Okay, so we're having to buy a new computer.

Ian is thinking if we get a PC, then:
Core2 duo
E6700 Processor
An Asus P5N32 SLI motherboard
768MB Ge Force 8800GTX Video card
250Gigs (times 2) serial Hard-Drive so 500 gigs or a raid 1 array at 250 gigs.
2 gigs of RAM
at least a 19 inch display
(but I'm not sure about these very squashed very wide screen monitors we've seen today, I find I prefer the much less wide screens)
We think maybe a 500Gig external hardrive so I can take that from place to place leaving the computer safely locked up in my student accomodation - with insurance as well - once bitten, as they say.

We did look at some nice laptops but... heavy, and it costs more for worse specs, so we're thinking PC now, not laptop

Okay, so we'll probably be buying next weekend, does anyone have any thoughts on anything I might have forgotten?  Will all that be okay with Bryce6, Cinema4D, Wings, Hexagon, etc etc.

We'd like a quad, but it's really too expensive. We drooled over it a bit but decided it was just too much. (about £2,799 - phew!!!
The Quatro has various enhancements on it... um wait, Ian just found a cheaper Quatro pretty much the same as the core 2 duo above except the graphics card is an ATI Radeon 1950XT and the processor is a QX6700 all for £2,000 - su-weet!

I have to replace my Wacom tablet, and my camera and lenses too - which is also going to cost a bit.

Double the RAM - you won't regret it.

sounds like you got the right Idea on the type of system you're getting...   I feel for you on the expense all these things you're getting will costs...

are you buying all those parts individualy or is it a company's brand...

yeesh..2,000 pounds (one monetary ton..;) for a computer? That's probably $3,000 here. I need to get out more, I built mine in '02 for about $700. But then all those bells and whistles aren't on them either..;)

good luck, hope you find something you like.

Fran
For those specs, and they are top of the line, you will need at LEAST a 500watt power supply. If you can afford it, a 750 watt one is preferred so you will have enough extra power to run those heat generating specs. If you are buying a built machine, don't let them send you home with a minimal watt power supply or cooling fans.
The 8800 GTX is the best graphics board you can find but at a steep price tag. It is DirectX 10 ready so you will be able to run the next graphics format without any need to upgrade later. It is superior to the ATI card which isn't Direct X 10 capable yet to my knowledge.
Good job in your choice of components.
I'm in the market for an upgrade and those components are identical to the ones I will be choosing.

I dunno if it's out there, but AMD is better than Intel for the money, if they have somethign comparable to the Duo Core.  AMD usually is 40% cheaper for the power has been my experience.  

For instance, when I bought my computer 5 years ago, I got an AMD "Quadraspeed" or some such brand name.  I can still run most software out there without bogging down the processor.  RAM on the other hand, that I have problems, so I agree, go RAM crazy if you can.

But that's me.

mdb

Core2 duo
E6600 Processor save $200  2.66 vs 2.4 you wont realy see a differance
An  EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR nForce 680i SLI     vs     Asus P5N32 SLI motherboard
768MB Ge Force 8800GTX Video card     lots  of card ,do you game?Nothing your running NEEDS a card that powerful. 7900 gto would be plenty.Have anything or will have anything dx 10 ready?
4  80 gig raid 0   2 partitions 1 for os 1 for  programs 2 250 gig 1 for storage 1 for backup 1 250 gig external  for backup  of  backup
2 gigs of RAM   no more      Os will only see 2.5 gig unless using a  64 bit OS . buy very good high quality ram not value ram.Heat spreaders for the ram are a nice thing also.
at least a 19 inch display  go 22 in wide screen. better yet 24 in dell.
min 700 watt power supply.DO NOT SCIMP ON POWER SUPPLY.It is the heart of your system it goes bad or feeds dirty power you can kiss all of your very expensive components good-by.In 1 fatal swoop.
my 3 cents

We do like the bells and whistles, and as we had to take our investments out to replace things, even if we'd just replaced like with like, we had to take it all out for tax purposes our advisor said, so we may as well get the best we can now afford.  Bells, whistles and all.  It will make the pain of loosing everything a bit less nasty, even though I'll never see 90% of my own creations or our photos ever again.

The websites we've been looking at show you a basic package - even the quads - but they also let you customise things, with better graphics cards, memory, hard drive, etc etc.

I agree with wildman2 on a few things. If I had the money, I would drop the 8800GTX video card too(don't need that power for 3D apps unless your doing mega high poly counts in viewports and shading) , and get a better processor or monitor, unless you game ALOT. And agree that a heavy duty power supply will be good also. Windows x64 Pro OS, unless Vista has something you want. 2 gig ram should do for now, but make sure board can support better/more etc... 

edit: as for external HDD, that will work for saving things, but you can't go wrong with a good DVD or better disc backup of projects, cause HDD's can still loose data very fast.

I don't game but my husband does.

I want to - and will soon be - getting into video editing, and sound editing, for film production - will that change things?

(stop frame animation)

If you do get the video card(8800GTX) it can be used almost for anything, since it is a TOP of the line gaming/graphics card(not including Quadro's here). As everyone who plays alot of 3D games knows, if  a video card can play the newest games at a high resolution(1280x1024 and up with AA/AF high frame rates etc..), then it can very easly do any graphic apps. 

I was just reading into the fact,  you want to do graphics, and the faster your processor ,the more detail in less time you can output(any type of app). But Vista is almost here for retail, and that graphics card can run DirectX 10 apps and functions, so that is another thing to consider if you need those. It comes down to preference and cost to most.

