Building a 3D system

[Anthony]

Hi,

I have a friend who is doing 3D animations and he wants me to build him a PC just for that. Since he is on a low budget, he wants to only put really good parts for the 3D Rendering and execution. Sound, and other stuff like that isn't that important. My question is, what parts would you most recommend for this system. For example, the CPU (dual/single), Mobo, 3d card, video card, etc... I would really appriciate any help at all..

Thank you,
Anthony.

 

[Chopper]

Can you give us a budget price if possible?
nVidia Quadro4 900XGL, 3DLabs VP870 and ATI FireGL 8800 are all used by the pros. These cards have 200MB+ of memory which come very handy doing 3D animations/ rendering.
However, these cards are very expensive and I doubt your friend wants to spend that much money.

Given that I don't know what his budget is ...

How about dual AthlonMPs or P3s? But, instead of buying two CPUS, he could just get one really good one. IE: P4 2.53Ghz or AthlonXP2600+ (if he could find that).

As for a video card, he'll need something with aleast 128MB of memory. The best of their is a GF4ti4600. But buying a ti4200 and overclocking it to ti4600 speeds can do.

If possible, try having a RAID config or a good SCSI setup. Fast hard drives really help in this situation.

Hope this helps.

 

[Anthony]

How much more expensive are these cards compaired to the GeForce cards? He is willing to spend around $300 - $500 (in canadian dollars).

Thanks,
Anthony.

 

[Chopper]

I did a search on pricewatch.com. The nVidia and ATI cards came up around 300USD or less. The 3dlabs card was 500USD.
(These cards are probably horrible for gaming, but good for creating games ...)

I suggest you have a look at pricewatch.com they have great prices there.

Cheers

 

[Anthony]

Thankx!

Thanks Chopper.. I really appriciate the help!

 

[Chopper]

No problem Anthony

BTW: Welcome to Tech Forums.