for that kind of money you could have maybe 3?? I7 rigs, work on one, render on othe two.

So I'd suggest isntead buying TWO PCs and TWO licences of Vue Infinite. THis way, you cna have both on same network, and use Vue on both, cause iirc, while you cna install VU eon more than 1 PC, it cannot be running on more than one at a time, unless you have extra licences (which is what I did with Vue6 infinite).

Running arendercow takes resources, much easier to work on a job, copy the file to toher PC, nad have it render, while allowing you to keep working on more scenes.

So I'd suggest the following rig, 2 of them:

Antec 1200 Gamer case (very cool airflow, damn good case)

I7 CPU, do NOT buy the biggest/baddest CPU in the range, get one that's low/mid end of range, because it's a pure rip off price for the latets CPU, it always is that way, the difference between the bottom and the top of the latest CPUs is not worth $500+!!!!

NVIDIA 9000 series video card, now, which one I can't say as it's so changing, get one with 1GB RAM though. More RAM is good, as it helps with VUE's opengl displays

ASUS P6 motherboard, there's several in the range, and again I cna't say which is "best", but an exepsnive motherboard IS a good purchase, well worth the cash for a good motherboard.

12 GIGs of DDR3 RAM. i7 CPUs use RAM in triplets, so 3x4 gig ram = 12 gigs, or you can go for less, or go for 9 gigs of RAM if you can find 3 GIG chips.
You don't need the super crazy expensive stuff, you cna pay crazy amount for special RAM but it's not worth it, god quality RAM is worht it, but you don't need theextra few percent a $1000 of RAM will give you, jeesh.
Vue loves RAM, lot sof RAM, so 9 or 12 GIGs = you can throw tons of content into a scene.

You need a good PSU, power supply units are crucuial, actually, a quiet, reliable one is very VERY nice. ALso, the ANtex case needs an extr along motherboard power lead, fyi.
Something around 600--700 Watts or so.

2 or 3 "one terabyte" hard drives. So you cna have ton of content storage. Don't bother with Flahs drives at the moment.

BlueRay burner for backups.

If you know someone who''s really a professional PC builder, and I relaly mean that, not some git who claims they are, you can have it water cooled. Water cooling is good, avoids os much damn dust etc, but, a screw up by an idiot can destroy yer PC completely!
Antec cases are designed for adding water cooling

BIG good quality monitors, 22 inch minimum form a good brand name liek Samsung, these REALLY help a lot, big difference between them and a basic non-branded monitor.

So, two PCs liek that will run you oh $2000 each?? then buy an Infinite licence for each so say maybe $6000, leaving you $4000, to either buy a 3rd or keep for emergencies if one of them breaks down.

Vista Ultimate on both a it comes with 64 bit version, free, fyi. Do NOT get Xp Pro 64 bit, it lacks drivers and is a dead duck. Vista 64 bti works great.

Building those kind of PCs is a major job, by the way.

As said, you will find it far more useful to have TWO, or more PCs with Vue on each, that you cna work on one, and run renders on the others as long as you like.
I have 2 PCs, but my 2nd one is mostly for gaming, as I couldn't afford another upgrade from 6 to 7 infinite AND upping that PC to 64 bit, it's only a 32 it rig so it couldn't handle my big scenes.

I'd suggets buying a spare PSU, and a spare trio of RAM chips at same time, as they are the items most likely to die on you at some point in the years ot come. But such a rig is likely to last for 3 or 4 years easily.

Do NOT overclock the CPU or graphics card, it's just not worth it. It cuts the life expectancy of your system, very severely possibly as I've known folk who's CPU/motherboard fried after a few months of overclocking it too much.

See this is the important thing to understand: spped of rendering on the one PC is not the be all and end all.
No use spending huge amount sof money or burning out a PC in months, when you cna find better ways to do things, such as using 2 or 3 PCs, etc! ;)

Good luck and let us know how it goes! :)

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