Hi all…

I have a few questions to ask about upgrading/replacing my current aged (2005) Dell Dimension XPS Gen4 system topped with 4 gigs Ram and just about getting by with Windows XP and Explorer 8 (I’ve seen a few problems about this already in discussion here) and my beloved Poser 6 - yes… I did say Poser 6...

At about the end 2014 maybe beginning of 2015 I will be trading my current pc system in for something fast and new, aimed predominantly for use with Poser software. I will have a budget of around £1500 ($2500) or thereabouts, and simply want to purchase the best new system possible for Poser at/around that price. Knowing me I’ll probably put the price up as you guys get me interested in newer set ups.

I also would like to know what would be the best Poser software package to purchase, to run with my new mega system: some are saying PP2014, but I’d like some better opinions, and where else to ask but here. I want to get into animations more, as these have always frightened the life out of me, even though I’ve wanted to try them out more often.

I suppose my 32 bit would instantly go up to a 64 bit system, and lots of RAM I can imagine. I have also been looking at those water cooled set ups for the main chip, as I know my Dell slows downs by about 50% in hot weather, as the chip overheats.

Also I recall some years ago, here on these forums, a guy who had a multiple monitor set up, so he could work on several projects at once: knowing how slow renders and animations can take on even the best of the best systems. Would two or more pc systems work best here, though this would be pretty expensive to set up.

Any help would be much appreciated…

Tony D

 Your right with the 64bit so you will be looking for one of the Pro versions of Poser as the non pro versions of Poser are 32 bit.  The big plus with 64bit it can use all of your RAM, sometimes dependant on the OS used, making complex scenes possible.  Animation wise, it depends what you are looking to do as many will advise that Poser is not the best package for animation.

 The general understanding is that the more cores you have the faster the render so you are probably looking a CPUs with lots of cores and hyper-threading which give you double the cores by adding virtual cores.  The other way is to use multiple CPUs either in a single system or by networking multiple systems.

The other important decision is, are you building it yourself or having it built either off the shelf or customised.  This is important, as building yourself can often give you bigger bang for you buck.  You also say that the system is primarily for Poser but what else are you using it for?  Video work, audio work, gaming?  All these functions can change configuration in some way.

All very general advice to get you started I know you will get a lot more, be sure of what you want to do with the system and where you might want to go over the life of the system is a good starting point. 

     Dual monitors are not just for working on multiple projects simultaneously;  they are for working better on a single project. :)  It allows to you to have more control panels open at once, and still have a large preview window.

     For 3D use, I wouldn't even consider a 32bit machine.  Look for something 64bit which has -or at least can be upgraded to- 24GB-32GB.  Meanwhile, you may find that your old XPS can be upgraded to 64bit Win7 and take 8GB RAM (the motherboard and main chipset determines this).  If so, that could coax some more use out of it;  network it in with your new machine.  Piriform's free Speccy will tell you what the motherboard can handle.

     The best bang for your buck would be to find a refurbished commercial workstation/server with dual Xeon CPUs, at least HyperThreaded quad-cores, and H/T hex-cores would be better (24 render threads!).  8-core, 10-core, and 12-core Xeons do exist, but are made of unobtanium;  they're just too expensive.  Xeons don't slow down under a long haul as do the core i3/i5/i7 home desktop CPUs, and core i3/i5/i7  types can't be run in pairs.  I just got a refurb from Newegg which has two H/T hex-core Xeons (X5660), FX3800 Quadro GPU, and 24GB RAM for $900.  I intend to upgrade it to 48GB RAM (the max it will handle).

     Search for whomever sells used commercial workstations/servers/server blades in the UK.

     Second best option is to get a new/new-ish system with a core i7, HyperThreaded, with as many cores as you can afford.

First off - Get Poser 2014 GameDev - the features added to it set it head above shoulders to regular Poser 2014.

As far as computer - Poser Pro will use every bit of ram & every core that you can throw at it. Going from Poser 6 to Poser 2014 is like going from a Model T to a Maserati.

The GPU isn't as important (unless you decide to use Octane - then you will need a NVidia Card).

Hi Tony

For £1500 you can have nice PC which will perform nicely in any program,I personally would recommend build yours own PC as above you will save lots of money and yours PC will tailored to yours needs

I would go with something like this:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/wxG33C

I've build several PC and always I would go with custom PC,there is lots of room for customization and mainly they're not build with cheap parts as those from DELL or many other companies

Yes and deffo I can recommend multiple display setup,I currently running two monitor setup which is awesome,although still thinking go with 3 monitor setup

Assume  you are in UK?

Hope this help

Thanks,Jura

 Hey thanks to you all for getting back with this awesome package of information for me to be getting me head round. Wow! I'm excited already!

hornet3d

seachnasaigh

ssgbryan

jura11

64-bit looks for certain, then. And punchy CPUs with those multi cores and hyperthreading. There's lots here you've all mentioned (thank you again) and I will be researching every suggestion over the following week. I'd love to do a self build, but never have previously, apart from adding/upgrading RAM, which is easy-peasy in build terms. I'd say my weeny brain might not be up to it, but I'll look into it anyways, and seek out those Youtube vids as such. Come to think of it, I don't use my PC for much outside Poser, no games or videos, just lots of holiday imagery from over the years. That refurbished system purchasing idea seems sound, and I have looked on Ebay thus far to see what's on offer there. And Yes: I can only imagine what moving from Poser 6 (which I still love most dearly) to P2014 is going to be like, once I've gotten over the shock of everything (yikes) not being where it should be, if you know what I mean. I'm gonna look well into the multi monitor setting ups, as this looks like a dun thing. And I've also taken note of your system set-ups at page bottoms, and will look into these also. 

