Hi all,

I am starting preliminary research and foot work prior to purchasing a new machine.  I will probably be asking a lot of questions in the next 30-60 in prep of pulling the trigger on the purchase.  I am keeping it simple with these questions for now.

(1) My first question is what platform and why? 
(2) I hear that Macs have better graphics handling and are more stable (at least that is what the commercials say)  True or False?
(3) What is meant by better graphics machine?
(4) Does that equate into faster render times? 

(5) Mac quad cores are double the cost of a PC quad core. Is it worth it?

I have a PC now. 

(6) Will Daz allow me to reset my downloads on Carrara, Bryce, Hex, models, Studio, etc to get the Mac versions or will I have to start purchasing all new software?

(7) Have a machine built loaded with operating system only vs. a cross-the-counter unit and strip out the unwanted preloaded stuff?

Thanks for your input.

I have heard the Mac is better geared toward graphics and music, but to be honest I will stick to the PC as software is more readily available, and it is less expensive.... although Mac users will disagree.

Faster processors and more memory equate to faster render times generally.

If you have a PC now, then you have to ask yourself do you want to learn a new system.

I suspect you would have to purchase Bryce for a Mac, as it is not just a port over from the PC. But then I also suspect that only DAZ can really answer that question.

It is possible to have a different login and so only specific software is loaded per login. That way the new PC (if it's that what you finally choose) can still be used for other purposes. Or I guess you could use your old computer for other stuff as well.
If you have a login that only loads the essential for Bryce for instance, well thats possible.

My experience with computers is that you will never be entirely happy, because when you find out how much faster the render times are with your shiny new machine, you will start to create more complex scenes and so the render times will become as they were or even longer LOL!

Best of luck choosing your new workstation.

I'm almost certain that when you reset the DL's that you've previosly purchased from DAZ, the MAC version of Bryce is available also. Though what will you do with all your other software?

As dhama mentioned, there's going to be a learning curve to switch your OS.
I would ask people that have both or have switched, and even possibly sit down at a MAC store to test drive one. (bring your list of questions for the sales person)

Not sure what you plan on spending, though I can tell you from personal experience that My A-ware workstation is not as impressive off the showroom floor as they would have you believe.
I've made substantial upgrades and finally have a machine that can handle what I want / need it to do. Not to mention some major repairs at 4 months out of warranty.

BOXX looks decent, but I suspect the cost to get a high end WS from a "Brand Name" will purely be that, Purchasing a Name-Plate on kick-ass machine when you could probably build your own with some research for much less.

Overall.....Investigate pricing, try out as many pre-built systems you can get access to, talk to as many people as possible. Allow some lattitude for upgrading, IE: (build a good base system that you can add to). Read lots of online reviews for hardware, software, OS, system objective.

Write down and print out all the info you can gather up.....Doing all the homework first will pay off in the end. You have a good window of time to investigate.

Good luck, & Congrats!!
ICM

Edit: Just checked Daz's site and it seems that Bryce 6.1 is compatable with Mac also. :-)

If you are going with building your own .. remember, for every part you buy there will be a warranty and support for that part...  If anything goes wrong you have to call the right support people to get it fixed....  It can drive you crazy if it's a compound problem with two different dealers...    I have heard that sometimes these support people play ping-pong with you.. ping tells you go to pong and pong tells you to go to ping,,,,  If you see what I mean... 
READ CAREFULLY YOUR WARRANTY>>>

There are web houses that sell combinations...   you can buy a few parts..ie.. (memory, CPU & MOBO)  combo, for a good price, under the same warranty...

The Motherboard is the most important part in a system so be ready to spend the most you can on a good one...  A motherboard is worth an extensive research...  unless you have the bucks, patience and time to deal with returning parts..  steer away from " the latest"  if it is untested in the public domain..  There are a lot of bells and whistles...  keep it simple...
Speaking of returns..  some web outfits are not very good in the process of returning Items...  I'm sure you know this..   Keep an eye out...  
READ CUSTOMER REVIEWS>>>>

There is also the CPU.. which one?  ADM or Intel.... ?  read reviews speak to people...! 

**Building your own system can be very satisfying and frugal... **

Lastly...  

The Graphics card...!  which one...?   One thing that can be said...  A good 3D system for modeling / rendering might make a poor gaming one.   If you don't care that much for games then you might save on some bucks....   You don't need the latest GC  to work in Brice...  Just plenty of fast memory...   If you are a gamer then you might want to spend more money...

