Putting together a decent workstation for Maya is proving to be a bit of a mission for me. I live all the way over in New Zealand (yes, the home of the world famous Peter Jackson & WETA studios), parts are way over priced and hard to get here.
So far all I have is:
2gig of Corsair Xtreme DDR2 memory.
2x 19" Sony SDMHS95PS DVI LCD Monitors.
Coolermaster Wavemaster Aluminium Case.
Q1: My options for graphics cards are... 1 x Quadro FX 3400 SLI or 2 x Quadro FX 1400 SLI - Could some who actually KNOWS, please tell which would be the better option? (Bearing in mind that I could always upgrade to a second 3400 SLI in the future).
Q2: CPU's. Now, this is where im having trouble. Dual Core P4's? What, When & Why? I WAS choosing between dual Xeons or a single P4 3.6 Extreme Edition. (Will Extreme Edition P4 actually give me much of a performance boost compared with the regular P4?) When will these "Dual Core" P4's be released, what are they exactly, are they worth waiting for & what will the price differences be compared with P4 EE? I have approx $500US to spend on this.
Q3. That brings me to my next question, Motherboards... I need something that will be SLI capable, Can take at least 2gig of DDR2 mem & will be able to use a "dual core" p4 cpu (If that turns out to be my best option). Plus of course it needs to have all the features you would expect for a graphics workstation.
I bet NOBODY can answer these questions fully & sound like they know exactly what they are talking about... (Reverse Psychology sometimes works best - I need answers - FAST).
Thanks =)
Intel = yuck these days IMO.
They aren't likely able to catch up to where AMD is, according to a few well placed industry sources that i know as well as a variety of current benchmarks.
Go AMD. Get a dual Tyan AMD mobo and put Opterons in it. Six months to a year from now you can upgrade your dual socket system, to 4 REAL processors since the dual core AMDs are moving into the market. The thermal envelope won't change for you either. HyperThreading tends to slow down rendering more then helping it.
Go with a nice high end NVidia based gaming card and soft mod it to the pro version. I know many people that work for big houses that do this for their home rigs to save a few bucks.
Price/Performance ratios are key. AMD cannot currently be beat and given the curve projections that isn't going to change anytime soon.
Intel is the big dinosaur in the market place at the moment. They have a limited window to adapt or perish.
my .02 anyway
GL HF
I was away for few days, sorry didn't catch your post.
I disagree with previous posters on few issues.
with Intel:
1. forget the Extreme Edition, they are not worth the price with either single core or dual core. they currently run about $1,000 for a dual core EE 3.2GHz CPU. and they are shipping.
you are better off with regular dual core P4, about $260 for 2.8GHz. up to $500 for 3.2GHz. these will ship in 2 weeks. they are about the same speed as Xeon, and cost much less.
if you decide to go with AMD. I wouldn't bother with the dual core X2, they are expensive compare to dual core P4. go with dual core Opteron. the only problem is the price. the cheapst 265 runs about $850 each. but they are very fast. this ships in 2 weeks.
If you decide to go with Intel CPU. choose Intel or Supermicro MB. but I don't think there is an SLI version of 955 chipset yet.
if you decide to go with Supermicro. go with Iwill or Asus. don't go with Tyan. their quality control are not the best. they are early adapter, but not very reliable.
I would go with a single FX4400 (this is much faster than FX3400, and cost $500 more). rather than 2 FX1400.
hope that answer your questions.
The best bang for your buck at this point, to the best of my knowledge is a dual AMD Opteron mobo and two inexpensive 242's. http://www.pricewatch.com/
Two fast processors for around $300.00 US Dollars is hard to beat. As William mentioned be sure to get a good mobo.