computer upgrade

[Rabid pitbull]

i think they are two seperate issues. i know for a fact that render times are determined by the processor speed. the other problem sounds like your video card is ready to be replaced with a faster model.

[Matt]

It's going to cost you a lot of money.

I'm running on an AthlonXP 2400+ (overclocked.)

See, what I would buy if I were you, is this system:

AthlonXP 2200+ (Came out today I think) Overclock that to 2500+ or so. Get the best motherboard out there (As of right now, it is the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU.) That board has on-board RAID and USB 2.0. I'd buy two identical ATA133 hard drives @ 7200rpm... I'd go with SeaGate because I've never heard a whisper about them producing junky drives.

Your system is DDR, so you can probably use some ram from that if you wish. The MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU supports up to 3GB of ram. The faster your ram is, the better. If you're out for raw performance, get some Corsair XMS 3000 DDR ram. It is the absolute FASTEST ram on the market, barnone.

As far as performance in your applications goes, the absolute best bang for the buck is probably with the ATI FireGL 4 card. It doesn't do as well in games as a GeForce 4 4600 would, however there are on-board modifications that suite 3D applications superbly. The infinitely expensive Wildcat III series of cards from 3DLabs will provide the top performance in 3D creation, however they're thousands of dollars :( FireGL 4 is the way to go. I'd also get a second monitor if you don't have one. The FireGL 4 has dual-out, so you can have two screens to work on.

E-mail me if you have any more questions or anything.
matt@mattswift.com

[ZrO-1]

That would be the way to go if you've got money falling out of your pockets :D :p

Otherwise if you want to upgrade on the cheap you could go with the 1.7 GHz Athlon XP. Double your RAM but make sure you add in the same brand/speed that you have now. It's best if you stick to the same because that will cause the least ammount of problems. That would help your rendering...Now to help with the modeling and viewport performance: If you want the best viewport performance any pro OpenGL card will make a huge difference. I personally wouldn't recomend the FireGL 4, it's based on IBM's SPARC chip and it's really only decient at OpenGL 3D apps. It sucks otherwise (IMO). Actually I wouldn't touch any ATI card unless I couldn't afford anything else. Personally I'd go with the Quadro 750 XGL if I had the $$$ for a pro card. Otherwise I'd go with the fastest GeForce4 card which right now is the GeForce 4 4600 Ti.

Just my 2 cents. If you read some of the other threads in this section you will find a TON of stuff on this topic...there's at least 5 threads all about the same topic.

[Q99213]

Wow, thanks guys. When I get out of debt I'll let you know ;) I was planning on upgrading to the XP 2000 anyway. I think I will stick with my vid card right now, and I need a new mobo because I am maxed out at 512mb :( (2 slots with 256mb each) I think I can do the prov, mobo, and RAM for around $300, so when my pay check comes baby, lookout :buttrock:

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