BTW..  on the other hand.... if you have the money.. you can get a graphics card made for professional CAD system...    very fast renderings...   go poor even faster lol...

Last note...  there are magazines out there that build systems from scratch.... you can fallow one of their formulas..  since  they test and review the resulting "working" system...

Thanks Tom271, but building my own is not anywhere near my plan.  I was speaking more about the type machines that you have custom built by a professional with or without operation system software and the consumer pretty much specs it to the pro.

To make this thread simpler, just address "PC or Mac and why"f?  Why do Macs cost so much more?  Is there really a performance advantage?

Its not a simple thing a lot of emotion on the PC or mac question.  Your right you can get a cheaper PC, and windows.  OS X is a wonderful operating system and still way ahead of windows even vista.  I had to due to funds go from OS X to Vista 64 (OS X is 64 bit).  There are lots of little things that should be there that aren't and the state of freeware while there is lots for windows the quality seemed to be better on OS X.  I would go back in a heart beat (and I will), my wife won't switch off even if she has to delay getting a new system for a few more bucks.  I have programmed and worked on both in lots of different situations.

We could get into viruses, firewalls, spyware on OS X (which really isn't ) to whats steps you have to on windows .  Like anything else its a tool, each has strengths and weaknesses.  Mark B  I believe uses all OS X for his setup.  I will turn this quadcore I have into a renderfarm machine once I get enough funds to get another OS X box.  The OS X the programs are fairly consistent, heck in Vista they took the shortcut for closing a window for an open mail message.  But its one of those things until you use it you don't know what you are missing.  What else besides the 3d do you want to do.

I've used macs and pcs, and I would argue for the pc, plain and simple osx is excellent, better then windows, but bang for buck is way better on a pc, also upgradeability is far better on a pc, and I like to tinker :). PCs (or windows PCs) do suffer more with viruses etc, that is because many hackers dislike microsofts way of doing business and windoze is full of security holes. I mainly use Linux on a PC, switching to windoze for the odd game. I think a few years ago talking linux / open source would have earnt me my geek badge instantly, but nowadays this stuff is getting really good, it honestly can be worth considering getting a linux machine for the average joe public and bryce will run in WINE (provides an application layer for windows programs). Advantages of this are PC box is cheap, open source software is free, and linux is very stable and I would say less resource hungy, which leaves more resource for rendering......

Final nails in the coffin for me with respect to macs are that 3ds max doesn't run on a mac and neither do that many games, and I like to play games now and then...

That said last mac I tried was an early imac and they will have moved on since then.

I've always understood Macs to be more expensive because they have less of the market than PCs do, and they are generally designer in nature.

If you don't consider bulding your own, you will not realy have a system that corresponds to your needs. There are companies that sell PCs in kit form and believe me a child could put them together; they are so easy. I've done the very same thing every time i've upgraded. It's great fun, and you get exactly what you need, plus you you are not restricted by some purpose build machines. You should reconsider, you could save about a third of the cost.

Performance advantage? none really, if you compare benchmark* speeds.

• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-computer-benchmarks.htm

Amiga's where Light Years ahead as far as Graphics and Sound.. but thats another topic.

Buy what you can afford and make sure it can do what you want from it.

Dont buy because its Cool or the In-Thing.

LOL @ Analog-x64

I still have a working Amiga 3000     oops guru00001000101000

I value your opinion because of answers I have seen you provide in the past.  You know what I want.  I want a dedicated graphics machine that will render Bryce scenes in something less than eternity.  I want stable.  I want best bang for bucks in a single machine. Games, internet, word processing, etc... will be on this old Sony Vaio. 

If I opt for PC it will be XP Pro 64 os on a Core 2 Quad machine or equivalent.

It seems the decision to buy a computer becomes harder every year with all the available choices.

Here are my current thoughts on the subject till further notice.  ALL PC.  And this is a good guideline for anyone looking to buy a computer not just skiwillgee.

• Use XP Pro and skip the mistake that Vista is... anyone remember Windows millennium?? A nice little mistake that Microsoft swept under the rugg.  Well thats what Vista is.

• 2GB Minimum RAM - Dual Channel prerfered for optimal performance.   Requires Dual Channel RAM Sold as a pair and motherboard needs to support it.

