Was hoping for some input on a workstation upgrade. Not sure if I will build it myself or get something prebuilt and either customizing myself or have it custom made.

I use Carrara mainly, but also do some work in Lightwave, photoshop, and some Zbrush. 

I know I will be getting an i7 (likely 2600) processor but would also like to improve my opengl.  I use currently on my Asus i5 pc a nvidia gts 450 and was thinking up trying maybe the Quadro 600 or even the Quadro 2000 on my next build.

What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks for any input!

It's hard to say...

I ordered an i7 machine last year through an eBay store and it came with a dirt-cheap ATI X1600 card. I still haven't gotten around to upgrading it because honestly, I've never had any issues. (I mainly use Carrara, 3DS Max, Photoshop CS4 and After Effects)

The Quadro series has its obvious advantages, but there's a few things you should look in to. How do they preform with GPU-accelerated engines like Lux and Octane? Do you plan on doing any serious video editing?

For me, I think I'll opt for an NVidia gaming card for versatility.

For my workflow, I'm better off having 2 or 3 machines that cost $800 each, rather than having one workstation that clocks in at $2500. Although a nice dual-Xenon setup would be kinda awesome...

Quadro 2000..  much better than the 600..  more more though...

never hold back on the G card...

Just as an initial idea, I would research "gaming" machines that come in around $1200.  If you're planning on doing a lot of rendering, getting an additional cheaper machine heavy on CPU and ram with a lame video card for network rendering is fine.

The tower I want is a 3DBoxx 8550- too bad I can't afford the six core system.  sigh That's just the standard edition.  I've been seeing about saving, but by the time I get there the thing will be either so obsolete it would make a better boat anchor or I'll no longer be doing this sort of thing. :D

I put this one together last weekend:

Asus P9X79 Deluxe Motherboard

Intel i7 3820

GTX 550Ti

32 Gb ram

120 Gb SSD (for SSD Caching)

1 TB Hard drive (for the OS and Apps)

So far I got all the Daz stuff installed, and I'll be installing all my poser stuff this weekend.

First impression?!..... this thing is smoken hot, especially with Carrara Pro.  Render times for the most part is cut almost in half conpared to what I'm used to, and my old computer was no slouch.  But I'm happey with this build.  All for about 1200 bucks

Awesome  specs on this. I envy the SSD! the i7 is great and I too have the 550ti, nice card for not to much!

Decided to go with the ASUS cm 6850, i7, 750gig hd, 8 gigs ram, slower HD, 5400rpm. Upgraded the PCU to 500 watts, put in a GTX 550 ti.

Had troubles with my GTX 550 ti, was causing crashes and I understand from talking to a few folks, that happend to them too. Anyway, Popped for the entry level Quadro 600. Like it. Though I don't do GPU rendering, the opengl is good on it in Carrara and in Lightwave VPR, some pretty texture heavy models came out crisp using it. I am happy with it.

Cinebench CPU is 6.87, GPU was higher on my 550, but I don't game and the Quadro 600 has the GPU rating of 24.8. Passmark rating on my computer is 2071.

Overall, I am pleased. I am looking forward to doing some animations with this and see how rendering holds up.