My old PC (AMD X2 388 plus GeForce 7600GS) is dying and I need to get a new one.
I was just about to go and get a Intel Core2Quad 8300 based PC with an ATi Radeon 4830 but I've been seeing a lot of Dell Precision 600 dual Xeon based machines for a bit more. They all tend to have old 128mb Quadro FX1100 / 1400 cards though.
I currently have a bunch of problems on C6 where I can't display texture & lighting properly in the Assemble window regardless of how I set the program up. I keep having to render to see what things actually look like!. Would this be remedied by a better card?
Also, which machine would be suited to faster rendering etc? Can a 5 year old Xeon machine be faster than a modern one?

How important is it to have a high end graphics card, can someone recommend a widely recognised  'good one'?

I also use CS3 products a lot.

Can anyone please help?

The idea is: buy the most modern, not a more faster old one... will be still a old one. Go for the Quad or if you want to expend a little more get the new i7... more cores, more faster.
About the video card we will start a little war: I have a lot of people with problems with ATI cards, so if you dont want trouble go for a NVidia card, but you dont need to have a Quadro. In a conversation with friends someone said that to use a Quadro with all feattures Carrara need a new drive so both can talk...so a FX, but more new them your old 7600 is the way out.

Sorry, my existing pc is a AMD X2 3800 not a 388!
I already have a nvidia card so I assumed that this is where the problem came from. Would a Nvidia FX card be better and give me texture shading in the assembly room?

I wish I could afford an i7 based pc but that's well beyond my budget at the moment.
So is a dual Xeon 550 not worth getting?
 

Here is what I ordered a week ago but it will cost you 2,200$ (CDN) without a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Intel Core I7 920 2.66 G/8m/s1366
PNY PCI Quadro FX580 DVI 512 megs DVI BTE (video card)
2  TerraGigs SATA2 Western Digital (hard disk)
S1366 Asus P6T X58 PCI (motherboard)
650 watts Antec Earth Ea650 (power supply)
2 sims Kingston KVR 1333 mhz DDR3 6 gigs Kit (Total of 12 gigs of memory)
2  LG dvd writer
Windows 7  Pro X64 OEM

I don't buy a computer for today but for the next 5 years so I don't buy HP, Dell, Acer but a good old clone as we called them a few years ago.

That computer will be my 10th since 25 years.

Good luck

Michel

I have been building PCs for almost 20 years, and my first advice is don't buy a name brand machine.  I am forever seeing folks by these and regret it later when they decide to upgrade.  They generally use lower quality (flavor of the month) parts.  They are in most cases, very proprietary meaning you get locked into buying from the manufacturer in order to do any upgrades, and you don't have much control over what goes into them,

Building a custom rig, or buying one prebuilt from a local shop means getting a better machine with better components and quite often, for less money than a name brand.

That being said, here is what I put together for my latest box, which was designed specifically for 3D modeling.

AMD Phenom II X4 (quad core) 955 (3.2Ghz) Black Box Edition (CPU is pre-unlocked to make it easy to overclock if you want to.)  MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard (The best on the market as far as I'm concerned.)  8GB Corsair PC1333 RAM.  XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 (dual core) PCIE 2GB Video card with DVI and HDMI (with adapter).  Antec 1200 Full Tower Case (It's large to fit more drives in. I have noticed that 3D content fills up drives pretty quickly.)  Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Series sound card.  Kingwin 1000 watt modular power supply (you need a big one to handle the video card and multiple drives.)  Seven Seagate Barracuda SATA II Hard Drives 1TB each.  LG DVDRW with Blue Ray reading.

It flies on all of my 3D apps.  And it only set me back just about $1K

Quote - My old PC (AMD X2 388 plus GeForce 7600GS) is dying and I need to get a new one.
I was just about to go and get a Intel Core2Quad 8300 based PC with an ATi Radeon 4830 but I've been seeing a lot of Dell Precision 600 dual Xeon based machines for a bit more. They all tend to have old 128mb Quadro FX1100 / 1400 cards though.
I currently have a bunch of problems on C6 where I can't display texture & lighting properly in the Assemble window regardless of how I set the program up. I keep having to render to see what things actually look like!. Would this be remedied by a better card?
Also, which machine would be suited to faster rendering etc? Can a 5 year old Xeon machine be faster than a modern one?

How important is it to have a high end graphics card, can someone recommend a widely recognised  'good one'?

I also use CS3 products a lot.

Can anyone please help?