And what about those water-cooled units? Are they gimicky or might they inhance the pc world of 3D use?!? They do look cool, must admit. I remember back in the 80s, when my system back then started slowing down in the warmer summers, which are rare in the UK: that if I could cool it down as I did with B&W 35mm film for astrophotography, it might speed things up again. I did drawings and stuff of ways of cooling a pc down in hotter climes, and wondered if one day some kind of watercooled system might be viable. The future is good...                            Thanks   Thanks   Thanks you all...................              Tony D     

 I have never been a fan of water cooling, not only because my firm belief that water and electronics don't mix but also because they are not a cost free option.  By that I mean they take up a lot of room in the PC case and many are far from quiet in operation.  Mind you, I do not overclock any of my systems which is where water cooling does have advantages.

My strong need was for a quiet PC which is why I built my present system using a case designed for to meet that need.  Lots of large fans that move air at low speeds, same with the selection of the graphic card.  It has not struggled to stay cool and is near silent in operation....just what I wanted.

I would give a shout for the multiple monitor set up, having your tools off on one screen and a large preview screen not squashed in with floating toolbars is a joy to work with.

Your needs will be different from mine but building your own allows you to build the system you want to work with.  Do a lot of research to make sure you have a decent PSU and that cooling system or graphic card will actually fit in the case you have selected.  For me the research is fun and all part of the thrill of creating a PC, something missing when you buy off the shelf.  The other plus is that, should an item fail further down the road you do not have to junk the PC but have confidence to repair the system and save yourself money.

As above recommend dual monitors, for flexibility they should be the same size (I use 2x23" which is fine for my set-up but you might have different requirements)

Don't know what the current build quality of Dell is like but upgraded my XPS Gen3 back in 2011 to an XPS 8300 and its done about 8000 hours so far (FPS gaming+rendering). Its just starting to show its age now (couple of failed boots that auto recovered - but that has been the only problem so far). It may not have been the best choice but I like to just unbox the PC and switch it on knowing its covered by a warranty. Not disagreeing with  advice above, build your own is a great option provided you know how PC hardware works but its not like putting together Ikea furniture. I didn't go down that route as wanted to avoid having to spend hours playing piggy-in-the-middle between vendors each blaming the others components for the problem if something went wrong (get enough of that at work). 

Regarding cooling, consider that water cooling is just better at pushing heat outside of the PC,  if the ventilation around the PC is not good the problem will still exist. Newer chips require less power so run cooler. 

If a Microsoft platform then consider Win8 handles multicores better so has been quoted in the past as 10% faster than Win7.

I understand the reluctance of anyone about building their own computer, but there is no magic involved, and if anyone is really unsure the pre built is a valid option.  For standard PCs buying prebuilt is often cost effective as well but you have little control over the quality and even here warranties can become an issue.

The way to stop one vendor playing off against another is to try and get all the components for one supplier.  My last personal build I purchased everything at a good price from one supplier with the exception of the graphics card.  Some vendors, like Scan in the UK, will also provide 28 day insurance for a nominal cost, worth it if you want to have a go but are afraid you might damage something during the build.

Finally, there are some horror stories but on the whole PC components are fairly reliable.  In the last 3 years I must have built around 30 systems (I worked in a PC shop) and with all the components involved I had one Motherboard failure which was replaced in 48 hours.  Everything else worked out of the box.

In the end you pay your money and take a choice but no PC purchase is completely risk free.

Hi Tony

As above building own PC doesn't involve any kind of magic,just have good tools and most of the cases are now tool-less which will helps,really its easy and usual problems can be solved in matter of seconds or minutes 

I've been building the PC for friends and for me for few years and I've never have any kind of problem 

Usually I'm buying all parts from several suppliers,some suppliers can give some kind of discount,but most of the biggest players on market as Scan,Aria,Overclockers doesn't offer any kind of discount,if I would buy all parts from one supplier then I can end with much higher price(in my case when I've build for friend Hackintosh with i7 he would pay around £300 more than from several suppliers,because this supplier didn't have GPU,RAM etc which my friend wanted )

In UK you have 1 year or 2 year warranty which is much better than in US,where you need to RMA through the maker not the company/supplier from which you are bought the item

64bit is must there,I prefer W7 64 bit version,W8 is bit of hit of miss,I don't like this,I'm using now for few years W7 which is great,I've only once installed W8.1,but after few hours and some programs didn't wanted to start with mew W8 or W8.1,due this I reverted to W7 which is working in any app which I'm using,although looking forward to W10 which I will be installing on spare PC and we will see how good is Technical preview 

