I am seeking advice in what sort of things to look for when building/customizing a computer that will run smoothly with 3D software (Maya, StudioMax, etc.)
What is the best processor, graphics/video card, RAM, etc. If anyone has any pointers for me let me know.
Thanks,
John animation student @ ILIA Chicago
Do you have a budget?
For Maya nVidia cards are probably best. Honestly I do not se much of a difference betwen AMD and Pentiums Procs currently. In either case I reccomend gettign a dual system
As for motherboards you have many options avoid ones with the VIA chipset.
Get at least 1GB of ram depending on the motherboard you can get mroe or less fast ram. YOu do not need to get ECC ram it is slower and most likely will not provide you with any benefit.
Gmask - just curious as to why you would avoid the VIA chipset ? I'm also in the market for building a new machine and know less than nothing about motherboards...cheers
The VIA chipset has been referred to as "cheap" and is notorious fo rbeing incomapatible with various PCI cards. At least that is what I have told.
i have had a lot of problems with SIS and VIA chipsets in the past for both Intel and AMD boxes. I don't think they are engineered as well as an Intel chipset or a nVidia nForce platform.
Same here altough ive seen intel chipsets that have had bad hd controllers in the past (chewed hds down). So even tehy arent imprevious to bugs.
The point is not to buy the cheapest board adn prefeerably a tested one. The board affects your computer stability quite much.
Agreed. 
I have been a freelance animator since 1995 and have some experience in workstations. I run Softimage XSI, photoshop, After Effects, Encore, Premiere Pro, etc.
With a little study you can build your own workstation, BUT, and this is a big BUT, your parts will only be warrantied by the manufacturers, usually for not more than a year. I suggest, quite vociferously, you should instead buy from one of the many outfits that will allow you to pick your non-proprietory parts, build it for you, AND warrantee it for 1 to 5 years. I have tracked two sites that have pretty good configurators, GamePC and Monarch, but there are a bunch out there.
At SIGGRAPH this summer I discovered the Nemesys by Rack Saver--Big Black Box they will put almost anything in you want, from AMD Opterons to Xeons. They sell large rack systems to the likes of ILM and have just started selling workstations.
I have just purchased a system for $1K less than I could find anywhere else with 5 years of 8/5 on sight Next Business Day support from Rack Saver in San Diego. For $10,200 I got:
An 8 harddrive full tower with 550 watt power supply
2 Xeon 3.06GHz 512K cache
Supermicro X5DA8 Mobo
3 Gigs RAM
QuadroFX 2000 Video Card
4 x 250GIG Maxtor IDE HDs in a 0 + 1 RAID
1 Maxtor 73GIG SCSI 15K RPM Operating System Drive
Window XP Pro
Sony GDM-G520P 21" Monitor
Sony DVD R/RW +/- recorder
Hitachi DVD player
Shipping included
If you bought all these parts at the best retail prices it would cost you more than I paid and you would not get the 5 years warranty. The 5 years of NBD support cost $750 and to replace just the monitor would cost $800, you do the math.
I have no connection with Rack Saver or GamePC or Monarch Computers, I just have been spending lots of time looking for the best deals and support.
Desertboy
that sounds like quite the box. Very nice.