Quote - I have been building PCs for almost 20 years, and my first advice is don't buy a name brand machine.  I am forever seeing folks by these and regret it later when they decide to upgrade.  They generally use lower quality (flavor of the month) parts.  They are in most cases, very proprietary meaning you get locked into buying from the manufacturer in order to do any upgrades, and you don't have much control over what goes into them,

Building a custom rig, or buying one prebuilt from a local shop means getting a better machine with better components and quite often, for less money than a name brand.

That being said, here is what I put together for my latest box, which was designed specifically for 3D modeling.

AMD Phenom II X4 (quad core) 955 (3.2Ghz) Black Box Edition (CPU is pre-unlocked to make it easy to overclock if you want to.)  MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard (The best on the market as far as I'm concerned.)  8GB Corsair PC1333 RAM.  XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 (dual core) PCIE 2GB Video card with DVI and HDMI (with adapter).  Antec 1200 Full Tower Case (It's large to fit more drives in. I have noticed that 3D content fills up drives pretty quickly.)  Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Series sound card.  Kingwin 1000 watt modular power supply (you need a big one to handle the video card and multiple drives.)  Seven Seagate Barracuda SATA II Hard Drives 1TB each.  LG DVDRW with Blue Ray reading.

It flies on all of my 3D apps.  And it only set me back just about $1K

Quote - My old PC (AMD X2 388 plus GeForce 7600GS) is dying and I need to get a new one.
I was just about to go and get a Intel Core2Quad 8300 based PC with an ATi Radeon 4830 but I've been seeing a lot of Dell Precision 600 dual Xeon based machines for a bit more. They all tend to have old 128mb Quadro FX1100 / 1400 cards though.
I currently have a bunch of problems on C6 where I can't display texture & lighting properly in the Assemble window regardless of how I set the program up. I keep having to render to see what things actually look like!. Would this be remedied by a better card?
Also, which machine would be suited to faster rendering etc? Can a 5 year old Xeon machine be faster than a modern one?

How important is it to have a high end graphics card, can someone recommend a widely recognised  'good one'?

I also use CS3 products a lot.

Can anyone please help?

Well, I don't know where you buy your stuff, but over here in the UK that little list will set you back nearly £1700 (I just priced it all) !

That's a little more than $1000!

Eegads 1700!!  I get most of my parts from eBay sellers or Newegg which usually has slightly lower prices on some components.  I've been to the UK a couple of times.  I agree, the prices for computer hardware over there is on average, quite a bit higher than in the US.  Although almost everything else seems to be a bit less expensive.  Well, it you don't include Gasoline (petrol) prices that is...

Quote - > Quote - I have been building PCs for almost 20 years, and my first advice is don't buy a name brand machine.  I am forever seeing folks by these and regret it later when they decide to upgrade.  They generally use lower quality (flavor of the month) parts.  They are in most cases, very proprietary meaning you get locked into buying from the manufacturer in order to do any upgrades, and you don't have much control over what goes into them,

Building a custom rig, or buying one prebuilt from a local shop means getting a better machine with better components and quite often, for less money than a name brand.

That being said, here is what I put together for my latest box, which was designed specifically for 3D modeling.

AMD Phenom II X4 (quad core) 955 (3.2Ghz) Black Box Edition (CPU is pre-unlocked to make it easy to overclock if you want to.)  MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard (The best on the market as far as I'm concerned.)  8GB Corsair PC1333 RAM.  XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 (dual core) PCIE 2GB Video card with DVI and HDMI (with adapter).  Antec 1200 Full Tower Case (It's large to fit more drives in. I have noticed that 3D content fills up drives pretty quickly.)  Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Series sound card.  Kingwin 1000 watt modular power supply (you need a big one to handle the video card and multiple drives.)  Seven Seagate Barracuda SATA II Hard Drives 1TB each.  LG DVDRW with Blue Ray reading.

It flies on all of my 3D apps.  And it only set me back just about $1K

Quote - My old PC (AMD X2 388 plus GeForce 7600GS) is dying and I need to get a new one.
I was just about to go and get a Intel Core2Quad 8300 based PC with an ATi Radeon 4830 but I've been seeing a lot of Dell Precision 600 dual Xeon based machines for a bit more. They all tend to have old 128mb Quadro FX1100 / 1400 cards though.
I currently have a bunch of problems on C6 where I can't display texture & lighting properly in the Assemble window regardless of how I set the program up. I keep having to render to see what things actually look like!. Would this be remedied by a better card?
Also, which machine would be suited to faster rendering etc? Can a 5 year old Xeon machine be faster than a modern one?

