I'm thinking about buying a new Mac Pro for home, and one goal I have is to get some hardware that will really enhance Firefly's rendering capability. I'm wondering how the different processors Apple offers will differ for this - Poser 7 can utilize multiple processors, right? So should I stick with 2 dual-cores, or would 2 quad-cores make enough of a difference to blow my skirt up? Would Poser even utilize that much power, now or ever? And do you think that the 2.6 GHZ is much different than the 3.0 GHZ?

If not Poser, then what other render engines or 3D software would utilize super-processor-power? And how do video cards affect previewing; would I be happy with a super video card as well?

Sorry for the multitude of questions. I'm still learning about Poser's benefits and drawbacks.

All the higher end 3d applicatrions will suck up whatever processing power you have. From what I've read, poser works best with dual core, and gains a lesser speed increased when you move up to quad core.

For price/performance though, you are always going to get a much better value with a Windows based pc, rather then a Mac, but if you are already running a mac, you've already gfot that comfort zone under your belt, and probably a lot of software as well.

Better video cards will give you much faster preview speeds, but you again are talking a poor price/performance ratio when you move up to cards over $300, or if you run 2 in tadem with sli tech. (Plus then you are also talkign about a more expensive power supply, better cooling solutions, and bigger power consumption.

If you've got money to burn, get a Mac, quad core, and dual video card solution.. if not, then go with a windows based dual core singe video card system. Tom's hardware (google it) always has the best price/performance values posted for hardware and it's updated every month. My ati x1950 pro is still listed as the best value video card under $350 even after a year's time, but it doesn't have DX10 built in, just dx9.

(Word on the street is that dx 10 will be getting a point update soon, and that it might be better to hold off until video card manufactures can built that dx10 point release into a newer crop of video cards.)

a mac pro maxxed out for 3D will cost more than $10,000, in case anybody asks. we don't officially know if poser 8 supports 8 processors, but they will hafta support 'em (and speed up their render engine) if they wanna be competitive IMVHO.

Quote - a mac pro maxxed out for 3D will cost more than $10,000, in case anybody asks.

That's only if you buy everything through Apple...which, unless you're a trust fund kid, is just lunacy. As long as you don't buy the things you don't need to buy through Apple - like monitors, memory, and hard drives - it won't cost nearly that much. You can get better components much cheaper through NewEgg. All you need from Apple is the machine, the OS, and the processors.

But all of that aside, I guess there's not much experience or knowledge around what Poser can and can't handle with quad cores? It's just a trial and error thing right now?

Quad cores are still VERY new, and are changing monthly, so yeah it's a crapshoot.. and you won;t save a huge amount even using newegg for a power mac system.. you might shave $1000 off that system, but that still leaves you with a VERY expensive $900 system.. and you coul probably pick up 2 windows based quad core systems for that price, and network them as a render farm.

There WAS a thread somewhere here comparing render speeds of dual vs quad core poser rendering, but bear in mind poser is NOT supposed to be a high end pro app that uses the fastest and most optimised render engine available. It's supposed to be a prosumer entry into the 3d marketplace, and pro users pretty much scoff at using poser for anything useful at all.. check in any of the pro forums, or check the 3d job marketplace, and try to find anyone who even mentions poser

The pros pretty much consider poser as a low end consumer "toy".

Not all quad cores are created equal either - be careful. This chart is extremely helpful in learning how these different machines perform:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

The 3D Studio Max benchmark is probably the most relevent to concerns about rendering speed.

I almost bought one recently with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 - for about $1100. At that price, you could have 8 of them for $9000 and use the last $200 for beer.

The Q6600 is the first one that is much faster than the Duos (47 seconds versus 69 seconds), and it's cheap. Above that the prices go up fast, for not much additional speed. The top of the line (at the time that chart was made) QX6850 was 38 seconds for the same render. I'd rather not pay an additional $1000 to $9000 just to save 9 seconds from that render. Or even for 9 minutes off of a 47 minute render. I'd rather have 8 Q6600's and render with 32 cores (if I had a Poser that could use a render farm.)

In the end, I chose the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (117 seconds) with a 500G drive, 2 G ram, and a good hardware graphics card - all for $730.

Pretty much what I have now, BB, except i wen twith 4 gig ram (since it's cheap), and a ati x1950 pro video card.

I also opted for xp32 pro, not vista, though I will probably upgrade to xp 64 during the holiday season, since many higher end applications really like xp 64.

Tom's hardware is a great performance comparison site, though it also is good to check other sites as well, because sometimes they are "brand slanted".

I was amazed the 1950 pro was still considered the video card best buy under $200 fully a YEAR after I bought mine. Downside for gamers is it does not have DX10 built in, only DX9, but it still does a excellent job with the new UT3 demo and BioShock.