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Super-String
09-20-2012, 01:20 AM
Hello CGSociety!

I hope it's not too distasteful for my first post to be a question, but I need a new PC before I can contribute anything more interesting to the community. I have been a bit out of the loop when it comes to technical advancements made in the last year so I thought it would be a good idea to see what has changed since I have been gone.

From the research I did last time around the main counter intuitive things I learned were that;

a: Using two video cards is more than likely to create more issues than performance benefits

b: Gamer cards like the GTX 580 are very close in performance to their much more expensive "workstation" counterparts

c: A single consumer i7 may outperform dual xeon chips (the e5 had not been released when I did this research)

Thoughts?

My budget is around 3500-5000 for the tower (no peripherals) and it will be used exclusively as a CG workstation. Workflow and quality, not speed of renders are my main priorities. I Plan to be running 3dsmax, maya and cinema 4d.

I'll check out newegg right now and see if I can get a rough draft of a configuration posted up soon, but feel free to post one up if you feel so inclined :)

-Maximilian
olson
10-01-2012, 08:51 PM
A single socket processor with a higher clock speed can be faster than a dual socket configuration with a slower clock speed. Though you can get a higher clock speed dual socket configuration in that budget which will out perform any single socket processor. Gaming graphics card versus workstation graphics card depends on the specific software and features you'll be using, for most users a gaming card will suffice.
vlad
10-02-2012, 02:25 PM
...

a: Using two video cards is more than likely to create more issues than performance benefits

...

Been using dual graphics cards for many years (3 monitors) without any issues. Though you're right about the performance benefits, because the software dont support it. Unless of course you're using a gpu based render engine. Then every card will contribute.
olson
10-02-2012, 04:29 PM
Been using dual graphics cards for many years (3 monitors) without any issues.

I think the original poster meant for performance reasons. For multiple monitors that's not necessary these days since many cards support three or more monitors (http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firepro-3d/w9000/Pages/w9000.aspx). Even the cheapest cards (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102933) support three monitors. Years ago I had a second PCI Radeon card next to the AGP card to get a second monitor, glad those days are gone!
vlad
10-02-2012, 08:19 PM
Maybe ATIs but not Nvidia cards (maybe the 6xx series do though). Since I'm on Max, I never wanted to risk going ATI.