funk Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 So many questions to ask, thanks in advance if anyone has advice for my current situation. Ok so my work is currently looking to purchase a dedicated rendering computer for 3dsMaxDesign2011--Civil3d2011, mainly those two programs, and I have been given a few things to consider when buying, and please correct me here if wrong. Order of Importance RAM >> CPU >> Hard Drive Speed >> Graphics Card. ok now for some comparisons. RAM - HP 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC RAM - HP 12GB (6x2GB) DDR3-1333 ECC RAM CPU -Intel Xeon Quad Core E5520 (2.26GHz, 8MB cache, 5.86 GT/s Intel QPI) -Intel Xeon W3530 2.80 8MB/1066 QC CPU -Intel Xeon W3680 3.33 12MB/1333 6C CPU Hard Drive Speed - 640GB (2 x 320GB) 7200RPM - HP 300GB SATA 10K SFF HDD Graphics Card - NVIDIA Quadro FX1800 768MB PCIe - NVIDIA Quadro FX3800 1GB PCIe Card ok so obviously the bottom items in the grps are better, I just want to know which upgrades will make the biggest difference and whether they are worth the extra expenses? All dosnt have to be answered if you have advice on any of these comparisons I would love to know. Thanks again. Regards, Funk ps, the rendering which we will be using this computer for is large terrain modeling, the last Max file I worked on was a so called 'rats nest' which was 50mb large. was very hard to work on, if that helps at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 Bigger specs the better, always. Also try doing a Google search about do it yourself render farms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funk Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 haha, nice simple answer to give my boss =) ok I have heard of render farms ill look into that. thanks for the quick reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 Regarding render farms, you might be interested in this thread: http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?t=48000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funk Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 cheers Cad64, seems like for office situations a render farm will do the most damage to rendering time/output. If I could ask to quick dumb questions, I have not looked at those pdf's you posted on the rendering farm page so if they are on there feel free to show me the door, but rendering farms do not improve the work quality of workstation performance true? just the speed of output. And you mentioned that the computers spec needs to be the same? because we have some low - mid range computer specs in our office but most have subtle differences. is a farm still achievable last Q is, CAD64 your computer spec, stacks RAM and not the graphics card hard drive speed (both seem moderate level, from my lack of computer knowledge, could be wrong), would you suggest put the money from graphics card and Hard Drive into more RAM for workstation performance? Cheers mate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 rendering farms do not improve the work quality of workstation performance true? just the speed of output. Correct. The farm is only for helping to speed up the rendering process. And you mentioned that the computers spec needs to be the same? because we have some low - mid range computer specs in our office but most have subtle differences. is a farm still achievable Well, ideally you would want every computer in the farm to have the exact same specs, because the farm can only render as fast as the slowest machine in the chain. But you can build a farm using any computers you have available. would you suggest put the money from graphics card and Hard Drive into more RAM for workstation performance? RAM is important, but I would invest in a good processor and graphics card first. Then, with whatever money you have left over, get as much RAM as you can. And make sure you go with a 64 bit operating system. XP is good, Windows 7 is great, just stay away from Vista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted June 17, 2010 Share Posted June 17, 2010 FYI, although a render farm will work perfectly for rendering your 3DS Max jobs, it will not work for any Civil 3D jobs. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, Civil 3D does not have the ability to parcel out render jobs to multiple computers. So any C3D rendering would have to be done directly on your workstation computer, unless you import your CAD file into Max for rendering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funk Posted June 17, 2010 Author Share Posted June 17, 2010 thanks for your time, just went through your bio and found your an LA also. haha, nice to know that there are some other LA's out there pushing the 3d boundaries and not just the industrials and architects! peace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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