Water cooling you shouldn't need,although you can buy AIO(All In One) Water cooler kits something like is Corsair,NZXT etc which are something between,those systems are closed loop systems which are OK,proper Water cooling kits they can cost you crazy money and usually depends on the CPU and overclocking they're worth to consider

What I can't recommend is using OE CPU coolers/heatsinks those are rubbish in one word,they're don't like the overclocking or are very noisy,due this if you are don't like or don't want go with Water cooling I can recommend Be Quit! Dark rock 3 or Noctua NH-D15 which are best CPU coolers on the market and they're very quit and have awesome performance when you are overclocking PC,my PC is overclocked at 4.4GHz still on air and is very quiet on full and I've never seen any higher temps than 70C

Good case something is Lian-Li or Coolermaster HAF-X which I'm mostly using on my builds with good fans and you have nice PC,cooling on those cases is great and quiet,although I upgraded few fans to Noctua fans,but usually stock fans on those cases is very good 

Here is my spec which can cost you less,which is older spec,but still perform great in any 3D SW

Motherboard: Asus P6T SE

CPU: i7-920 4.4GHz with Thermalright HR-02 Rev.A(BW)

RAM: 20GB DDR3 1600mhz

HDD: 256GB SSD Samsung with 2X 3TB HDD Toshiba,2X1TB WD Blue

GPU: GTX560Ti

PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk II 750W

Case: CoolerMaster HAF-X

This PC should cost you lot less than when I've build this PC few years back,but still perform very good in any app

Hope this help

Thanks,Jura

Yes this is all good and helps me endlessly, you all. I'm busy copy & pasting from the top of the thread down, and loving the stuff I am picking up on and learning on route. Yes those water coolers did have noisy revues unless decent one picked. Overclocking is something I haven't yet ventured with and understood, but sounds advantagous and often used theseadays. I have several older pcs which family/friends have given me and so far haven't touched and maybe I could practise taking these apart and re-assembling them, to get more used to insides... Thank you once again all...Tony D (UK)   

Hi Tony

Water cooling kits they're OK,but really depends on yours needs,I prefer normal heatsink which is OK for my needs,water cooling I've previously installed older Corsair H50 which has been very noisy on full revs,due this I went with Thermalright CPU cooler 

Overclocking is  easy in nowdays and doesn't require too much to know and on Overclockers forum are several good guides and they're very detailed,on stock cooler I wouldn't do that,they're rubbish for that and they're very noisy

You can gain lots of performance with overclocking as I've,its worth to overclock if you are rendering a lot as most of the render SW are CPU based too

I would start with older PC which you don't need,but still most of the cases and motherboards comes with detailed instructions which only help

Hope this help there

Thanks,Jura

I've never built my own system -- the research is far too tedious, and there are far too many choices to make. I have trouble enough deciding between two alternatives. If I built my own, they'd be almost infinite. 

Hubby and me had two systems custom built. Gack. Never again. I went for 3 years with no sound (not even system sound) -- and no one could figure out why. I think it was at that time that I learned to despise video tutorials. It must be hell to be deaf and on the internet these days. No one even gives a second thought to accessibility any more, not even major corporations -- like Smith Micro.

But if you don't suffer decision fatigue like me, building your own seems like a very good plan. 

When I was last looking for an upgrade to my machine, Dell was having a sale on workstations, and I chatted to a tech and told him exactly which applications I wanted to use the machine for (Poser mostly) and what my budget was, and he came back ten minutes later with a lovely and very fast build for exactly $4001. I'd own it, but my credit card was declined -- I later found out because it was among those stolen in the Sony hack. I never bothered to get that machine because it really was more money than I wanted to spend. But, man, it sure would be nice to have those 12 cores when I'm rendering. 

In any case, I expect you can get something pretty similar if you build it yourself -- and well within your budget.

It's far cheaper in the long run to build a custom system, and most components are pretty self-explanatory and plug-in-play these days. You don't have to be a tech geek to understand most of it. Just read the specs on them. Sites like newegg will tell you which components are compatible with one another a lot of the time if the specs on the individual components don't. You also don't have to worry about voiding your warranty just because you decided to put a new component in yourself, the way you do with a lot of pre-built systems - many of which are not very up-gradable to begin with, having very limited - if any - expansion slots, etc. They are designed as such so that you are strapped into buying a new machine every 2 to 3 years. The last time I had a pre-built system was a gateway I bought in spring 2006. It was dead by summer 2009. Never again. I built this system to replace that one and have been upgrading it myself ever since. It's not top of the line, but it is plenty for my current needs and budget. A similar pre-built system would easily have cost me 2 to 3 times as much and likely would not have lasted this long. I'd still be paying for it and would have to replace it. I come from the old school of thought where you buy something once and make it last as long as possible. Much cheaper that way. 

ETA: I would avoid a water-cooled system unless you're willing to invest some serious cash into the component. Many lower-end "affordable" water coolers will eventually leak, some much sooner than others. Instead, get a full size tower designed for high air flow and plenty of fans. You can get fans that mount directly over your ram and all the fans are controllable by external dials on the case, or by a control panel on your desktop. 

