Need recommendations for a cheap 3-d rendering computer

[Maximus22]

I need ideas on what the next computer I should make for my 3-d modeling. I am kinda on a tight budget. This is what i was thinking:
AMD Duron 600 overclocked
Abit KT7 RAID
x2 IBM 75GXP 15gig
Geforce2 MX
SoundBlaster Live Value
256MB PC133 RAM
Still need to find a good cheap monitor & case. Please provide suggestions and links. I use Rhino3D, 3d Studio MAX R3

 

[The Stigenator]

everything sounds good.. but the duron will limit your ability in 3d... use athlon or TB.
also use a standard geforce 64MB - leadtek/creative/3dprophet .. for the MX's memory bandwidth will kill you..

though if you are just going to do batch rendering and not creating - then the video card is good.. but I would still go with an Athlon.

 

[Eli]

He said cheap, that's the whole point in going Duron. It will only "hinder" him by ~5%, hardly significant.

The GeForceMX is about on par with a GeForce DDR, no?



Looks great.

 

[Maximus22]

Should I opt for the Geforce GTS 32MB DDR its only about 225 bucks on pricewatch.com

 

[jebus]

I read that the geforce mx can even be almost on par with the geforce2 gts when overclocked.. obviously not quite since the bandwidth issue is still there.

 

[Modus]

Specs look good, go for the GTS if you can afford it (but it will only really help in pre-rendering). And if you're feeling particularly brave, you can try to mod it into a Quadro. Somebody give him the link

Modus

 

[Maximus22]

Would converting it into a Quadro increase rendering performance a lot? I dont think that I could do that, to risky for a $250 piece of equipment.

 

[The Stigenator]

I dont know your packages.. but here at work we use softimage 3.8 and maya 2.5 / 3.0 and the funny thing is that we use only processors for rendering.. therefore we run ATI Xpert 98 PCI cards for the render machines.. they all have dual 600E's for rendering.

since soft's and Maya's render engine does not use any graphical user interface, it runs great on a PCI card.

 

[Maximus22]

What would be a faster renderer a fast cpu or a good video card. Or should I opt for dual CPUs? I also play some games to, thats why I want a better than average video card.

 

[The Stigenator]

maximus,
if you are only going to render in dos mode - provided 3dstudiomax allows that.. then you can go with the MX series card.. however if you are going to game and create and render on the same machine.. I suggest the GTS2 with 64MB.. helps a lot to have the additional video ram in 3d apps.

We have 2 systems with GeforceGTS2 and they do maya live! and for that its more than enough, to render and do its stuff..

You can go with a dual proc, but depends on what os you are going to run, only NT4 and W2K support more than 1 processor. Stay with the current processor, and just go with the GTS2 64MB card.. you wont be disappointed.

I dont want you spending too much, but the MX will surely limit your 3d abilities.