rainfrey opened this issue on Sep 25, 2019 · 24 posts
HartyBart posted Wed, 25 September 2019 at 7:53 PM
Thanks for asking this. Yes, I think many are now three or four years past their "end of the great recession buy" PC, and are now starting to consider something better. So hopefully this thread will interest many. Especially now that Poser 12 seems likely to be on the horizon. Here's what I've picked up from others on this, which may provide some useful starting points.
When searching, the keywords "Xeon" and "blades" are your friends. Both for Poser and (I seem to recall) for Vue 2016, with which Poser 11 plays nicely. Back in 2015, pre Poser 11, a forum thread here seemed to settle on 2 x quality late-model Xeon CPUs and a matching motherboard - for those rendering stills...
Movies being a whole other config, apparently. Of course things will have changed since then. For instance, I heard the other day that RAM prices have come back down to sensible levels again, after the BitCoin boom. Doubtless others will be able to say more on the changed hardware landscape.
I also benefited from reading this useful summer 2019 introductory article on "PC vs. Workstation" from a graphics perspective...
Looking just now at refurbished "dual Xeon" workstations on eBay UK, they appear to be about £300 - £450 in the UK, so comparable with a mid-range NVIDIA gamer's graphics card. With £680 for a highly desirable dual Xeon workstation ("47 people watching") - at a guess that's about $850 in the USA?
Learn the Secrets of Poser 11 and Line-art Filters.