Yes! I didn't consider the possibility that the water cooled unit might one day leak?!? That could prove problematic. I am getting to understand more about better fan units and more of them from this thread, now. I've always had several fans feeding the air flow intakes on the outside of the pc box, and it does seem to help - but it might not be a good option, possibly also problematic in nature?!? I've found it amazing that with my present weeny 4gigs Ram, 40gigs are now mentioned. Blimey! And yes, those choices one has to make in picking out the units for the self build, must drive one insane. I think I'd end up with choices priced at around $100,000, knowing me. I looked at one such site yesterday, and there were around a hundred choices for each componant, and it took me several hours finding and reading revues for just a few of them. I can now see and understand that notion that stock purchased systems/set-ups are designed to be useless in several years, so that you/we have to cough up yet again in this throw away world of today. Someone's making big bucks out of it - and I'll wager it isn't us! I was looking at those elusive higher cores of 12 and up, and the costs at, say, $3000 or thereabouts and ever upwards - wow! The full size tower and its leaving you with lots of options and upgrade capability looks a firm idea, from where I'm sitting... And fans controlled by dials on the outside of the case - love it to death!!!  Terrific! Thanks again all. I'm researching my rear end off right now, thanks your help thus far......     Tony D    

 You can narrow down your list of options by making sure you have good idea of what you want for a system.  For example, if you are looking to use water cooling then that narrows down the case you can use as not all can be used with water cooling.  Some only allow half height radiators so if you want maximum effect from water cooling you can rule out the half height cases.  If you are staying with air cooling and want lots of fans you can rule out the ones with the one front, one back, one side configuration.  If you want quiet then you want a case that allows you to put in large fans as they can shift more air and slower speeds than smaller ones.

OK I know that this still leaves you a vast set of options but you can narrow the field still further.  Have a look at a magazine along the lines of Custom PC, they will often do components list for different systems such as Budget, mid range, expensive and money is no object.  They even do lists for gaming machines, video editing, audio creation and so on. 

I used that method and then adapted it to my needs, I took an expensive gaming option list and modified it.  As I was using it for Poser and not gaming I chose a different graphics card and skipped the sound card, using the motherboard for on board sound that was good enough for my needs.  I changed the choice of case as I wanted something quiet but their recommendation still gave me a reference point. 

Their list came  to came to around £1,800 and to buy a system like that the cost would be ball park £2600.  Mine was close to the £1,800 but thanks to the few changes I was able to add a SSD, three 2TB hard drives and doubled the RAM, when I ran that spec on a custom build site it was over £3,000

In case it hasn't been stated, for 32GB of ram you will need Windows Pro or greater.

Home version only supports up to 16GB.

Hi there

Water cooling is safe and most of the those cheaper systems(I mean AIO systems from NZXT or Corsair,Coolermaster etc) work,just proper water cooling that is bit difficult to start as you will need lots of parts and this I wouldn't recommend to "newbie",its not hard to do build water cooled PC if parts are used good

Agree I would go with bigger case,small cases are OK,but I would recommend go with aluminium cases,agree they're heavy,but still you will be not moving case daily,my case without the components weight around 12kg with components I would thought so around 20kg or bit more

I've got CoolerMaster HAF X which is heavy itself,but cooling is just awesome and its very quiet,you shouldn't need any fan controller for this case,if you are using good and quiet CPU cooler,but yes good fan controller with temperature is good investment  

As I've pointed above older i7 is still good CPU,just be sure CPU itself support Hyperthreading,this is great thing when you are rendering and mostly you will gain with this

Really depends on budget,but with yours budget this PC should last you more than previous 

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

Hi again...

First of all thanks once again for all the help and information you gave me here, in my quest for the (my) ultimate pc.

I should be purchasing a new system in about 2 to 4 weeks time, hopefully, as we move into our next home. Can't wait to set up, and getting Poser working in the modern world, and not in the archiac past.

I found a guy on EBAY who refurbs and builds really high spec systems, and here is one that retails at around £1800, to give an example. He says this will operate Poser to the best of its ability, and I was wondering what the spec looks like to you more experienced and certainly knowledgable users. 

SPEC:

Extremely powerful and upgraded Super computing HP Z800 Workstation

1110 Watt high performance power supply

2 Intel Xeon X5675 Hex-Core, Total 12 cores/24 threads @ 3.06 Gigs (3.46 Gigs with turbo)

48 GB PC3-10600R 1333MHz Memory

NEW LSI 9212-4i MegaRAID 6GB/s SAS/SATA HBA 

NEW USB 3.0 (2 internal/2external

Nvidia Quadro FX5800 4GB 3D Professional Graphics Card

Nvidia Tesla C1060 4GB CPU Computing Card

4TB 2X 2TB SAS 11 6GBs HDD

Would very much appreciate your thoughts guys and gals...

Thanks Tony D 

Hi again...

First of all thanks once again for all the help and information you gave me here, in my quest for the (my) ultimate pc.

I should be purchasing a new system in about 2 to 4 weeks time, hopefully, as we move into our next home. Can't wait to set up, and getting Poser working in the modern world, and not in the archiac past.

I found a guy on EBAY who refurbs and builds really high spec systems, and here is one that retails at around £1800, to give an example. He says this will operate Poser to the best of its ability, and I was wondering what the spec looks like to you more experienced and certainly knowledgable users. 

