jkzen

hi there. i am in the market for a new computer/workstation and need help. i will be using this for architecture and design applications. i typically run a 3d modeling program (rhino), rendering program (maxwell), 1-5 photoshop documents, autocad, illustrator, web simultaneously. my current computer cannot keep up. i have a budget of $4000 with at least one monitor. i do not want to buy something that i will not the potential of.

should i go for dual core or quad and what speed? xeon or opteron? 4 gb of RAM? video cards?

any help will be much much appreciated

thanks jkzen

Kilauea

I'd go for a quad core, but not sure what would be best for what you do, 4gb RAM... Definitively a video, but here again, I don't think regular video cards work best for what you do, so I'll let someone else answer this.

I assume you live in the US, you will need lots of storage...
What about the operating system you will use ? Vista ? Do you mind if its a 64bit os. In your budget, is the tower the only thing included or does it include the monitor ?

I would generally say that you can surely get something great for less than 4000, but since I do not know your segment very well, I will just come to see and learn more.

Edit: What are you using now ? When was it bought ?

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5½ years old rig ?
P4 1.7Ghz
MSI MS-6547E
768mb RAM
ATI Radeon 7200
40Gb Seagate HDD w/ Xp
7Gb Maxtor HDD w/ Linux
TigerPlus 300 Watt PSU (never heard of such company)
Broken LG CD-rom drive that seems to work sometimes

paratwa

With most people that want a workstation, they will also need some good tech support. So your best bet might be to go to www.hp.com and customize a workstation to your specs.

That way you get their tech support and a good system.

About the only time I recommend a pre built system is when someone wants a workstation. Because workstations are usually money makers for someone, and they can not afford to have their system down while they try to figure out a problem by them selfs.

HP is still one of the best workstations around.

jkzen

thanks for the quick replies. i was actually looking at hp's. i will need xp for the programs i run. the problem with self configuring on their web site is that i don't know what i need vs. the most powerful/expensive. do i need a 1.6ghz or a 2.3 dual/quad core xenon? thanks again

ComputerGuru64x2

Well, I would get the Quad-Xeon. Or get the Core 2 Duo Extreme Series, or Q6600. Also, SLI and CrossFire would be good, because that runs 2 Graphics card at once. And you should probably look at the 8800GTX(nVidia) or the FireGL(ATI) series because of the high quality. Also, 4Gb or 8Gb of RAM, definetly at or over DDR2800.

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Gaming System/Media Center
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Windsor @ 2.2Ghz Socket AM2
MB: Abit AN-M2HD nVidia GeForce 7050PV nForce 630a HDMI mATX
RAM: 2Gb(2 X 1Gb) OCZ Platinum Revivsion 2 PC2 6400 @ DDR2 880 (3-4-4-15)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 80Gb 7200RPM IDE
GPU: MSI GeForce 8600GT 256Mb DDR3 128bit
OD: LG DVD-RAM Black Sata
Case: nMEDIAPC HTPC 200BA Black
Speakers: Logitech X-240 2.1

oscaryu1

QX9650, Gigabyte X38, 2x (2x 2GB kits), nVidia Quadro GFX, 1TB HDD...

Intel on this one

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