• So many processor choices which to get?? on the Intel side anything with the words "Core" is the higher end of their Processors.   "Core 2" Preferred.   with AMD anything with the words "Athalon"  but "Athalon X2" is preferred.  This is one component you dont want to go cheap on.

• HD:  Not only have hard drives come down in size, but as well motherboards with Raid support are becoming common place.   I would recommend Raid 1 as a good method of data loss redundancy.   I have a Raid 1 with 2 x 500GB HD's.   Some people will look at this as a waste of disk space.  I see it as an assurance that if one HD Fails.  I can rebuild my system with the healthy drive.  Raid 1 works by Mirroring the data between the two drives.  So 2 x 500GB with Raid 1 will only give you 500GB of data and not 1000 GB.

• Video Card... this can be hard to choose and the choices are just over the top.  you can spend as low as $40 or $1500 and upwards.  So far I havent seen any data that suggests that Video Card speeds up rendering times.  If you want to render only, than a Low to Mid Range video card around the $150-$200 mark should do just fine.. if you want you're system to handle the latest games etc.. $300-$700 Range cards will do the job.

At this point I would like to also mention that you can get a PS3 for around $200-$300 much cheaper than an expensive video card and you can play games and Blu-Ray DVD's.

Brand Name? or no Brand Name?  Dell allows you to customize to a certain extent, and the positives would be that they have already done the work for you and the components should work together and there is a good warranty system incase something goes wrong.

You can also have a very good system built by people like ncix.com a good alternative and might get the better performance system.  But service/warranty might not be as good as Dell or Compaq.

So in my personal opinion  a Solid Motherboard + Fast Processor + Fast RAM will probably be the factors of a good rendering machine.

If you dont care for any of the above, there is the $300 rule.

What is a $300 dollar rule?   A $300 Motherboard, $300 Processor, $300 RAM, $300 Video Card should yield a fast machine.

 I primarily use my computers for my art and the internet. I gave up on PC (Windows) 3 years ago after losing countless renders and sometimes entire files to Windows inability to perform to my expectations, or should I say CRASH. I have a Mac G5 and an Intel Macbook. Both perform very well and I can render in Bryce, create in Vue, listen to iTunes and surf the net all at the same time with no noticeable loss of performance. I am not a gamer, and Mac lags in that category. I guess you just have to consider what your main use will be and go in that direction. BTW, OSX is very simple to learn, so don't let that scare you off. 

Quad core is seriously nice, be it either AMD or Intel. Having the fastest costs the mostest though! So unless you are rich or commercially engaged, a slightly back from the bleeding edge will save you bucks and still delivery bang for those that you do spend.
I recommend at least two physical drives as well. If you don't raid you can still cross backup all the critical items on each so a drive crash will not stop you for long.
Not sure what you are using in a monitor but get a video card the can at least push 1600x1200 in 32 bit at greater than 80 hz refresh. Even though it's older my Nvidia FX7900GTX is a rock solid performer.
I have always been partial to ASUS mobo's, fewer returns than any other I have seen.

Quote - Quad core is seriously nice, be it either AMD or Intel. Having the fastest costs the mostest though! So unless you are rich or commercially engaged, a slightly back from the bleeding edge will save you bucks and still delivery bang for those that you do spend.

for the cpu I reckon the core 2 Q6600 is the best buy, not the bleeding edge -fantastic value for money....

Well Skiwillgee, I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a computer geek-geek but I’ve been around computers since they made their first debut into the public domain for which I had been waiting for several years before then because I had special interests at the time (astronomical and photographical). And many things have changed since then.

Where once we knew that basically a computer consisted of a motherboard (came to be known as a “mobo”), a central processing unit chip (CPU), a hard drive (HD) and a floppy (remember the tape recorders and the 5 1/2 “ diskets?). Today we are inundated by the influx of technology and data.

So it’s not as simple anymore and as years go by they get even more complicated until finally they become simple again…an invention may come along in the not too distant future where mobo,CPU, HD and most peripherals will be contained in a single chip. And all you need order is: “ I’ll take the Azure chip for now but the Crimerion chip looks good also”.