Looks like an pretty nice system.

I'm an AMD, guy and I'd put in as much ram as I could afford. They are nice specs just as you thew 'em up there though. 

I agree, those 19' WS just don't look right to me. 

I have Dual 17" monitors on my main system now. I'd do Dual monitors instead of one  larger one. Especially one a wide screen. I usually have reference material up on one screen and work on the other etc. 

And a Dual monitor system is surprisingly easy to set up with windows XP. Just make sure your card supports it or you have room for another Video card.

As a side note Windows Vista is recommending 2gig of Ram to feed its needs. :P

Finally everyone askes; "Why only 17's not 2 19's, or 20's?"  My reply; "Ahhh..cause. I sit less then a foot away from them." :P

Have you thought about dual  dual core Opterons or Xeons?

I just upgraded (It should be in this week!). I can't wait to render on the Quad-Core! :)

Intel® Core®2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz 1066FSB 8196KB L2 Cache Quad-Core
EVGA® Nvidia® nForce 680i SLI 3xPCIe 16x DDR2 800/1000/1200
4096MB DDR2 1000MHz PC2-8000
2x 250GB 7200RPM SATAII 300MB/s 16MB Cache 9ms RAID 0
nVidia® EVGA® GeForce 8800 GTX 768M DDR3 PCIe
700W OCZ GameXStream™ Quiet 12cm BB Fan PowerWhisper™
22" X22WG-Gamer Sceptre® Wide LCD 5ms.1200:1 HDMI/DVI 1680x1050NR
DVD+RW/DL/+R-R LightScribe™ Double Media 4.7/8.5GB 16x w/SW-Media

Intel core2 Duo is the processor to get. It outperforms the AMD cpu's in every benchmark test by miles!!

I would go with Enermax's 1000 watt psu it rocks and if you decide to add a second 8800 GTX it can manage it.

I agree with upping the RAM and make sure you grab the 64 bit OS, even if the apps are 32 bit the OS has better memory handling.

I would recommend the Xerox 20" screens although I have absolute envy wrt to my friend dual dell 30" set up, but thats a huge amount of money on monitors.

Core2 duo
E6700 Processor
An Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard
640MB Ge Force 8800GTX Video card
500Gigs serial Hard-Drive

4 gigs of Corsair RAM
a 19 inch ViewSonic TFT display 2 millisecs response time
Windows XP MCE 2005

18 speed Dual Layer DVD Writer

a 2nd DVD player drive

Sound Blaster X-FI Extreme Audio sound card

700watt Quiet Quad rail power supply

Digital TV Card

The case has two side USB ports, nice and easy to access – plus the usual 4 rear ports making 6 altogether, which can be increased by adding a panel in a PCI slot.

For software we got Microsoft Office Pro, because that one includes Publisher, which I really wanted as well as Word.

I am hoping to get some Adobe software, like Premier, which I’ll need for video editing etc, can’t afford the full Adobe Suite, unfortunately, so we’ll have to go for Elements.  I’ll be learning Final Edit Pro at college but as that’s Apple only, I’ll need Adobe for my own use on my PC.

I hope to actually get my hands on all this some time tomorrow or the next day, as it’s waiting for us at home…..

Then will begin the long process of installing everything… sigh….

FRan: I recomend Pinnacle Studio 10 for video editing....................

video editing program (premiere +)

hey
I bought the entire suite a while back by buying a video card.  I paid like 225 for the card and everything (premiere, aftereffects, audition full versions) came with it.  Thats like 1/5 to 1/4 the original cost.  Don't count it out.  Do a little research on video cards and the software they ship with.

I gave the video card away cause I didnt need it.

:)
bt

Good call, BT !!!

funny thing tho bryster
I gave the card away to a fellow brycer...but I dont remember who it was.  As I remember it, I offered it online and sent it to the first reply for free..heh.

Im thinking it was to europe somewhere, but for the life of me I dont remember who it was.

they say the mind is the first thing to go....

heh

bt

Well it wasn't me, BT !!! (bites his knuckles) :-(

You can never have too much RAM.  The specs look pretty good.  I asume you had insurance cover on the stolen items?

MalenySteve,
We thought we did, but it turned out we weren't covered.
So we've had to take our savings out.

And would you believe it - the monitor had a dead pixel - now we have the extra hassle of returning it.

Just heard the noisy neighbours setting off their fireworks so I hope 2007 is a better year than 2006 has been for us.

Attached Link: http://www.gimp.org

I did a newbie intro to the gimp tut here on rendo....

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=1071

pakled, 
Yes I had downloaded the Gimp before but not used it much as its interface just looked so different to anything I'd ever used before.  Thanks for the reminder.

Gog_CA1,
But I deffinitely do want to give it a proper try out, so your tutorial will come in very handy indeed.
Thanks for that too.

there's a tutorial out there called 'Grokking the Gimp', which is a very long and detailed set of hyperlinked web pages. About the plugin mentioned above; I saw this a few months ago, but someone had set up the Gimp interface to look like Photoshop, and it had the added benefit of being able to use Photoshop filters in Gimp. Haven't tried it, but if so, it's going to be fun...should be able to do a search in the forums.

I use the Gimp and as packled says you can run Photoshop plugins in it. (you need pspi.exe installed first to be able to do this) Not all Plugins work, but most I've tried do!

Hi,
I have a thread in the 'hardware' section for a laptop and one of the replies said  that ATI  Radeon and  open GL dont mix too well. I have put the link below for you to have a look at if you wish. Good luck with all of this. Jenny

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2681391