Hi all,

I'm still shopping around for a new PC. I have seen the following specs advertised (quotes in Aussie $), and was wondering if I could get some feedback from the more technical among you - whether you think these would be suitable for Poser : 

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AMD AM2 Sempron LE-1250 ($ 340)  ... or
AMD AM2 x2 Dual Core 5200+ ($ 380)  ... or
AMD AM2 Athlon LE-1620 ($ 350)  ... or
AMD AM2 x2 Dual Core 5400+ ($ 390)  ... or
AMD AM2 x2 Dual Core 6000+ ($ 430)  ... or
AMD AM2 x4 Core Quad 9550+ ($ 500)

With ....

1. “Genuine” AMD AM2 940 Pin Sempron, Athlon64 or AMD Athlon64 x2 Dual Core Processor
2. “NEW” ASUS M2N68 AM2 Nvidia Chipset -Multi-Layers Socket AM2 940 Motherboard (AMD Approved Motherboard) “Genuine” AMD COOLING FAN & HEATSINK
3. Latest AMD AM2 Technology & Re-Programmable Flash Plug & Play BIOS
4. Genuine Super Fast Synchronous Pipeline Burst CACHE Built-In On CPU
5. On Board Enhanced “Ultra DMA 133/100 (ATA100) Bus Master Ready” IDE Controller And Floppy Drive Port
6. On Board 1xPCI-E Ports, 4 x Enhanced USB Ports, 1 x 16550 High Speed UART Serial Ports,1 x SPP/ECP/EPP Parallel Port
7. “80GB” 7200rpm Ultra DMA 100 (ATA-100) Enhanced Cached IDE Dual Channel Hard Disk Drive
8. “1GB” DDR2 (Double Data Ram) Memory- High Speed RAM With EPROM (AMD Approved)
9. “512MB” ATI 3450 16x 3D PCI-E Video Display Card -512MB 128 Bit Blaze High Speed 2D/3D Video Card Support DirectX 9 with Full Screen MPEG/DVD Playback True Colour Graphic Accelerator Card
10. Network Card (Integrated)
11. ASUS “6 Channel” AC97 Digital Audio Stereo Plug & Play Sound Card(Integrated)
12. Quality 2.0 Channel Multi-Media Powered Amplified Shielded Speakers
13. TOP Quality “SHAW” 550Watt. Deluxe (AMD XP Support)ATX (Full Depth Size) Medium Tower Case
14. “Genuine” Gigabyte PS2 Keyboard & PS2 Ergonomic Optical Mouse
15. Full Set Of User Certificate, Disks, CDs, and Manuals. Software, And 24Hrs Plus Performance + Burn-In Test
16. 60 Month Return To Base Labour(Hardware Diagnotics) Warranty, 12 Month Return To Base Parts(Hardware ONLY) Warranty*

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What do you think ? 

thanks,
Andrew

Go Intel, quad core.
1 gig RAM?  That's nothing.  Go 4+.
512meg vid?  That's light.
80 gig IDE HD?  That's lightweight and a bit behind the bus-times.  You'll fill that up in no time at all.

The only thing that isn't something that was considered average-to-decent 4 years ago on that list is the dual core.  Those are a bit newer.  Everything else is behind the times and you wouldn't even have to get expensive or cutting edge to get a giant increase in performance by just stepping up a couple of levels.

I'll leave the specifics to others who have been familiarizing themselves with the current market. I haven't.  The computer I'm on is about 5-6 years old and it has better stats than the one spec'd out above with the exception that I don't have a dual core processor.

My advice would be that you could get a significantly better system for an extra 30% more money.  If you can't afford that now, save up a bit more.  Could the system you spec'd run Poser?  Sure it could.  Mine does.  But, it'd be a waste of your time unless you absolutely HAD to have a new system now and couldn't afford to spend any more on it.

Match the tools to the job. Poser can only address 3 gig, as I understand, so 4 would be plenty.

Asus makes motherboards; they're in both my homebuilts. Pretty decent.

Bus speed is just how fast signals get around the system board. The higher then number, the better.

The CPU is the main chip in tech-speak. Almost all of them have at least 1 cache of memory on boaurd, usually 2. Cache is just a place to stick data so the chip doesn't have to go looking for it in memory, or worse yet, the Hard drive. The bigger the cache, the less it has to go fetch; and the faster it will go. I've heard Poser 7 handles multi-core processors (in essence, several CPUs on one chip), so that might be something to consider.

