Sorry - obviously it was eluding me on the website - I phoned them up and they're sending me a cd when it comes into the 'euro-office' in Paris.
Thanks for all help

Thanks esther  -  that's helpful

Does this mean they are really working hard at it, but just don't know date of arrival - or is it just not very high priority, and they are concentrating on other things?

would be good to know something.... :unsure:

I also am considering Vue6 xtreme to integrate into C4D - because I thought that it would render it with the C4D renderer which is lightning fast (in my opinion)

So what you're saying, is that it will render all vue bits in the frame at Vue rate and all other parts at C4D rate?  Will that not still be faster than ALL rendered at Vue rate?

woah! information overload...
I will print this stuff off and have a good think.....
ps - thanks again for everyone's input !

How much then would this Window 2x4 core machine cost (roughly)

As I mentioned (i think) somewhere else on in this thread, I work in an office with a network of about 5 or 6 semi reasonable PC's ( from Pentium 4's with a gig of ram down to celerons with 256 ram for basic office work )
Together they made pretty much no difference when we hooked them up with rendercows - the first couple of runs we did didn't work very well at all
We then went on to use ONLY the Mac G5 we have

All we are trying to get ( on the strictest budget ) is a much faster solution
The Macpro looked good, and quite a lot faster
If at some stage we have the resources to add another fast machine - or somehow expand the Macpro then all the better.

Why doesn't some PC company out there make a superfast 'renderbox', specifically designed for 3D rendering for amatuers and semi professionals - with no other features but render power?  Maybe this is naive...

No - I mean the way that Vue interacts with lightwave and maya etc importing vue landscapes into blender...
anyway its a bit off the subject -
but that's what were using in the 3d arena, so would be good if there was  the connection

No - we do a lot of rendering as well as video editing - that being my point - we want it for both!
Using Vue 5 (vue 6 probably soonish) and blender

( a total aside .. .. .. would be good if vue was compatible with blender .. .. .. do you think that might ever happen?! )

we have the whole final cut video editing thing for apple and lots of other stuff too - the main guy who works it doesn't go for PCs too much
we're trying to get a really good overall machine for many uses - a few months doesn't sound too long  -I maybe could wait for that!

How long do you reckon it'll be before apple actually bring out an 8 core machine?
Should we wait, and spend our money later??
6 months - a year - 2 years?

but can you upgrade your machine reasonably safely? or is it dodgy?

Quote - ...And if you want the absolute fastest dual cpu system for rendering, you should go for a Dual Xeon 5355 (2 x 4 cores).

 
I typed in 'Dual Xeon 5355' to google and got a site that talked of a Macpro with the possibility of having 2 x 4 cores - 8 cores ( they seemed to think that this modification they made might void their macpro warranty! )
Can a macpro legitimately have 2 x 4 cores - in effect 8 processors?

sorry for the delay in giving illustration of our network - been v v v busy!
I suppose really what I was trying to figure out was would the Macpro quad core  be a big renderspeed improvement 
and it seems so

I would like to know just how much an improvement - is that what the benchmark test will tell us?  -  are they going to benchmark the Macpro quad core?

Thanks everybody - its really good to get feedback that helps

Watch this space today or tomorrow for a illustration of the network - don't know how thorough or exact I can make it  - I know the specs of the machines roughly, but I'm sure even an approx guide might help ( I'll try to be exact! )
See what I can do!

The MacPro can have up to 16 gig ddr ram & quad core 3 ghz processors ( that means 3ghz  x4, doesn't it?)
Would what you're suggesting ( SVDL ) be better than that? - I mean it sounds interesting, for we really are trying to find a fast solution

But bearing in mind we also use the mac for video editing and quite alot more