SPEC:

Extremely powerful and upgraded Super computing HP Z800 Workstation

1110 Watt high performance power supply

2 Intel Xeon X5675 Hex-Core, Total 12 cores/24 threads @ 3.06 Gigs (3.46 Gigs with turbo)

48 GB PC3-10600R 1333MHz Memory

NEW LSI 9212-4i MegaRAID 6GB/s SAS/SATA HBA 

NEW USB 3.0 (2 internal/2external

Nvidia Quadro FX5800 4GB 3D Professional Graphics Card

Nvidia Tesla C1060 4GB CPU Computing Card

4TB 2X 2TB SAS 11 6GBs HDD

 

Would very much appreciate your thoughts guys and gals...

 

Thanks Tony D 

 

 

 

 

Well Poser likes as many threads as possible so the CPU choice looks good but it really does depend on what render engine you are going to use.   If you are going to use Firefly in Poser then the CPU choice looks good but if you go for a third party render engine it might be GPU based and that could impact on the choice of graphics card.  If you are sticking with just Poser then it is only going to use the graphics card for previewing.   I only ever Render in Poser, with the exception of reality and Luxrender but even here I use CPU rendering as my system blue screens with Luxrender set to use GPU.  I will therefore leave it to others to comment on the graphics.

For me I would be more than happy with that sort of set up although I would probably tweak it here and there.  

Mnnn! Very interesting thoughts/suggestions here, Hornet. Another point I hadn't really considered. I have only used in-Poser rendering in all my Posering years, but have seen, noticed and taken note of the fact that others say there are much better 'engines' available outside of Poser. Mnnn!

Just out of interest, Hornet: what kind of tweaks would you administer with this set-up?!?

I have to say/admit, that outside the main componant package for a system: What bit, CPU, RAM and thereabouts, I am totally unsure about other componants. Beneath each set up profile of every system there is a page or two of componants (and stuff) that is part of a system that I know absolutely nothing about - opologies for this.

Thanks for your feedback Hornet...

Tony D 

     The FX5800 is a superb workstation GPU (my favorite!);  it will easily drive a pair of 2560x1600 monitors, and give finely detailed previews of even massive scenes in Vue.  It is not a great CUDA rendering card.  Late model gaming cards are better for that.  But you must decide which GPU renderer you plan to use, because Reality/Lux (OpenCL based in GPU mode) will want ATI Radeon video cards, whereas Octane will want nVidia cards with high CUDA core count.  By the way, a Lux GPU render is not the equal of a Lux CPU render;  Lux GPU mode loses some features and loses accuracy.

     Whatever you do, don't toss that FX5800.

     And before you get too starry eyed about alternate render engines, consider whether you can and want to re-work every material in the scene to suit the new render engine's material system.  The plug-ins which port Poser scenes to Lux or to Octane do considerable work here, but you can't expect them to deal with complex nodework, and features like displacement work very differently, such that I would model low poly for Poser's Firefly, but model in any bas-relief detail into a higher poly model for use in Lux.

Thanks for this headsup, seachnasaigh. I'll come back to this post later today, as it is both interesting and for me, brain melting. I'll do my usual research for all things you've touched upon. To make you laugh, I had to look up GPU this morning... It does make me wonder where on earth I've been lately?!?

Thanks so much all thuis far...

Tony D 

Mnnn! Very interesting thoughts/suggestions here, Hornet. Another point I hadn't really considered. I have only used in-Poser rendering in all my Posering years, but have seen, noticed and taken note of the fact that others say there are much better 'engines' available outside of Poser. Mnnn!

Just out of interest, Hornet: what kind of tweaks would you administer with this set-up?!?

I have to say/admit, that outside the main componant package for a system: What bit, CPU, RAM and thereabouts, I am totally unsure about other componants. Beneath each set up profile of every system there is a page or two of componants (and stuff) that is part of a system that I know absolutely nothing about - opologies for this.

Thanks for your feedback Hornet...

Tony D 

The tweeks I would do, I would personally loose the Nvidia Tesla C1060.  Memory wise, 48G is excellent but it might be overkill, I have 32G and I have not had memory problems so far.  The other query I have is the USB, are those USB 3 ports in addition to existing USB 2 ports, I suspect they are, if so no issue. The reason I ask is that my setup includes a daily back up drive, USB keyboard and separate mouse, a space navigator, monitor calibration device,  graphics tablet, flash drive hub and three other USB devices that are probably fairly unique to me, or rather my age/lifestyle.  That makes 10 in all but not all of them have to be USB3. Other thing I would add would be an external Esata port, again for backup, I use mine for a long term back up and as 4TB to store your data you are gong to need some fast back up.Please keep in mind that these are very much my personal choices and are related to the way I use the system, your requirements will be different.  It is also just tinkering with at the edges, there is nothing wrong with the system listed as far as I can see.

