I've been planning on upgrading my computer, and my new computer would be replacing my old e8400 with a new i5 750 processor.  I was wondering; using Carrara 8 Pro, would I have a significant speed increase in rendering? If so, by roughly what percent?  Does Carrara 8 pro support all four cores in the i5 750?  I realize it's not a large upgrade, but I need a new motherboard and the one I want isn't compatible with the 8400.

The E8400 has dual cores @ 3.0 GHZ 6mb L2 cache, 
the i5 750 has four cores @ 2.66 GHZ 8mb L2 cache

If only it were simple as looking at the specs....

however once in awhile you run across something that helps. From the following website

www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/801/4

comes a little nugget - Core i5-750 achieved an overall PCMark score 4.85% higher than Core i7-920 (which runs at the same clock rate), 34.25% higher than Core 2 Duo E8400

Other than having two similar systems to do actual render tests I can't tell you what percentage increase in render speed you would get, but I'm betting it would be significant enough for you to take notice.

Graphic Observations: Many problems can be solved by reading the manual Not all answers are equal Some problems don't need answers

I run strictly AMD.  Faster, Cheaper and just as reliable.  My current rig uses an AMD Phenom II X4 955 4 core chip and it absolutely flies..  I have been building systems for almost 20 years, and I have never had a problem with an AMD CPU.

Cores isn't the only thing. You also want to compare motherboard clock speeds and memory speeds. Sometimes that aspect of a board can bottleneck an otherwise faster CPU. Some boards also have the (stinky?) caveat where higher FSB speeds means less RAM support. I will say that going from 1 core (Athlon XP2900) to 4 cores (Phenom II X4 940) that the difference is night and day. An animation that used to take a week now only takes one day. Extra cores can also make the computer more responsive to multitasking. (But if you're rendering and using all cores with multithreading - it can still bog down.)

AMD vs Intel? Seems Intel still takes the top in overall performance. However AMD does seem to offer best bang for the buck regarding initial cost. (An AMD comparable to an Intel chip is priced closer to the next lower tier Intel model. AMDs are a little more power hungry though, and do run hotter.) Also since AMD owns ATI now, boards that support them are likely to have a better graphics chipset. Intel chipset graphics, from what I understand are still in the "meh" category. However if you plan on using a graphics card anyways, then that really shouldn't be an issue either.

Building it yourself, you can honestly get a nice fast computer for under $500. (Provided you keep the monitor, case, etc., from the previous one. Going from 2 to 4 cores, you'll probably also want a power supply that's around 600w or more, because 4 cores double up the 12v connection to the CPU. Look for EPS or 2xATX, which are pretty much the same thing.) Also on XP 32-bit, it's fine to stick with 4GB. Just note that a good portion of one gig goes to the OS - but unless you're doing something extreme, that's plenty of wiggle room. If you need more than that, there's 64-bit OS and software - then you can go crazy with RAM. But that can get expensive. (More on the software side than anything else.)

And yeah, can you tell I just threw together the new computer guts recently?

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Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.

Here's a list of what I put in the system I built last year.

CPU AMD Phenom II x$ 955 Deneb Cores
MB  MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 motherboard
Video  XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870x2 PCIE 2GB VRAM
Sound  (recently updated) AzunTech Cinema Explosion 7.1 (beats the heck out of my old SB X-Fi Fatality card)
RAM  8.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz  9-9-9-24
Hard Drives  500GB Hitachi HITACHI HDS7250SASUN500G 0632KKU9MF ATA Device (IDE)    101 °F
300GB Maxtor Maxtor 6B300S0    SATA
1500GB Seagate ST31500341AS    SATA
1500GB Seagate ST31500341AS   SATA
500GB Seagate ST3500630AS   SATA
500GB Seagate ST3500630AS   SATA
500GB Seagate ST350063 0AS   SATA
500GB  Hitachi (Removable ESATA external)

Optical Drive is an LG Blue Ray.DVD-RW SATA drive.

I put the whole thing into an Antec 1200 case (Full Tower).  I used a Kingwin 1000W modular power supply.
Add in a Logitech Desktop Wave Keyboard and mouse, and a decent LG W2361V 23" monitor.

Like Pauljs said, the difference is night  and day.  I went from a dual core Phenom with 4GB to this and the extra 4GB of RAM really helps.  You need to upgrade to a 64Bit OS to take advantage of the full 8GB though.  I put Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit on it.  Which is a big improvement over older Windows versions including XP.

This cost about $900 to put together last year.  You could probably build something like this much more inexpensively now.  And it's still a good mid line system even though technically it was obsolete a week after I built it. LOL (I should have held off for the ATI 5800 series. LMAO.)

I built this with Carrara in mind.  I haven;t had a memory dump, crash, or bog-down since I put C8 Pro 64Bit on it.

It benchmarks a bit above a comparable Intel Core i5 equipped system and comes very close to their i7 chips.

I HIGHLY recommend going with a 64Bit windows and filling up your RAM as much as possible.  That 4GB limit on 32Bit OS's is a MAJOR drawback when working with Carrara (or any other decent 3D program for that matter).  And get a full tower case so you don't run out of hard drive space, as well as spaces for more hard drives.  Some Carrara files can be pretty large and when you figure in very high resolution texture maps, and all the other stuff like Poser content, that you will accumulate over the years, you can run out of drive space quickly.  So you need to be able to expand accordingly.  My system is huge on storage and I have at least 2.5TB just in 3D content and software.  Add in other diversions like games, movie collections, music etc and it's gone before you know it.

