending this link to the gentleman who will build the computer for me.

thanks so much for everyone's valuable expertise.

cheerio  lululee

Actually, this link here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/gelato.html

shows that video cards can help with rendering 3d apps and are not just for games. 

BTW what is a grfx?

That program in the link above only works with 3d studio Max & Maya.  Hopefully, vue one day.

Also I think it only works with Nvidia Quad cards.