Hi Tony

Personally I would built own one and you will save the money on longer run and about the spec,looks good and although I would add there SSD as minimum for boot,Crucial 512GB cost around £140 and I've bough one as my main boot SSD,second SSD which I've is 840 256GB which I'm using mainly as scratch disc for projects which I'm doing 

If you are planning to use GPU in LuxRender or any other OpenCL renderer this card will be very slow,as CUDA card not sure,as this card has been out in 2008 and I would assume will be pretty slow in those times against the newer Nvidia/GeForce cards

GPU render in Luxrender this really depends,earlier GPU render in Lux has not been best,newer LuxCore 2.x and mainly newer Luxrender 1.5 has come long way and its really fast and looking like Reality with newer Lux will be much faster than older Lux

Octane 3 will be supporting OpenCL which means you can use AMD or Intel GPU/CPU for rendering,not as previously you will need to have nVidia card 

Personally I would go with X58 motherboard and add there X5670 or 5675 Xeon CPU with 48GB RAM(my old X58 Asus P6T SE supports only 24GB RAM,but I've tried 48G BRAM and my MB supports that,but not with i7-920,only with Xeon CPU ),SSD for Boot and 3TB Toshiba for SW etc and for GPU,I would choose R9 290 Tri-X OC which can be bought for £150 as used GPU,PSU you should be OK with good 750W Corsair/Seasonic etc and still this will cost you under yours target price 

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

     I've exceeded 32GB just on drones while rendering;  the memory load was higher on the workstation holding the scene and running the queue.

     I've had three motherboards equipped with the X58 main chipset.  The BIOS chip on the entire series of motherboards has a weakness.  You may boot the machine one day and get a message "Overclock failed";  if you do, just shut it down.  Don't spend money taking it to a shop to fix;  it's dead.  If you have a working X58 board, just keep using it, but do not buy a later/faster CPU and flash the BIOS to support the later CPU.  You run a great risk of killing the BIOS chip.

     I've had the Asus P6T Deluxe v2 (i7-965), the P6T Workstation, and P6T SuperComputer (both with i7-990X ).  All advertise as supporting 24GB RAM.  I couldn't get any of them to run more than 12GB consistently, though.  The printed circuits and caps on the board just can't feed it;  you'll find that one channel is weaker than the other two.  The BIOS chip is unreliable, and if/when it goes, the board is useless.  I wish they were reliable, because they have a nice feature set, often supporting triple CrossFire or quad SLI, plenty of USB ports and PCIe slots, and power taps for fans etc.  But I can't recommend any X58 main chipset motherboard.  In any case, the X58 boards only have one CPU socket, so now I'd opt for a server board with two CPU sockets.

     You don't need a blade chassis to use a server motherboard.  Professional workstations use server motherboards.  You can get ATX server boards in a midtower chassis (Dell T5500, HP z600, HP xw6600) and certainly in a full tower (Dell T7500, HP z800, HP xw8600).  When the X58 motherboard died in my Alienware Aurora chassis, I replaced it with an E-ATX server board (two 1366 CPU sockets, twelve RAM slots).  Galadriel now has dual X5690 H/T hex Xeons, liquid cooled with double thick radiators and push+pull dual fans.on each radiator.  But you can't use an E-ATX unless the chassis has not only sufficient room front-to-back, but also has the extra mobo mounting pylons for E-ATX.  The Alienware Aurora did.

     Every machine in this shot has a dual-CPU server motherboard.  Cameron (Boxx 8520 full tower, ATX board), Kara and Eir (HP xw6600 midtowers, ATX boards),  Galadriel has the larger E-ATX.board in a full tower Aurora chassis.

.

  I need to take a current photo, as I'm just finishing up a "Pimp my ride" project.  I've got LED fans in each machine, and each machine has a signature color.  Kara is amber/orange/yellow, with matching glowing keyboard and mouse, her sister Eir is green.  Cameron is red.  Galadriel is t'chelet, blue-purple-violet.  Urania, not in this shot because she sits downstairs at my kitchen diner booth, glows blue.  Urania is an HP z600 midtower with an ATX server board, dual X5660 Xeons, 48GB, and an FX3800 Quadro GPU - total cost:  $1,260 USD. 

     I've exceeded 32GB just on drones while rendering;  the memory load was higher on the workstation holding the scene and running the queue.

     I've had three motherboards equipped with the X58 main chipset.  The BIOS chip on the entire series of motherboards has a weakness.  You may boot the machine one day and get a message "Overclock failed";  if you do, just shut it down.  Don't spend money taking it to a shop to fix;  it's dead.  If you have a working X58 board, just keep using it, but do not buy a later/faster CPU and flash the BIOS to support the later CPU.  You run a great risk of killing the BIOS chip.

     I've had the Asus P6T Deluxe v2 (i7-965), the P6T Workstation, and P6T SuperComputer (both with i7-990X ).  All advertise as supporting 24GB RAM.  I couldn't get any of them to run more than 12GB consistently, though.  The printed circuits and caps on the board just can't feed it;  you'll find that one channel is weaker than the other two.  The BIOS chip is unreliable, and if/when it goes, the board is useless.  I wish they were reliable, because they have a nice feature set, often supporting triple CrossFire or quad SLI, plenty of USB ports and PCIe slots, and power taps for fans etc.  But I can't recommend any X58 main chipset motherboard.  In any case, the X58 boards only have one CPU socket, so now I'd opt for a server board with two CPU sockets.