AMD and Athelon are competitors to Intel's CPU. Intel's usually a safe bet, but the other two are cheaper.

PCI is just where your expansion boards (fancy video cards, network cards, etc) go. PIC-E is a faster version.

80 Gig is a pretty small drive nowadays (never thought I'd say something like that..;) You can go up to a terabyte (maybe more, haven't looked in a week..;) for a few dollars more.

DDR 2 Ram with Eprom? (Not sure what they're getting at, EEPROM is more like flash ROM; and any sort of memory is written to electrically anyways. It's like saying 'a volkswagon car, with wheels...;)

The video card isn't too shabby, but you can get better. It's just whatever you can afford. The really high-end stuff is gamer territory, it depends on how much animation and movie-playing you want to do.

Nvidia is on the system board as video; they  make some good video cards, and their site is loaded with updated drivers.

Power supply sounds ok, it's just describing what sort of motherboard it supports, and what kind of case it fits in.

Warranty - most commercial systems (IBM, and Dell at least, which is what I work on at work) have 3-year warranties, but as this is 3rd party, it's probably a good idea. If there's an extended warranty, they'll probably try to sell you one..;) Most system failures seem to follow a U-shaped curve; they either flake out right out of the box, or after a few years.

Salespeople always tell you to buy the most system you can get for your money, so you could do better than the above, if you want. it's your decision. Hope this clears things up, if not for you, then for all of the other readers...;)

I like that you are using an Asus mobo, they rock. I would go with Intel chip, good combo with Asus. Your ram should be 4 gigs. Your hard drive needs more gb's...i would grab 500.

I notice you don't have a cooler for your chip...Zalman coolers are tops and worth it.

If you don't have a 22" flat screen, might be worth the investment, they are hovering around $200.

Good luck!

I've just set up a new PC (self build) as follows:

Intel i7 940 CPU
Gigabyte EX58-DS4 Motherboard
Radeon HD4870 GPU
12Gb DDR3 RAM

This, plus a case and a new 500 Gb drive cost me £1100 ($1600). It took 20 minutes to build (but I know what I'm doing). Vista x64 settings transferred easily from my old AMD Athlon 5200 based system to the new one. After installing key bits of software I was up and running within 2 hours.

I'm running Poser Pro and it is very, very fast.

I went with HP off the shelf:

HP Pavilion a6750f Desktop PC

Operating system

  Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition with Service Pack 1   Processor

  AMD LIVE Smarter Digital Entertainment AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad-Core Processor   Memory

  8GB   Memory speed

  PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM memory (4x2048MB)   Total memory slots

  4 DIMM (240-pin, DDR2) (occupied)   Maximum memory expansion

  N/A   Graphics card

  ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics with 256MB dedicated graphics memory. Up to 3323MB Total Available Graphics Memory as allocated by Windows Vista   TV & entertainment experience

  N/A   PCI expansion

  3 PCI Express x1 (two available) 1 PCI Express x16 (available)   Hard drive

  750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s hard drive   Primary CD/DVD drive

  SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technoloy(6): 16x max DVD±R, 12x max DVD±R DL, 8x max DVD+RW, 6x max DVD-RW, 12x max DVD-RAM, 40x max CD-R, 32x max CD-RW. Read: 16x max DVD-ROM, 40x CD-ROM.   Secondary CD/DVD drive

  N/A

$729.00 locally.  I must say, it has been a joy.

Just a thought.

Tips:

1. Go Intel for the CPU. The Q series quad core deliver more bang for the buck than AMD, the i series is even faster, but also more expensive.

2. Go Gigabyte for the mainboard instead of Asus. Six years back Asus was top, three years back Asus was disastrous, right now it's in the middle group when it comes to quality. Gigabyte mainboards tend to be more stable than the competition (at least, this year that's the case. Who knows how things look next year). The high end Asus mainboards are loaded with goodies, and they look nice with all those copper heatsinks, but you don't want a lot of goodies - you want a mainboard that just WORKS and keeps working.

3. Avoid nVidia chipsets on the mainboard. The southbridge runs too hot - I burned 3 of them within 2 weeks, just by pumping several gigabytes of data through the network. Use a board with an Intel chipset (the southbridge only got lukewarm under a heavier load than what fried the nVidias).
   nVidia chipsets are ONLY interesting if you're a heavy gamer and want 3-way SLI.