Anyway, the point of this is…I recently (late April) bought a Dell XPS720 dual core (32 bit), 2.66Ghz., 1333FSB, 4Mb cache, 4Gb. DDR2 SDRAM at 800 Mhz., 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX video card, two 500 Gb. Serial ATA (SATA) 7200RPM Hard drives w/16MB. Databurst cache and Windows XP Pro. Now, do you understand anything of what I just rattled off? Probably not. And that’s pretty much where I was when I went out to make the purchase. So…you need to freshen-up on your computerese before you go out to make a slaying.

A couple things I learned along the way…64 bit Quad core computing is attractive but not yet here. Not too many programs coming in to the 64 bit domain yet. And not too many using quad core processing power as of yet but it’s all just around the corner. You can use 32 bit OS in a 64 bit processor. All this probably nearer than cheap gas at the moment.

RAID drives…an excellent setup for business professionals and serious artists because of the redundancy backup issue. But as my Dell agent told me when I enquired into them for my system (which of course came highly recommended from Dell advertisement) he basically said that yes…you have two drives but they’re basically a mirror image of each other for backup purposes so if you buy 2-500 Gb drives you only really have one 500 Gb drive and he didn’t recommend I get them for if your system drops out once (and you have no UPS system) then you lose both anyway. But here is a touchy situation for I thought I would like to get the much sought after RAID drive system. I didn’t.

Looking at what I ordered above…all those specs, and I still have ton's of paperwork figuratively speaking, you need to familiarize yourself with at least the basics of those…what is quad core…dual core? What is FSB? What is DDR2 and SDRAM? What is SATA? What is databurst cache?

Finally I would like to say that coming from a long time using Windows Me which never failed me and I still have it on my old computer without fail I went for Windows XP over Vista which is plain to see but if I had to reorder my OS, after much research afterwards I would go with Windows 2K if you can get it over Windows XP. Research that to while you’er at it.

A few things to research:

FSB: Front Side bus: FSB connects the processor of your computer (CPU) to system memory.

DDR: Double Data Rate memory (the bottleneck unpluger as far as SDRAM and its cycles is concerned)…they come in different flavors (1,2,3 etc.).

From SRAM (Static RAM) to DRAM (Dynamic RAM…also asynchronous DRAM) SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) all terms to become familiar with…at least for the moment when you need to buy your new system.

Many things to consider and yes, it’s a pain in the a... but just think of what you would be relearning!

A web site to check out for terms:

http://www.directron.com/upgrade.html

Best of luck with your new system.

Go to Newegg.com and cruise the pc parts section read the comments this will give you an idea ofwhat you might want in a system.

did a quik mock up of a pc for ya this should scream.
89     Ga-ep35-Ds3l                                                                     
189    8400 wolfdale  3ghz (upgrade to quad when prices come down)                     
238   G.Skill 4gb 2x2 ddr2 1066 F2-8500cl5d-4gbpk x2 (8gig total if running 64bit OS)  
26      Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92 mm cpu cooler                                                                                 158    Seagate Barracuda ES.2 st3250310ns 250 gb hd   x2                                        
149     EVGA 512-p3-n861-ar Geforce 9600 GT video card                                                                  
30     lite-on dvd burner model ihas120-08                                                                                       
19     lite-on dvd player model DH-16D2S-08                                             
190   cooler master cosmos 1000rc-1000-ksn1-gp 
129    Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750 watt power supply                                     

TOTAL $1225 aprox.

A couple of points in regards to Quest comments.

• I agree that a UPS is an excellent choice in protecting  you're new investment, all of my PC's at home have individual UPS Units.

• I dont agree with who ever you spoke to at Dell.  Raid 1 may have its flaws, but I rather have some type of redundancy than nothing. The failure of one drive, in the event of a hardware or software malfunction, does not increase the chance of a failure or decrease the reliability of the remaining drives in a Raid 1 system.

• XP vs Win2K  You need to understand what they are based on.

• Windows XP is based on the Windows 95/98 Technology with great support for Hardware and Plug and Playability.  Service Pack 2 and now 3 have done a great job of resolving issues with the first release of XP.

• Win2K is based on NT v4.0 - it was more designed towards the Buisness environment  rather than the Home environment.  Since the core of Win2K is based on NT.  That meant Hardware support is not as robust as in Windows XP.

Dont get me wrong I love Win2K is great and one of the best O/S that has come from Microsoft, however it is now very much outdated, and support for many new hardware has pretty much been dropped.

What I recommend is to follow the super tweak instructions by Dark Viper at http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm  they are safe tweaks and will make you're XP look just like Windows 2000 and more.

