Jon

Hello All,

Long time reader first time poster here and hopefully you will be able to give me some advice. I do most of the 3d Rendering for the firm I work for and I am getting a new computer and they said, within reason, I can design what I want for it. I am relatively new to the 3d side of things and well to architecture itself therefore I have not used many "high end" machines and have had no experience with dual processors. My problem arises when I pitched my specs to the company "computer advisor". First off my specs:
Dell Precision 470
dual 3.0 Xeon 2mb L2 cache
xp pro
2gb mem
74gig 10k rpm hd
128mb ati fire gl v3100

run ADT 3.3, Viz 2k5, Photoshop cs

"computer advisor/IT guy" said he had other companys that had single procesor xeon workstations that are not even used because they are so buggy and always crash and he is saying that xeon are not as good as a chip and recommended that configuration with a 304 pentium 4 and gforce 6800.

Any advice you guys/gals can give me about dual processors, the xeon chips, dual 3.0s or the video card would be great. I am trying to find people with first hand knowledge that can help give a newbie some advice.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Jon

mattclasvegas

I'm using the Dell Precision 670 with the same specs as yours. I've have nothing to say except--- this system rocks. I have had no problems with it or my last 3D Boxx with dual Xeons. With the dual 3.0 gig processors it is about 50% faster than the Boxx (with dual 1.7), 35% faster than the dual 2.0 gig 3d Boxx in the office. and more than twice as fast as the standard Dell single P4 2.7s in the office. And this is render speed. I set up a render farm with 3 standard dells and the Boxx and this Precision 670 will easily keep up with all the other rendering computeers in number of frames rendered.

The nice things about the Dell is the price compared to the 3D Boxx machines. It worked out to be about $1000 less and 100 times quieter than the Boxx machines (those suckers are loud).

I use 3DSmax, CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12, Illustrator CS Graphics Suite, Adobe Premier, Adobe After Effects and non of the software has any issues. I highly recommend the Dell (I would have never done that in the past).

mc

Bugga_Guy

Jon, I pretty much have the same system you spec, and it rocks. I will never go back to a single processor. The computer is fast and quiet- dell is good in making the workstations very quiet as mc stated! I never had any problems running software. My recomendation is go for it!

Chad Warner

If within reason means getting the Dell you specced, then I would get that one. Dual processer is the only way to go. And doing Viz work, you are going to want to get the best graphics card you can afford. One other thing to look into if you haven't already, get dual monitors. You will never ever want to go back to a single monitor once you have used dual.

crazy homeless guy

your IT guys is just trying to get you to spec an inferior system so he can get it a cheaper price and make his budget look good for the quarter.

probably the easiest thing to do is to research speed tests on various 3d boards where people have posted benchmarks.

i have been on a dual xeon 2ghz at work now for about a year and half. it is an IBM and not Dell, but it has crashed less than 10 times since i have had it. it is probably the stable'st' machine i have ever used.

i can't say the same about ATI cards, they left a bad taste in my mouth several years ago, and have never went back. i think everyone agrees that the best thing to do is push for a quadro card, but if you are having trouble getting the system through in the first place, that is probably not going to happen. you can soft mod the geforce cards to behave at about 90% of the lowest quadro, but it is still not the same.

the only downfall in a xeon over a p4 in this case is the reluctance of the computer guy in the fist place. if he already does not want to get a xeon, then he probably is not going to want to upgrade you when the time comes. on the other hand if you had a p4, he would probably be more likely to give your machine to someone doing general cad work, and buy you a new machine on a yearly basis. just a thought.

maybe it is best the two of you work out a yearly budget for 3d hardware, and work that method. you have an allowance, you decide how to spend, but it you have to prove that purchases are wise, and you have to get approval to buy equipment.

__________________
travis schmiesing

glenoe12

Check out the "Dual AMD Opteron" systems (e.g. by HP or Boxx), I think this latest system will kick the butts of Xeons, specially when the 64-bit Windows arrives.

Jon

Matt,
Thanks very much that is exactly what I was looking for! I have heard the same thing from a couple different people now. Its nice to hear that they are quiet. I am pretty much looking at anything is going to be an upgrade from that AMD1900 with a 64mb gforce4400 card and 512mb memory.!

Jon

Thank you for your reply! This is going to be a huge upgrade for me.

Jon

Thats what I am worried about, the never wanting to go back, that will mean I have to upgrade the computer at home! I had the ATI V3100 which has an AVI and DVI output. I was planning on getting a 19" flat panel and running that along side my 19" CRT that I have now. The way dell is setup to upgrade from the 64mb 2d quattro card to the 128 mb ATI fire card is $70 bucks. To upgrade to the 128mb quattro card from the 128mb ATI card is $450 bucks. I am not sure yet if the upgrade will be worth it.

Chad Warner

Iv'e not used the ATI card. I have a quadro fx 1000 on my dell now. I'm not necessarily happy with it, but I don't think I will ever be happy with a graphics card. I've used graphics cards that cost 6,000 US and still not been impressed. The thing that the quadro has over the ATI is the MAX and Viz specific drivers, which help a bit.