Which System Setup is the best for Maya? (read in)

[yodaeyes]

hey. I am going to buy a computer mostly for 3d purposes. I mainly use Maya, and all the other applications who have to know to do the rest (texturing, etc..) So I have two systems I am choosing between, below are my two options, but if you currently have a good configuration working for you, please let me know.

Option 1:

Dual Intel

[torran]

AMD Athlon.
A good system to use it on is Linux, you have very stable results, but Windows 2000 is not bad too.
Would advice Win2000 over NT, because there will not be any more service packs/updates for NT in the future.

Several people have said that Pentium 4 is a little faster in rendering ( could be just Intel marketing hype ), but for me it has been otherwise, so I advice AMD.

A good card? Quadro DCC if you are ready to spend a grand on it. A GeForce 3 or 4 are good solutions as well.

By the way, is someone assembling it for you or are you buying it from a company? Post more info if you can, this really looks interesting.

cheers,
RF

[jerry-hnk]

I would go with the athlon to, its cheaper and you get more value for your money.

[1000101-]

I'd go with option 2 except I'd trade out some of the following
SB audigy for a live or other card
ti4600 for quadro DCC or 750XGL; or if budget allows
the quadro 900XGL
win2k is a solid decent system,
ram bandwidth doesn't seem to affect rendering times fromw hat I've seen. so DDR vs RDRAM should be a null point

[yodaeyes]

Those two system configurations are from Alienware:
www.alienware.com

they seem to have good setups for 3d professionals. Has anybody tryed the HP X4000 or the RenderBoxx sytems, they also looks good but its a bit pricey and I am not sure of how well they intergrates with maya. I havent being able to find anywhere that sells the Quadro GXL900 built into the system configuration. If someone knows a place where that's available please leave me with a website. Or if someone knows anywhere else that sells systems setup for a 3d artists that work particularly well with maya please tell me.

thanks.

[yodaeyes]

What do you think as this for a 3d system setup:

Dual AMD Athlon MP2000+ QuantiSpeed 256MHz FSB upg.
4096MB DDR ECC Reg. PC2100 266MHz
nVidia Quadro 4 NV25GL 900XGL 128MB DDR AGP-4x Dual Head
120GB 7200RPM Ultra ATA100 <9ms
DVD-RW Pioneer DVR-AO4 4.7GB w/SW-media
CD-RW PLEXTOR 40x40x10x ATAPI w/Software - media
Creative Labs Live Platinum Audigy 3DWave T w/2 FireWire Ports
Windows 2000 Professional

[1000101-]

that rig would work for me.
actually I'd probably trade out the soundcard for a gamesurround fortissimoII; just because I know it works right in an SMP system. but yeah if I could drop 4 grand that'd be what i spend it on..

[ripx]

What you've got is two almost entirely separate systems. On one hand, the Intel system has the PC800 RDRAM, SCSI while the AMD system is comprised entirely of IDE drives.

Decide on which one you want to go with: IDE or SCSI? Another thing that I've noticed is that you put the drives in pairs, which COULD potentially indicate some kind of RAID setup, I presume. (could be wrong, but it IS possible.)

And probably the last question that I would ask or try to have you answer is: "how much?" $$$$ or $? In the end, it will be your finances that will determine what you will or will not get.

Everything in computer stems from cost, and then you have to decide on the components based on that.

Like if you want a really really HIGH end system based on the x86 structure (i.e. not HP, Alpha, Sun, SGI, etc.)

I would recommend something like this:

Dual AMD Athlon MP 2000+
Tyan S2462NG board
Two GlobalWIN WBK38 (or your favorite HSF)
2048 MB PC2100 ECC CL=2 DDR SDRAM
IBM (or Seagate) IC35L018UWPR15 15,000 rpm, 18.1 GB (x6, for a RAID0+5 setup)
3D Labs Wildcat II 5110
Adaptec 2110S SCSI RAID Card
10x SCSI DVD-ROM (also serves as CD-ROM drive)
Sound card, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc....up to you.

Of course...not everybody has nearly $8,000 US ($12,000-13,000 CDN) to blow on a comp system.

So...up to you.