I may not go into full detail, why I make the recommendations that I do, but all you have to do is a bit of research on what I've said and you will see that they are good recommendations.

Thanks again.

I am set on a quad core.  I will buy as much high end technology as I can so I won't be dissatisfied in 6 months.  But I do know not the buy the first of anything.  Quad core technology is no longer new and several companies are building quad machines for across the counter markets.  Software will catch up for sure.  Same goes with 64bit.  I'm leaning toward the PC platform because I've seen no Mac advantages that outweigh the availability of PC stuff and prices associated with them.  I wish MS was as stable.  Maybe SP3 will help.  

I've got XP Home now and the random crashes come once a week maybe but sometimes twice in one day.  They all report as "some driver issued a stop command"  No way to track it down short of removing one item at a time and wait for weeks to see if problem went away.  I live with it (save often)

I appreciate the advice that is being given.  Keep it coming.

That's one of the reasons I work with C4D, full support for 16 cores is basic. Four works sweet! When Bryce went multi-threaded I got in as well.

Analog, like I said at the beginning of my post I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a computer geek (meaning a computer techno person). But I do enjoy learning about it and more often than not I get in way over my head in it as I expect many people do too.

To follow up on your comments, and in no way am I defending the Dell agent here, I came across this in Global Spec an engineering search engine and think that in part this might be what that agent had in mind when he was trying to explain to me the RAID system, at least it sounds close, but he didn’t go into the RAID level details so this may be out of context: “RAID disk arrays support many different RAID levels. RAID 0 or “striping” is non-redundant and splits data across hard drives. The failure of any disk in the array results in complete data loss. RAID 1, known as “mirroring with two hard drives”, provides redundancy by duplicating all data from one drive to another.” This seems to paraphrase what he said although I can’t possibly go verbatim but this is neither here nor there he managed not to sell me on RAID. So we both lost on that deal. Furthermore, Wikipedia advises: “It is important to note that RAID is not an alternative to backing up data. Data may become damaged or destroyed without harm to the drive(s) on which it is stored. For example, part of the data may be overwritten by a system malfunction; a file may be damaged or deleted by user error or malice and not noticed for days or weeks”. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone just offered personal experience but RAID may be just the thing for some people. I offer both these articles for further reading:

Global Spec

Wikipedia

As for Windows XP and Windows 2k, here’s an article that compares the two and associates them to the common NT kernel which they both share. Personally I’m not thrilled with Windows XP but it works. Microsoft does what it always does when it wants to sell a new OS and that is to slowly deplete support of the older OS to get people to move on to the next eye-candy and euphoria.

Computer User

Analog, you must be a mind reader. I’ve been bookmarking web sites that help tweak the XP beast. Thanks very much for that link, looks great. I will certainly visit there when I’m ready to thrash the monster.

Quest brought the good point of Backups which I forgot.

I've looked at Tape / CD / DVD Media etc.. and the best method of backup is to buy an External USB Hard drive.   I plugg mine in.. do my backup... un-plug and store somewhere safe.   If you want more full detail why I dont like the other methods let me know.

I've worked as an I.T. Administrator in the past taking care of several servers and Raid was a life saver a few times.  Which was, overnight a hard drive had failed on an important file server.  without Raid, it would have been a day of panic and a day spent restoring data from Backup's and hoping that the backup tapes were in good order.

Since Raid system was in place, it was a matter of removing the old drive and inserting a new drive and the data from the good drives were copied onto the new drive, all this was done transparent to the network/users.

Raid might not be perfect, but its like having car insurance , you may or may not need to take advantage of it, but its there if you do need it.

Good Luck with the new computer purchase.

I still prefer OS X even more so having to go back to windows for awhile.  Where I got my PC was CyberpowerPC.com  Several people have now used them over in the Daz Forums and have been very pleased with the price and what they got.  Start with a base system and mod to have everything you want.  You can nickle and dime yourself into a higher price bracket though.  That being said I want to get back to OS X its just so much nicer to use.

