1st time builder need recommendation

[unbekannt]

I'm planning on building a new P4 machine that will be upgradable for at
least 3-4 years. This will be my 1st build, any insights will be greatly
appreciated!

Here's what I intend to use this baby for(I am no gamer, so gaming aspect
will not be a consideration):

Graphic/Video editing
Web Development
General programming
Heavy duty business applications
Heavy duty scientific calculation

Primary applications I will be using - all latest versions:

Photoshop/Fireworks/Painter
Freehand/Illustrator/Canvas/CorelDraw
3dMax Studio/Maya/Rhinoceros/Plasma
AutoCAD/Inventor
Flash/Director
AfterEffects/Premiere/various video editing burning apps
Dreamweaver/GoLive
Mathematica/Maple/MathCAD/Statistica/SPSS/MatLab

***my prime concern is multitasking, I will be using at least 5-6 of
aforementioned apps simultaneously and need tremendous CPU/RAM
combination to pull it off***

The system components I am thinking of are:
Gigabyte GA-8knxp/Asus P4C800 mobo (must have Intel HT support)
Intel P4/3.0/3.06GHZ 512K HT 800FSB
1GB Crucial/Kingston DDR RAM
Hercules ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Vcard
LiteOn LDW-401S DVD+R/RW
Antec Solution series 350W case
SB Audigy
3 cooling fans

Existing hardware will be used in the new system:
Maxtor DiamondMAX 60GB 7200rpm
WD Special Edition 80GB 7200rpm
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB
(all IDE drives)

Liteon 48x burner
100MB Zip Drive

What is buggy me is the video card, I don't play games at all, but I do a
lot of 2D/3D work, graphic is extremely important to me, I need best
video card for 2D/3D graphic professional. At almost $400, Radeon 9800
Pro is certainly more than expensive for a non gamer, would it help my 2D
needs? Recommendation on best video cards for Maya/3DMaxStudio will
certainly be appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[JAD]

Where does one get 10,000 for software? I would look at 'Fire GL' cards

 

[Roy Coorne]

unbekannt wrote:

....

What is buggy me is the video card, I don't play games at all, but I do a
lot of 2D/3D work, graphic is extremely important to me, I need best
video card for 2D/3D graphic professional. At almost $400, Radeon 9800
Pro is certainly more than expensive for a non gamer, would it help my 2D
needs? Recommendation on best video cards for Maya/3DMaxStudio will
certainly be appreciated!

Maya does not work with gaming cards but needs professional display
adapters as, e.g., the Nvidia Quadro series - you may wish to consult
www.alias.com with respect to Maya/3DMaxStudio hardware requirements.

Roy

 

[unbekannt]

Since nothing in your first post said anything about how much money
you are looking at spending,

Well, I'm hoping to keep it under $2200, 1 reason to forgo the 3.2MHZ
processor.

Here are my recommendations:

Another poster mentioned the "Fire GL" series video cards by ATI,
which is a great recommendation. Personally, I like nVidia's Quadro
series video cards.

I will look into both. Do you think it's unreasonable to get Radeon 9800
Pro for my 2d/3d graphic needs? And what are the advatages of 9800 Pro if
not for gaming?

I would go with a larger Power supply. I like Enermax's 450 and 550
watt units....I think the reviews at www.tomshardware.com preferred
the Antec power supplys---so you cant really go wrong either way. It
just seems to me that 350 might be cutting it a little close.
(I think of power supplys like I think of memory---you can never have
enough wattage..)

Definitely will consider that. With 3 HDD and more on the way, I might get
a 400-480W. 550W will be too expensive for me.

I'm not sure how much research you put into your motherboard
choice,..but the ABIT IC7 and IS7 series boards are getting great
reviews. I'm getting ready to build a new one (currently have a
P3-866) and will probably go with the IS7 board.

Abit IC7 looks promising, and much cheaper than Gigabyte. How do you think
it stacks up against GA-8knxp in terms of board design for a 1st time
builder?

Buy as much memory as you can afford. 1gig might sound like alot..but
most motherboards these days max out at 2gig or 4gig.
I'm shooting for 2gig in my next system..

