Hi all - I've decided that it's time to upgrade my rather aging pc and wondered if anyone might be able to help me out with advice, info and comments?

The new machine is going to be a Windows 7 64bit OS machine and I'm mainly interested render speed with Poser 8.  I'm considering basing the machine around either an intel i7-920 with 6GB DDR3 (possibly eventually adding another 6GB tri pack) OR a quad Q9550 with 8 GB DDR2.

I guess I'm mainly wondering if an i7 machine would perform significantly better with poser 8 - well, enough to justify the extra cash! Any thoughts on that or general windows 7 64bit/poser 8/pc compatibility issues would be fantastic...

thanks in advance :)

20% better render time for 80% more money hmmm although the i7-920 might hold it's edge longer

uh one copatibility issue I can think of off the top of my head is that Poser 8 is a 32bit application.

the i7-920 is dual cpu yes?  Quad will be faster in most regards.

Now with Poser Pro (Poser 7 with 64bit rendering available) and a quad you would be smoking. 

to be completely compatible with windows 7 etc you'll have to wait til Poser Pro 2 (poser 8 with 64bit rendering available)

Since your talking Poser 8 - your gunna be limited to 2mb of application ram under windows 7 due to the 32 bit poser 8.

Poser 8 works fine with Windows 7 64 bit (pre release version) on the i7. It is faster as the quad, but more important, it has 8 cores and you can limit Poser 8 to 7 cores  for rendering and still use the machine without delays for other tasks. Poser 8 itself is still 32bit, but in the 64bit Windows 7 (and vista and xp64) you have 4GB available within the application, which goes up from 2GB in the 32bit versions.
In the next PoserPro there will probably.a 64bit render engine which allows larger renders.

If you can afford it, go for the i7 with 64bit Windows 7

Thanks so much for the replies! )

JimTS - the pricing isnt that much different (maybe 20-25% more because of the motherboard and DDR3 ram), but I think you're probably right about the technology - I guess it's the way processors are going.

MachineClaw - the i7 is actually quad core, but also hyperthreaded so it can function as 8 core

wimvdb - I was really hazzy about the pros and cons of 64 bit, so your explanation really helps a lot. It's also really very helpful to know that the whole poser 8/windows 7 64bit/i7 combination works in practice (that was something I had absolutely no idea about!).

Thanks again all - I think I'm probably going to go for the i7 :)

Hi!

I have the i7-920 and Poser 8, no regrets so far :-)

Regards / Jonny

And let me tell you something.
When you buy a computer, it's for the 5 next years, not for today or the last 5 years.
For sure, all the next versions of software will be 64 bits.
Many 3d software are allready 64 bits: Vue, Cinema4D, Photoshop CS4, 3D Studio Max, etc...

So go for Intel i7 and Windows 7 for the future not the past.

And for another 300.00$, buy 12 gigs of memory unless you have only Poser as software.

Good Luck

Jonny - good to know, thanks! :)

mikeberg - thanks for the advice - you're absolutely right. I'll probably get 6GB to begin with, but I have no doubt that another 6 is going to find it's way there very soon! :)

Thanks again for the replies - it's really good to know that the i7 system is sound for posering etc! Really appreciate all of your comments! :)