Attached Link: CNET

I did not have time to read all but just something to put in my 2 cents . There a couple places here if you go and talk to them and tell them what you doing with the computor they casn mke it at the same price or a little more than what you buy pre made and you get what you wish like the Cad Graphics cards talked about already . Guess the best thing to do is find a place there in your area and check them out with your list of questions

Very late to this thread, but I wanna throw in a couple cents, as I have just finished building a new PC for myself, and need to share my shell-shock.**

1. what platform and why?** Windows. They get their software updates first (usually). And, PC's are always less expensive to do hardware upgrades to. (but, I am biased, as I build my own computers)

2. Macs have better graphics handling and are more stable? False nowadays, in my experience. My work in the film industry has shown me entire buildings that run on PC's and Windows, and co-workers that at first bring their Mac laptops in with them, then later they lease a PC laptop (after they can't get their internet or email to work)

3. "Better graphics machine". Just means beefier, faster parts. Don't fall into the (PC) trap of "you have to have THE fastest everything" though. There is ALWAYS a sweet spot for buying components, and it is not worth spending double your budget to make a render finish only 10% faster.

4. Faster render times will always be the result of faster cpu's, and in the case of multiple core's, more cores.

5. Mac quad cores are double the cost of a PC quad core. Is it worth it? No, it is not worth it, unless you love spending more of your money. if you do, I'll provide you an address in which to start mailing me blank checks.

6 Will Daz allow me to reset my downloads? Ask Daz, I'm not sure.
**

1. Should you buy a ready to go tower, or build your own?** I HAVE JUST RECENTLY DID BOTH OF THESE....and I am here to give my extremely biased opinion of.....%$#!-ing pre-built towers, and especially %@#! the %$#!-ing Vista Operating System. Now, I am SURE there are some of you have had perfect experiences with Vista on a ready to go tower from Dell, HP, Compaq, etc. I have NOT.

Lemme expand on that rage a little . I could go on and on how much Vista sucks, I mean...I could literally make you uncomfortable and fear for your own safety if I were to express to you my true passion of hatred for Vista face to face.

But, here is my (calm) performance opinion of Vista; THE best environment to run Bryce (or really any program) is a where you have the most memory free and the least amount of processes using the cpu. Vista simply is the worst OS I have seen at this. Vista is a cpu/memory whore. And, I used EVERY optimization trick in the book. (have for years, with all my OS's)

Anyway, the quick story is; I had bought an HP tower with Vista and spent a few days trying to optimize the OS to play nice and give me the most amount of memory and cpu to use my various programs with (Bryce, ZBrush, Photoshop, etc) After getting it as lean as possible it was still unacceptably using far too much cpu and ram, but I was about to settle with this unfortunate fact and just accept it when something went "snap crackle pop" and the whole PC just died...I performed a system recovery, which did work, but put me back at square one with trying to wrangle Vista and re-install all my programs...

I immediately returned it, got my money back and did what I should have done before, ordered all the parts I would need from Newegg and 2 days layer was building my new PC with my prior XP Pro license.

I could NOT be happier!

For under $700 I had a quad core AMD 9850 with 4gb of ram on an upgradable Gigabyte Mobo, all with an extremely quiet Antec Case, Fans and Power Supply.

I was happy to save money over a Mac or even an Intel Quad Core, which can be faster...but, Like I said I'm not worried about finishing a render 5% -10% faster than what I am now, for myself I would rather have extra money on hand for when the next, next-gen video card comes out, lol.

-------end of rant.   ;o)

AgentSmith

P.S.;

Just to solidify something here; even though I am biased towards using PC's, Windows, AMD CPU's and to building my own computers, I know that you can't judge ANY book by its cover. Mac computers and Intel CPU's are obviously fine products. In fact, when I have an extra couple of grand I will buy a Mac, lol.

It's not what tools you have, but what you can do with the tools at hand.

Excellent and informative Rant!!!

One small note.  In Canada you cannot build a PC with the specs you provided for $700.  Maybe $1200-$1500.

In Canada we get ripped off when it comes to Electronics and Computer parts.

I always build my own PC's I do have 2 pre-built Towers for simple e-mail etc.. but they never come close to having built one myself.

Ah, man...you have my sympathy on that. 12-15? Good lord....

Tks AS

I have pretty much settled on a PC quad core custom build for me, XP pro 64, 500g internal HD, 500g external,  ,,, right now my next decision is graphics card, power supply size, cooling

You personally nixed Intel.  Why?  I have heard the AMD can be overclocked more easily.

I wish I had the confidence to build it myself.  I retired from BellSouth and the last few years was in install/repair large business phone and data systems (modems, multiplexers, channel banks, fiber ring muldems, etc).  But never PCs.  I know how to handle static sensitive hardware but I would still be antsy about doing a high end PC.