You will note that I chose to change over to an Aren Azuntech Cinema HD Explosion 7.1 sound card.  I did have a Creative Labs Soundblaster X-Fi Fatality Pro series card, but it started going a bit wonky.  I finally got sick of Creative labs total lack of regard for their customers, bad customer service, and overpriced hardware.  I did some checking around and the card I got was highly recommended.  It sounds a lot better than the CL card, and it's about half  the price.

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Good luck.

Rich.

Thanks for the input and recommendations guys. I am gathering the parts for a new 64-bit Win7 system and this will help as far as choosing components. I've been planning on an AMD 4-core CPU as well. I always go for the best "bang-for-the-buck". I want to install Carrara8 Pro, which I've already downloaded, but not before I have a system that can really handle it. I have a huge personal project with millions of polys and I definitely need a system that can address more than 3gigs of ram.

If your going for a Phenom II X4, make sure and get the Black Box edition.  It is unlocked for overclocking at the factory which is great since AMD has software to overclock them now.  With Carrara every little cycle you can squeeze out of the chip makes it faster.

You guys are so lucky to be able to build PC's at those prices.

I went to tigerdirect.ca and picked a few items and check it out.

Corsair XMS3 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM
Qty:  1  Price: $109.97

Diamond Radeon HD 4650 1GB GDDR2 PCIe
 2 Item:
$99.99

MSI 790FX-GD70 Motherboard
 1 Item:
$212.99

AMD Phenom X4 9550 2.20GHz OEM
 1 Item:
$124.97

4 Items:
$647.91

So I havent even started with CPU Cooling, Case, Power Supply, Hard Drive and I'm already above $500.

I havent even added Tax or Shipping chargers to that.

We get gouged when it comes to computers and electronics in Canada.

Tigerdirect is kind of Pricey.  I usually use eBay or Newegg.com.  For case I really do recommend the Antec 1200.  It's cooling is great, and it's a very high quality case.  Not to mention it looks cool. :)I was originally going to do 2 4650 video cards, but I found the 4870x2 was faster and a bit less expensive.  Another advantage to eBay.  Depending on who you use, normally no taxes."

I went with the Tiger Direct deal where there was Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H and AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition combo for $199 or so. The board already included an ATI Radeon 4200 as its chipset, and that seems good enough so I don't have any problems with holding off for a bit on getting a separate graphics card.

Even though I still managed to reuse my old case and peripherals, I still had to swap the old PSU for a 650 watt one, get 4GB DDR RAM and upgrade the HDD. (Couldn't reuse the old Maxtor because its stupid SATA drivers didn't want to work.) Oh, and a $10 CPU cooler, the more expensive one I originally ordered and returned wouldn't fit on the motherboard mount...  Still just a bit under $500 for all that, and in the same state as the warehouse - so there were sales taxes. (I could make the drive to their location so the up-side is that the free ground shipping came next day. I'll let UPS deal with the crap-tastic Chicago traffic.)

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Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.

Keep in mind that those built in HSP Video chipsets put all of the graphics calculating load on the CPU and it uses up System memory for Video RAM.  Meaning if the video uses 512MB for video Ram, then thats a half GB you don't have for general system memory.  And the 4200 set is considered kind of low end now.  I am not sure how well it is going to work for 3D modeling.  Even my laptop has a 4600 series. And it's kind of slow on Carrara.  I also wouldn't trust a $10 cooler for a Phenom II.   You shoulldn't need any drivers for your hard drives if you are using windows 7.  Or any newer versions of Windows for that matter.  It handles the drives using it's universal drivers.  XP is the same.  I know it's hard to do a system on a tight budget.  But using cheap components, just because of price is never a good idea.  There is a reason they cost less.  The CPU cooler may seem like an incidental component, but it is probably one of the most important components in the system.  If it doesn't keep your CPU as cool as possible, you risk a burnt out CPU when you put it under load.  At the very least, you will drastically reduce the life of the CPU.  You probably could have saved some money on the CPU by getting the regular edition since you're not using a high or mid end cooler, you definitely do NOT want to try overclocking it.  Heck, most people don't even trust the cooler that comes with the CPU to keep those cool.  If you got the full retail kit it will come with the AMD cooler.  And if you will be doing 3D work on this rig, with a built in video chipset, you DEFINITELY need a high end cooler.  Here is what I use, and it works great on my Phenom II X4 955.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4197086&CatId=493

Also.  make sure your case is not too crowded.  The Phenom II like all higher end CPUs tends to generate head which needs to have room to dissipate.  You want a case that can move a LOT of air around inside it.  If it is too cramped in there, the heat will build up and result in eventual component failures.  At a minimum use a mid tower like the Antec 900, with one or two 120mm fans in front, one in back and a 120mm or 200mm blowhole fan on the top to suck out the hot air.

The hard and fast rule of building systems is to build it as high end as you possibly can, because it is less expensive and time consuming than upgrading later.  I've been building them for 20 years or so, and I have found out the hard way that that rule is very true.  I hope this info helps.

Rich

Quote - I went with the Tiger Direct deal where there was Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H and AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition combo for $199 or so. The board already included an ATI Radeon 4200 as its chipset, and that seems good enough so I don't have any problems with holding off for a bit on getting a separate graphics card.

Even though I still managed to reuse my old case and peripherals, I still had to swap the old PSU for a 650 watt one, get 4GB DDR RAM and upgrade the HDD. (Couldn't reuse the old Maxtor because its stupid SATA drivers didn't want to work.) Oh, and a $10 CPU cooler, the more expensive one I originally ordered and returned wouldn't fit on the motherboard mount...  Still just a bit under $500 for all that, and in the same state as the warehouse - so there were sales taxes. (I could make the drive to their location so the up-side is that the free ground shipping came next day. I'll let UPS deal with the crap-tastic Chicago traffic.)