If you're looking to mirror your data, then drive size is important. If you're looking for performance, then the size of the individual drives is not as important. If you're looking for both mirroring and perforamnce...then you ask yourself "How much space am I going to REALLY need online and how much of it can I putt away elsewhere (i.e. on a different system if possible.)?"

or...if you have lots of money to burn as well, why not get a 1U rackmount or 4U rackmount (1U for space, slide it in between other things, hardly noticeable/ 4U to fit your awesome video card.)

Also: advatnage for IDE - cost. Advantage for SCSI: low CPU usage on I/O operations and expandability.

For more hard drive information, my recommended site: http://www.storagereview.com

Hope it helps. Happy hunting. If you need more from me, feel free to email me at alpha754293@hotmail.com

[exodusmaximus]

go with intel - and since it looks like you have some money to spend get ati fire gl4 card approx $1800 option and worth every penny of it - www.pricewatch.com search for fire gl under video cards

[exodusmaximus]

system like that will run you about 6500 if you do it your self

[torran]

why Intel ?

[yodaeyes]

I have about $7000-$8000 to spend. The less the better though. I would like to have a great machine performance wise, something that will work smoothly with large maya scenes. A machine that can really handle hardware and software particles well. And will produce good rendering times. HD space isnt that important the tower comes with 10 bays so space is always upgradable.

What limitations come with IDE? I know you cant upgrade your computer past a certain point, but how does that actually effect the performance if your system is already setup to handle it. SCSI is so much more expensive. Will using SCSI really help my computer and the 3d process, or is it not worth my money.

As for video cards, too many people have been telling me to go for the Quadro 900XGL, but I havent heard much about the Fire GL1.

thanks for your help.

[1000101-]

your rig with 4gb of RAM would work fairly well.
SCSI is capable of faster IO; but then
if you wanna put more money into RAM and video card.
get a couple 30 or 40gb drives and stripe em in RAID 0
for a video work bench.
I'd personally prefer the dual AMD cpu's myself over the xeons. Going the IDE/AMD route you could still squeeze in a wildcat 6120 and fall under your $8000 mark (assuming of course they will sell them to non-OEM's)
I figure a dual AMD athlonMP 2000+ with 4gb of RAM and a quadro 750XGL with 3 40gb ATA100 drives (2 in RAID 0) with a seperate controller and a CDRW with a DVD drive probably come in at just under 3 grand worst case scenario. That'd leave 5 for extra software (combustion or something like that)

remember just cuz you have 8 thousand to spend doesn't mean the best computer for you will come out of spending all 8 grand.

[torran]

agree.

go with amd and quadro.

[snarg]

Current tests and evual show the AMD and Quadro not very well suited. You are looking at a difference of 50% down on the Dual Xeon.

So in the light of current performance no the actual way ahead is Dual Xeon with Quadro

[exodusmaximus]

Audiogy is better then Live

[exodusmaximus]

IDE drives stink!!!
Go with SCSI on RAID Level 0

[exodusmaximus]

I have system like that but with Duall Xeons 2.2 GHz and Fire gl4 card and only spent $5600 (dual cheetahs 73GB on RAID 0)

[exodusmaximus]

Better future expendibility - and RDRAM has much more room to grow then ddr ram - which at PC 2600 it's at peek of it's performance

[hella356]

I'm curious. What tests show the Xeon outperforming AMD like that? I haven't seen any reputable tests that show anything like that.

The only one that has results like that is Tom's Hardware which is well known for strange results that don't jibe with anyone elses, like the fact that according to their tests dual Athlons only render 3DS Max 7% faster than 1 Athlon. Anyone who uses Max and dual AMD knows this is WAY off. And while the latest Lightwave with SSE-2 is now a bit faster on P4s than Athlons it is nothing like how they portray it, they show a Celeron beating Athlons which is simply ridiculous.

I don't know if this is what you are refering to. I just have to express my outrage at Tom's sometimes. They are either biased (their office is in an Intel building I've heard, and they advertise Intel extensively) or they haven't a clue about how to set up an AMD system. Which is odd, they aren't really any tougher to deal with than an Intel rig. I'm not here to bash Intel, just to say that Xeons being 50% faster than AMD simply isn't accurate according to any testing I've seen or done.