     You don't need a blade chassis to use a server motherboard.  Professional workstations use server motherboards.  You can get ATX server boards in a midtower chassis (Dell T5500, HP z600, HP xw6600) and certainly in a full tower (Dell T7500, HP z800, HP xw8600).  When the X58 motherboard died in my Alienware Aurora chassis, I replaced it with an E-ATX server board (two 1366 CPU sockets, twelve RAM slots).  Galadriel now has dual X5690 H/T hex Xeons, liquid cooled with double thick radiators and push+pull dual fans.on each radiator.  But you can't use an E-ATX unless the chassis has not only sufficient room front-to-back, but also has the extra mobo mounting pylons for E-ATX.  The Alienware Aurora did.

     Every machine in this shot has a dual-CPU server motherboard.  Cameron (Boxx 8520 full tower, ATX board), Kara and Eir (HP xw6600 midtowers, ATX boards),  Galadriel has the larger E-ATX.board in a full tower Aurora chassis.

.

  I need to take a current photo, as I'm just finishing up a "Pimp my ride" project.  I've got LED fans in each machine, and each machine has a signature color.  Kara is amber/orange/yellow, with matching glowing keyboard and mouse, her sister Eir is green.  Cameron is red.  Galadriel is t'chelet, blue-purple-violet.  Urania, not in this shot because she sits downstairs at my kitchen diner booth, glows blue.  Urania is an HP z600 midtower with an ATX server board, dual X5660 Xeons, 48GB, and an FX3800 Quadro GPU - total cost:  $1,260 USD. 

Hi there

I must disagree with weakness of X58 motherboards,I've mine now for around 2 years and I've got several times "Overclocked failed" which doesn't make any difference,just enter BIOS and do again or re-save yours OC profile,MB is not dead and if BIOS does needs to be replaced,then 12USD is not so much,I will be replacing BIOS chip for WS which has have better features than PT6 SE

Most of the X58 MB supports Xeon,my X58 Asus supported off the box X5670 and already been flashed with latest BIOS...

Yes all they are advertised to support up to 24GB,but if you will switch to Xeon chip you will and can use more RAM,I'm currently at 20GB,if Motherboard support or will take 8GB RAM then you are fine and you are on good way to have 48GB RAM

Here is my validation for X58 X5670 with 20GB and 4.2GHz(now I'm on 4.4GHz)

http://valid.canardpc.com/bcltnh

Server motherboards don't support what I need for Motherboard(Overcklocking,suport multi GPU etc) and go with Supermicro MB which is sh1t,I've bought one few months ago as I wanted to go with dual X5670 and after 3 weeks motherboard failed and due this I just can't recommend them and my case is HAF X which easy supports E-ATX

If only one Motherboard I would get is EVGA SR2 Motherboard which supports dual 1366 CPU and supports Xeon CPU too and can be easily OC'd 

Thanks,Jura

Goodness, seachnasaigh, that is one heck of a set up!!! One might imagine you could control the world from that room!!! WOW!!!

Thanks for the tweeks suggestions hornet.

Thanks all once and yet again for these tips and suggestions.

We are going to give my wife's company's computer engineer/programmer/builder a brakedown of all and other suggestions made here, cheers: and see what he comes up with as to a new set up for me. All I'll have to do then is get hold of good priced Poser Pro to be getting on with, which will hopefully drag me from 2005 XPS and Poser 6 (still love it) and towards achieving good renders in minutes instead of days........

Tony D 

My wife's company's computer tech/engineer/builder came back with a price around £4000 to similarly match the spec as I've mentioned above?!? This is new build, as opposed to the refurb. Because of the price difference, his instant reaction was to utterly slate refurbs: "As they often have short or limited warrenty's and use old or damaged part/componants!" He said he wouldn't touch a refurb with a bargepole!!!  I think he thought he had £4000 in his pocket, and panicked at the lower price (£1800) of the refurb. I checked the EBAY seller's feedback and it is 100% AOK! The company computer 'engineer' also slipped in a "a recent similar set up he purchased for another company was around £4000' Why would he need to purchase a complete system if he is supposed to build them all himself?!?

Yours slightly miffed!!!

Tony D 

I'd agree with the refurbished workstation route, provided you have confidence in the seller. Make sure they're a certified Microsoft refurbisher (although this seems to be harder to verify than it should - Microsoft don't offer an "is my refurbisher genuine?" page as far as I can tell).

I recently bought an HP XW6600 with dual quad-core Xeons @ 2.8GHz and 32GB RAM, running 64 bit Windows 7, and I've been very pleased with it. It came with a 1920 x 1600 monitor for around £750. I can pass on the details of the seller if you want. The main advantage of a workstation is that it's designed from the outset to handle heavy loads. My Dell Precision here at work currently has its cores approaching 80C even with its fans on full blast as it attempts to render 'in the background' which is a misnomer since it sounds like a hovercraft :). The HP by contrast barely breaks a sweat, and I can even run Poser and LuxRender simultaneously if I want.

I'm still using 32 bit Posers, but even so things run a whole lot more smoothly; there's plenty of RAM available, meaning Poser can have whatever it needs more or less permanently allocated. Other lesser-specified systems I've used have been bogged down largely by the need to page memory to disk, I think, rather than outright scene memory requirements.

