Hi everyone,

I just bought C6Pro (moving up from Daz Studio) and I am considering upgrading my computer to something with a little more juice. I would like to stick with a PC and would like to stay under $6k.

Dual or Quad?
How much RAM?
Which video card?
What size of hard drive?
How many hard drives?
What options do you just have to have?

This computer is going to be pretty much just dedicated to 3D modeling and graphics work. I find that my everyday computer just gets gummed up with annoying little glitches after a while so I want a dedicated graphics computer.

Thanks for you assistance, it is greatly appreciated!

John

Wow, thats a nice budget(under 6k?). I would get at least quad core, 4 gig of ram, an 8800 Nvidia card, 2 HDD(300gb or higher) two or three 20" LCDs or higher(3 are awesome for 3dcg and games), 64bit OS to support larger amount of ram(Vista is gaining 64bit support alot now) etc... this would be my base computer to start out with with the right budget in 3dcg, which can always be upgraded later depending on MB.

For me, the monitors and CPU would be the first things to look at. Fast video card if you want high end games and mega polygon models for OpenGL viewports etc... 

I run my very outdated computer as a dedicated 3dcg one, and found it is MUCH less hassle to work on(its not connected to internet for less services in background etc.). 

my .02

For that kind of money I would set up a render farm. One computer with great specs (go for Quad, 4 Gb of ram, as much hard disk space as you like [and an external backup drive] and a simple graphics card [all you need is good Open/GL]) and 4 computers with reasonable specs. Building the scene won't change (that just depends on the speed of your CPU [it will only use 1 core anyway]) but rendering will improve a lot (and you will be doing that a lot).

It will need an internet connection but make sure you keep off anything not needed, never even use a browser on your graphics box.

Interesting suggestions...

jfbeute,

I like the idea of the render farm...a lot. I had not even thought of that as an option. When I think of render farms I always had linked them to animation, which is something that I am not really interested in.

Thanks.

You too fpfrdn3. I appreciate the help. 8-)

usual use of a render farm is for animations, since thousands of frames while maybe only 3-4 minutes per, adds up, and cutting the time down is always good

but depending on the render settings, a single pic can takes up to hours to render, since quality is more important to single pics than a moving animation, making a render farm nearly as useful

I rendered a piece in Daz Studio...6 spotlights...8 point lights...and around 40 objects...it took eight hours to render. As such, I think that a render farm would be very cool.

First question, is a render farm the same thing as a Beowulf cluster?
The reason I ask is because I am looking for information on the actual setup of the system.

So, I guess my next question is...Linux or Windows XP? 
Will Linux have the same tendency as Windows for database bloat?

Just initially I am thinking that Qube! would be a good que manager. Any thoughts?

Linux is not supported for Carrara.  So XP for 64bit is your only choice. Of course, Carrara isn't 64bit, so that won't help you exept being able to supply your machine with more then 4G of RAM.
  I have no idea what Qube is, so I can't comment on that.

Otherwise I agree with the others that a basic fast machine with a render farm would be your best bet. (And I'm envious of your budjet!!)

Good luck and happy rendering! :D