We plan to set up 8-10 3D workstation for Maya on NT platform…
What do you think is the best system for it:
SGI, HP, Dell, Compaq, Ibm, Boxx…
and for server?
aspects: stability, speed, support, price
thanx
All these companies are good but personnaly i’m much more into DELL 'cause of their prices as well as IBM, but the best thing to do is testing each system with MAYA.
In Gold They Trust.
dont forget micron they make some good systems
Had an SGI and I just dumped it for a Precision 620 from Dell. This thing screams. I would recommend checking Dell’s refurbished system department.
SGI: Good support, lame box 
TOO EXPENSIVE.
DELL: Runaround support, good memory access.
Bah, I’m prejudiced.. I only do homebuilts here… the OEMs that were in place when I started are mostly garbage.
Sean
thanx for your opinion, but its not clear for me: Dell is good or not?
I’ve a homebuilder all the way, that way you get the best performance for the buck, and you could probably find a shop that can offer a better service contract than Dell, etc. cos they are close by. (You’ll have to pay for a good contract with anyone, whether they hide it in the price or add it at the bottom of the online ordering form haha)
If you need specs on what to choose, they are ALL over this board…
check my site
http://eastvan.com/oc
for info about components and tuning them.
Sean
do you know something about boxx systems?
they are used in Blur studio and assembled by boxxtech.com
(wildcat etc)
yeah, they are overpriced…don’t get 'em.
i’m like sean, i’m going to be building 3-4 systems for 3d animation at my job…i built one as a prototype for $4,000
it has the following:
1200MHz Thunderbird running at 1435MHz
1.5 GB Corsair ECC memory
Diamond FireGL2 64MB DDR
30GB IBM Deskstar 75GXP ATA/100
21" Sony CPD-G500 .24mm flat tube
12x burner
dvd player
250mb internal zip drive
etc.etc.etc.
holy crap, this system is disgustingly fast! maya and lightwave absolutely fly!!! if you can convince your superiors to go homebuilt do it! you get the best value and most stability. but of those choices:
stay away from sgi and boxx…toooooooo expensive for what you get, but supposedly great customer service (that’s what you pay for), i’d recommend one of the dell precision workstations, get the dual pentium 3 1GHz combo with SDRAM, not stupid RAMBUS. RAMBUS may sustain a higher data rate over time, but it’s like 3 times the cost of high quality SDRAM and you’ll barely notice the difference. Buy as much ram as you can afford to get, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH RAM!!! I learned the hard way with this. In college my buddies and I built a killer animation that takes place in an apartment which was modelled in every detail including electrical outlets, light switches, door hinges, phone cords, etc. and we were never able to raytrace it in maya!!! even with 2.5GB of disk swap we were getting out of memory errors. Maya is a memory hog!!! Good luck!
Windows 2000
Abit KT7 non-raid
Duron 700@1000
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
512 MB Corsair SDRAM
21" Sony F500
3DMARK 2000 = 7104
Nice kit.. of course, the monitor is most of the cost but I’d make the same choices.
Make sure you’re using Athlon-C series chips, with the “266MHz” Frontside bus. VERY IMPORTANT. Abit KT7A’s and Asus A7V133’s are the motherboards of choice.
That said, DDR and 760MP around the next corner :-)))))
Sean
I just built a home system. It works beutifully, fast and efficient
abit KT7A mB
1.3 ghz Athlon
768 MB ram
36 gig 10k rpm cheetah hard drive.
running win nt
It works great as a workstation,
I would build a couple of dual proc machines for rendering.
sweet, finally someone with a 1.3! Tell me, are you overclocking? if so, how high can you push it on the kt7a? what brand of memory are you using? what type of cooling? i’m wondering if it’s worth the extra money for the 1.3/1.33s.
Windows 2000
Abit KT7 non-raid
Duron 700@1000
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
512 MB Corsair SDRAM
21" Sony F500
3DMARK 2000 = 7104
I read 1.5GHz air cooled with a 1.33 on another site yesterday.. sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
Sean
1.5GHz? that’s it? shoot, i posted at 1495 MHz the other day on a 1.2GHz, but dropped it back down to 1435 MHz for better stability with only an alpha cooler and a kick ass case with great cooling. i was hoping the 1.33’s could hit 1.6!!! now that would be nice! c’mon, dude, push that chip harder!
Windows 2000
Abit KT7 non-raid
Duron 700@1000
Elsa Gladiac Ultra 64MB DDR
512 MB Corsair SDRAM
21" Sony F500
3DMARK 2000 = 7104
Apparently, it was 1.5 GHz completely stable without ANY messing around, just changing the clock multiplier (that’s 1533 MHz, or 11.5x multiplier).
Going from 1.5 to 1.6 is a big deal at the limits of a processors manufacturing process. AMD themselves don’t expect to see much past 1.7, from what I have read. Being able to go from 1333 to 1533 without breaking a sweat is a big deal for this chip.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a 1.33 >>YET<
Sean
If you would like information on supported machines… I work with all manufacturers and can give you any information that you may need to make an informed decision
It’s very kind of you, please help us to decide which system is the best to use with maya and with very complex models, e.g to build a very detailed city.
e-mail: sipilevi@freemail.hu
If you are depending on a machine for a business [eg 8-10 machines like buddy said] don’t over clock them. [yes I over clock my own home boxes but I don’t run “mission critical” applications on them.]
Go for a no bullshit vendor that will give you top support. Yeah local joe blow computer store supplys you with the sweet pimp athlon love with geforce card… but those places tend to fall apart beyond simple support.
These are statements I overheard with lame ass computer stores trying to sell gear to animators in the toronto area:
-Whats maya? Whats a license manager?
-Yes a radeon is good for pro applications..
- it’ll take us 2 weeks to get a replacement part in…
etc.
You’ll want a place to be able to swap parts on the spot and are familar with high end demands for a series of graphics workstations.
So [censored] the cheap clone boxes and go get a line of workstations from sgi, IBM or dell. Get a good support contract… in some cases it may almost cost as much as the machines.
But you know what? If you are worried about the cost of the machines then you are your prioritys mixed up. Someone forgot to calculate their seat cost when budgetting for a business. Buying alot of software licenses will eat up a fair bit a change.. but even that combined with the hardware will pale for the salarys of the people you’ll have to pay to work behind the machines.
So go for whoever gives you the best support package.. the last thing you need is the inability to meet a delivery because of flaky gear.
I mentioned Dell , Ibm and sgi since thats the 3 brands we use at where I work [150+ workstations]. Actually we have a few compaqs as well but the sysadmins don’t like them. As for the Dells [admistration], SGI’s [workstations] and IBM’s [avid] anything goes wrong and we have it fixed or replaced the same day.. usualy within a few hours.
Yup avoid compaq machines they stink!
and what do you think about SGI Zx10 workstation?
…
and MacOSX solution?