How important is it to have a high end graphics card, can someone recommend a widely recognised  'good one'?

I also use CS3 products a lot.

Can anyone please help?

Well, I don't know where you buy your stuff, but over here in the UK that little list will set you back nearly £1700 (I just priced it all) !

That's a little more than $1000!

I've always built my own computers, getting parts from ncix.com (they also sell to the States, I'm very close to Vancouver BC, Canada where they are located).

Quad core, go with Intel motherboard (less hassles with Intel motherboards with graphics as compared to nvidia chipped motherboards, I've had both and my current Intel has had the least errors).

Also if you are on a budget, go with the LGA775 processors, i7's are still pricey. and the 775's are cheaper with Ram costs.
Go with the new  Win7 (and you can downgrade to XP Pro 64bit by calling Microsoft for free, if there are concerns).
I always salvage as much stuff from my older computer if I can, buying a new HD (Hard Drive) and using the older HD as my scratch-disk, SATA's can work spread over several HD's.
Video? I prefer ATI as (in my own opinion) it provides better looking AA results.

Everyone will have their own preferences (nvidia vs ATI, Intel vs AMD) I just prefer the above, as I've had computers with both, so far my own 775/Intel/ATI combo had been friendly with Carrara/Hexagon, and all the rest of my software in my sig.

I never recommend Intel.  AMD paired with a good AATI video card works better, is no hassle whatsoever and costs a bit less.  Intels are just not worth what you pay for them.  And the 790GX series chipsets are great.

Quote - I've always built my own computers, getting parts from ncix.com (they also sell to the States, I'm very close to Vancouver BC, Canada where they are located).

Quad core, go with Intel motherboard (less hassles with Intel motherboards with graphics as compared to nvidia chipped motherboards, I've had both and my current Intel has had the least errors).

Also if you are on a budget, go with the LGA775 processors, i7's are still pricey. and the 775's are cheaper with Ram costs.
Go with the new  Win7 (and you can downgrade to XP Pro 64bit by calling Microsoft for free, if there are concerns).
I always salvage as much stuff from my older computer if I can, buying a new HD (Hard Drive) and using the older HD as my scratch-disk, SATA's can work spread over several HD's.
Video? I prefer ATI as (in my own opinion) it provides better looking AA results.

Everyone will have their own preferences (nvidia vs ATI, Intel vs AMD) I just prefer the above, as I've had computers with both, so far my own 775/Intel/ATI combo had been friendly with Carrara/Hexagon, and all the rest of my software in my sig.

Well I'm glad someone has had luck, My old AMD /MSI,Nforce MB /ATI was ok but errored out more than my current rig, my board is a gigabyte (intel chipset not nforce)  with a gigabyte ATI card, so far this combo has worked for me.

when you go to build your system prefer to have it built check out http://www.cyberpowerpc.com that is where I got mine done.  just go to the Intel or ATI system configurator.  A trick is since most all there systems use the same configurator if you want an intel system and they have one of the pre-built configurations with free shipping, use that then you can change every component to the way you want it.  I have been very happy with my setup.

Well, thanks guys.
I think that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and order something tomorrow - my desktop is now throwing up errors everywhere and I think it's time to dig a hole in the garden and bury it there!!

I think, on balance I'm going for a Dell Precision T3500 workstation W3520 2.66GHz 4.8GT/s witha Quadro NVS295 card. It a lot of money (for me) but I need it to be reliable and last for a few years. I'm getting it at a good price so that helps!

Hopefully those render times will be shorter now!!

Many thanks

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Quote - I never recommend Intel.  AMD paired with a good AATI video card works better, is no hassle whatsoever and costs a bit less.  Intels are just not worth what you pay for them.  And the 790GX series chipsets are great.

And, as an added bonus, with an AMD proc, you can put your cup of coffee on top of your computer and it stays nice and warm - just be careful it doesn't boil.

Seriously, I tried AMD on my DVR machine and had to go back to Intel / Asus.  The AMD machine went off line almost daily.  The Intel stays up for weeks on end, without restart.

Klebnor

Got the Dell. Absolutely fantastic. Noiseless, super-fast and can recommend it anyone.
Very, very pleased with it.

I drool with pleasure--and its lightning fast .

Brian

Yep, you can get a Dell for under $1000 (quad with DDR3 6GByte ram, very quiet and fast.  Jan