yea well i would like some info on which CPU would be the best for rendering 3d modelling video(not sure what its exactly called). Rendering stuff with like 3ds max , mental ray, etc... budget for the cpu would be around 500 dollars. I have a amd athlon xp 2600+ atm and it takes like 16 minute just to render 4 seconds of a high poly fish animation using a advanced ice/water effect shader. obviously i will need to render longer clips, so im going to get a new comp. I remember the old saying of pantium for video etiding and stuff like that, and amd for gaming, but with dual core and this new era of CPUs, im at a loss of which to choose. any info is appreciated, ty for ur time.