I had always had an AMD CPU. Most likely because until recently, you could get a an AMD CPU that was noticeably cheaper and faster than its Intel counterpart.

Nowadays, you can compare similar AMD and Intel CPU's, and Intel leads the way as their price is around the same, but the speeds are (basically) faster. Not by a giant gap, but still, credit where credit is due, lol.

I've never overclocked, I need my parts to survive as long as possible, lol.  And, even nowadays when its easier to safely overclock, I have four cores and am speeding along, so I still don't bother with it as I might be able to squeeze out an extra 400mhz-500mhz? I'll forego a 20% faster render for piece of mind in stability and longer wear life. Besides, I'll eventually get my old PC back in working order, which has a dual core and network that together with my quad core for Bryce rendering.  ;oD

Oh, yes....64-bit OS, that is still on my list of purchases. It may not have a huge impact with most Bryce users (?), but it will have a large affect on my ZBrush, as it relies heavily on ram.

Also, Adobe's next version of Photoshop will be 64-bit enabled, and even with 4Gb of ram (windows 32-bit recognizes 3gb of it), I am running out of memory sometimes in Photoshop as I am recently working with some very huge images.

I made sure that the Gigabyte Motherboard I went with can;
-Take up to 16Gb of ram
-Supports Sata 3GP/s HDD's
-PCI express x16 2.0

So, even though right now I don't have all that ram, Sata 3's or an x16 2.0 video card, I can have room to keep upgrading. I'll probably also set up a raid as ZBrush users have stated that can really also help speed up the program.

Old thread I know but I have been doing a lot of homework as suggested.  I am stuck on what is necessary and what is overkill on graphics cards.  I have one builder suggesting a

PNY VCQFX370-PCIE-PB Quadro FX370 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Workstation Video Card

newegg has a whole category of workstation graphics cards. 

Is there a good reason to go to a cad work station card? 

If you never play any video games on your PC, you could go with a Quadro.
Also (obviously)  if you do CAD, a Quadro would help, but if you don't...imho, I wouldn't.

AS

What video card do u use/recommend.  My needs are not especially bleeding edge high frame rate killer game but I don't want lame either.   I want quiet, cool, dependable, and respectfully capable.

I have always been a fan of Nvidia, so there, I am biased.  :o~

The price/performance sweet spot of Nvidia (right now) is a GeForce 8800 GT or 8800 GTS. They give out nearly the performance of even a 9800 GTX ($210) but are smaller, use less power and don't get as hot.

Newegg has a 8800GTS for $160;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143119

I would suggest that particular brand (BFG) as they have Lifetime replacement for their cards!

And, obviously, if you want...you can double that budget and get one of the newer GTX 260's, which are much more powerful.

Well I wrote a check to have a local builder order my stuff for a new machine.  If it doesn't work I'll blame it on you guys. (kidding)

Antec Twelve Hundred Black ATX Full Tower Computer Case (six cooing fans no less)
Coursair 750watt psu
Intel Core 2 Quad Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX video
4 gig memory (two 2 X 4gig sticks)
2 internal Seagate SATA 500gig HDD Raid 1
1 external Seagate 500gig
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Channels PCI
Internal card reader
20X DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA
Windows XP Pro, 64 bit

Well?????????  Is this ok or should I bounce the check?

Now y'all give me some input on monitor. 
If you can, be name and model specific so I can compare specs/price/reviews.
Don't bother mentioning Lacie,  I don't have enough cash left for a starting price over $1000.

(edited)  I got a good cpu cooler also

I like ViewSonic.

Also when comparing refresh rate in MS (Milli Seconds) always ask if the number is grey to grey and not White to Black.

Grey to Grey takes longer and is harder to achieve on an LCD vs White to Black.. Reason being.. White = Pixel ON and Black = Pixel off.

Black on an LCD is not a Color.

So you see the monitor advertised as 4ms Refresh Rate make sure its Grey to Grey.

Yeah, have always liked ViewSonic also, nothing bad at all to say about those that I have owned.

Cool to see you are getting an Antec tower case! My last build here, I used an Antec Mini P180, and I am hooked! Quiet and cool. You're gonna love that 200mm fan on top. They move boatloads of air even on the low setting.

AS