 Thanks for that Bob...! I'll go check out that EBAY seller of mine - but please do pass on the details of that seller you mentioned also. I think someone here mentioned something about needing Windows Pro to operate above 17Gigs of Ram? So I've been trying to keep the stats or specs up high, or high enough, to facilitate the ideal POSER set-up (24-32GBs etc).

I'm not sure what flavours Windows 7 comes in off the top of my head, or what the differences are; but mine is the Pro version, yes. Forgot to specify that.

I've PMed you the details of the seller I used, although they don't seem to have anything quite as highly specified for sale at present.

     Jura, your BIOS chip isn't dead, your "overclock failed" events are likely due to erratic voltages on the board, just like mine sometimes shows 24GB of memory when it boots, and on the next boot it only shows 8GB.  If the BIOS chip dies, you will see "overclock failed", but when you try to reboot, the machine won't even boot to BIOS, because you won't have a functional BIOS.  I'm aware that replacement BIOS chips are being offered by several vendors (what does that tell you about X58 boards?), but most users will not want to try to de-solder a multi-pin chip from the motherboard and solder in a new one, because of the very real danger of collateral damage to nearby printed circuits.  And the memory support issue would remain.   Beyond all this, the X58 boards are single CPU socket.  Why settle for one CPU when I can have two?

     Expanding on EnglishBob's advice regarding resellers, I look for vendors who are doing this in large scale and have been for some time.  The guy with 1000+ units probably knows what he's doing.  The guy who has been doing this for years probably knows what he's doing.

     Surplus server/workstation gear is not "worn out".  Enterprise-level users replace their gear every five years or so simply because they can save money by using the newer lower wattage designs.  When you operate on a massive scale, it's worthwhile.  But the old equipment isn't worn out.  A pair of Xeons on a heavy duty server motherboard will probably still be running when the day comes that all new software requires Star Trek bio-neural fractal processors, or some such.

     The one thing I would consider worn is the hard drive.  I figure on a new hard drive for each refurb I buy.  Either make an image of the supplied HD and transfer it to the new HD, or do a clean install of Windows onto the new blank HD.  You might need to replace a power supply some day.  They are often quick-change, very fast and easy to do, on this type gear.  But I have five workstations and eleven server blades, and I've never yet had to replace a power supply.  I certainly have needed to replace the power supply of regular desktop computers, though.

Win7 memory limits...

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     These are blade-chassis servers;  there are eleven in this rack, and the topmost device is a KVM (Keyboard/video/mouse) switch which allows me to use a single keyboard, monitor and mouse.  It is currently displaying Cortana, the uppermost blade in the rack.  This is the most space-efficient means of adding networked rendering power.  That stack has 264 render threads total.

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Hi again...

Well after all your help and knowledgeable instruction, I do believe I might have found my perfect referb, and for what seems to me to be a damned good deal. But I just wanted to run the spec and indeed the price through you guys and gals, first. The deal is on Ebay UK, and the guy has even thrown in a years' full warranty. Some of the odds and bods lower down in the spec are completely alien to me, and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on these components?!? The processor/s and ram and graphics seem cool, mostly after what you peeps suggested, with many thanks once again.

Tony D     

 X5690 3.46GHz hex-core ( 2 of them) , 48GB DDR3 PC3-10600R 1333MHz , New 512GB SSD for OS and 2TB HDD for storage , both SATA III 6Gb/s , New LSI 9212-4i HBA , New USB 3.0 2x external ports , Quadro K4000 3GB GDDR5 ( has had very light use) Win 7 Pro 64bit , 1 Year warranty £1980 inc VAT

• Two X5690 Xeons --- excellent.
• 48GB PC3-10600R   ---  That's registered (server) memory;  good stuff, and plenty of it.
• Hard drives:  He says they're new.  Hmmm.  I'd use them, but get an Acronis True Image license and make full backups to an external HD periodically.
• USB3 ports are good for faster backups.  If the ports are new, it's likely an add-on PCIe card.  I've done this upgrade to my workstations.
• Quadro K4000 3GB:  Nice workstation card;  it will give superb previews in very complex scenes in Vue, etc.  Not a GPU rendering powerhouse, though, for either Lux (OpenCL) or Octane (CUDA cores).
• LSI 9212-4i HBA:  That's an add-in PCIe card which gives you more SATA ports to support more hard drives & optical drives.  I think it also supports hard drives in RAID (two or more HDs working together as a single drive).  A nice touch, especially if it has an external eSATA port to speed up backups.
• Win7Pro 64bit:  Yep, that'll support all of the RAM.
• £1980:  This is of course subjective, and depends on area (PC gear is more expensive in Oz, for example).  I'd say that's a decent price;  not cheap, to be sure, but fair enough.  And you're getting far more muscle than you would if you spent the same amount on a new machine.

seachnasaigh... Thanks very much for this headsup! I felt it seemed OK, but you guys know how the cookie crumbles, or at least a dozen better than me...!  Interesting what you say about the licence, and the backing up, good idea. Would you suggest an alternative card, by the way? 

Thank you...

Tony D

Got to www.magicmicro.com They build custom computers and they have great support and products!