4. Don't buy an SLI, Crossfire or CrossfireX board. They're more expensive than their single graphics card counterparts, and for Poser you definitely DON"T want SLI or Crossfire - it limits you to a single monitor. You're better off with a single graphics card and a second monitor than the other way around.

5. Go 4 GB of DDR2-800 as 2x2 GB modules, that way you can upgrade to 8 GB later on. You want this machine to last for a couple of years, so make sure it's ready to run Windows 7 64 bit.

6. Ditch the ATI 3450. Too low powered for decent Poser preview work. Go for nVidia 8600 GT as a minimum performer - an 8800GT has great performance at a great price.
   ATI also has graphics cards that perform as well as a 8600GT or better, at reasonable prices.
   The high end (nVidia GX260 or higher, ATI 4850/4870) is overkill; expensive graphics cards that produce a lot of heat.

7. Cooler: Go for an Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 Pro. Cools better than a Zalman, is less noisy than a Zalman, and costs less than half.

8. Hard disk: Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB. Fast, silent, reliable, and LOTS of storage space. And affordable.

9. PSU: 550 watt is enough to run a quad core system with a fast graphics card and multiple hard disks. Raw power isn't the point, you should look at the stability of the output (check Anandtech or Tom's Hardware Guide for reports on PSUs) and the noise it produces. Cable management is a big plus.
   I've got a couple of Zalman HP600 PSUs and they work very well. The CoolerMaster M520 (520 watt, cable management, 80%+ efficiency) is affordable and very good as well.

10. System case. More important than one might think. You want a system case that has enough room for expansion, that has a good airflow to keep things cool, one that is silent, and one that is solidy built and doesn't deform.
    I haven't found a brand/model of system case yet that is great in ALL those things. I've got two Chieftec cases - rock solid, roomy, and decent airflow, but not silent. I've got an Antec P182B: silent, good airflow, but not as solid or roomy as a Chieftec - and quite expensive to boot. I've got a Sharkoon Rebel9: cheap, fantastic airflow, roomy, reasonably silent, but it's not solidly made.

Thanks to all.
There's plenty of tech info here for me to ponder over.
I intend to get my new system in the next few weeks, and all of this info is going to be helpful.

don't cha love it when gearheads get together?...;)

i do :)

Quote -   10) System case. More important than one might think. You want a system case that has enough room for expansion, that has a good airflow to keep things cool, one that is silent, and one that is solidy built and doesn't deform.  I haven't found a brand/model of system case yet that is great in ALL those things. I've got two Chieftec cases - rock solid, roomy, and decent airflow, but not silent. I've got an Antec P182B: silent, good airflow, but not as solid or roomy as a Chieftec - and quite expensive to boot. I've got a Sharkoon Rebel9: cheap, fantastic airflow, roomy, reasonably silent, but it's not solidly made.

I go with Antec server cases.  Basically, it's the "full size" case style except a little wider with mulitple slots for bays and a heck of a lot of room inside plus all sorts of port configuration options and plenty of room to put an air-conditioner in there if you want one. :) It fits comfortably under my desk.  For desktop solutions, one may want a smaller case though.  Because of my experiences with Antec, I won't buy any other case for my personal use.

I like MSI mainboards.  I agree completely with you on the ASUS history.  They used to be "the" board way back when.  Then, their production took a downturn and it seemed you couldn't get an ASUS board that didn't have problems for years.  Now, they're middle of the road.  I loved them a decade ago.. now, not so much.  MSI may not be top-of-the-line either but.. I like 'em and have had good experience with them.  But, I haven't been speccing out components in a few years so, just like with ASUS, things can change.

MSI used to be quite good. I had an Athlon 1400 system on an MSI mainboard that lasted for 7 years. The last 3 of those 7 years the system was a server, always on.
Lately MSI is more troublesome. I've had to return a couple of mainboards. According to my supplier (who carries MSI, Abit, Asus, Foxconn, Intel, Gigabyte, Asrock, and Tyan), Gigabyte boards are the most reliable consumer boards these days. ASUS, Foxconn and Abit are middle of the road, MSI and Asrock are returned quite often. Intel is better than average, but not very popular. Tyan is great, but very expensive, and those are server boards, not consumer boards.

Thanks for the tip about Antec server cases.