Most newest P4 mobo support up to 4gig of RAM, I will probably get 2gig if
I decide to go with a cheaper video card.

Hell....I know its your first home built system....but check out
www.vapochill.com
its hella expensive for a empty case--but the phase change cooling
system is sweeeeeet....

very cool, but a little expensive for me. a generic cooling fan should be
sufficient.

 

[unbekannt]

unbekannt wrote:

...
Maya does not work with gaming cards but needs professional display
adapters as, e.g., the Nvidia Quadro series - you may wish to consult
www.alias.com with respect to Maya/3DMaxStudio hardware requirements.

Roy

Thanks for the advice! What is the best video card for highest quality
photoshop work? I also do video capture from VCR for personal use, so ATI
Radeon All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro looks attractive, otherwise, I'd have to buy
a capture card.

 

[unbekannt]

The P-4 is reaching the end of the line. The new processor ( P-5 ? )
is expected before the end of the year.
The first round may fit present socket 478 boards, but by Spring the
socket will change and your new board will no longer be upgradeable.
Considering the investment you are about to make, I would wait.

P5 will probably out of my budget of $2200.

 

[jmnugent]

Well, I'm hoping to keep it under $2200, 1 reason to forgo the 3.2MHZ
processor.


I will look into both. Do you think it's unreasonable to get Radeon 9800
Pro for my 2d/3d graphic needs? And what are the advatages of 9800 Pro if
not for gaming?

I dont know exactly....but if you look at:
http://www.alias.com/eng/support/maya/qualified_hardware/QUAL/maya_50_win.html#cards
....you'll see no Radeon family cards listed. It seems to be the same way for
the SolidWorks engineers that I support,
SolidWorks website does mention the Radeon series--but lists it as "not
recommended".
My "take" is that the gaming cards (Radeon or GeForce) are just to heavily
tweaked for gaming,
The Fire GL and Quadro cards are designed from the ground up to be for
workstation 2D/3D manipulation.

Definitely will consider that. With 3 HDD and more on the way, I might get
a 400-480W. 550W will be too expensive for me.


Abit IC7 looks promising, and much cheaper than Gigabyte. How do you think
it stacks up against GA-8knxp in terms of board design for a 1st time
builder?

The boards have quite similar layouts...so I dont think you'll see a large
difference in building it.
On the Gigabyte board, the CPU seems awfully close to the top edge of the
board which (depending on how much "cable spaghetti" you have
in the top of your case) could pose slight air flow problems. On the ABIT
board, the CPU is down a little further.
And on the ABIT the IDE connectors are laid down parrallel to the
motherboard instead of the usual straight up and down.
This helps route the IDE cables a little neater. I've owned a couple
Giga-byte boards,..and a couple ABIT boards, although both had issues,
I tend to agree with reviewers that the ABIT boards seem to be easier to
setup. As long as you've done your research and bought the right, compatible
parts,
everything just seems to drop easily into place...

FYI----another thing you might be smart to consider would be to replace the
stock Pentium 4 heatsink/fan with a better one.
For the type of multitasking your going to be doing, I would go with the
Zalman, (all copper) CNPS7000-Cu.
I bought one through www.frozencpu.com for about $50.....well spent money in
my opinion.

--Jmnugent

 

[Stacey]

unbekannt wrote:

Thanks for the advice! What is the best video card for highest quality
photoshop work? I also do video capture from VCR for personal use, so ATI
Radeon All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro looks attractive, otherwise, I'd have to buy
a capture card.

Or use an -analog to DV- adapter and capture via firewire. Should be fine
for non -theater movie- video uses. As good as DV (which is good) using an
adapter like a canopus. The less stuff inside the box, the less conficts
you'll have to deal with and analog video capture can be a headache.

 

[Stacey]

Roy Coorne <[email protected]> wrote in

I don't think I made myself clear in my 1st post, I'm not looking for top-
of-the-line workstation graphic cards like nVidia Quadro FX 3000 type, but
within the mainstream high-end VCard. I'm using 3D as compli to my 2D
graphic design & video production, and I also need to capture video to
VCR.

So you're not looking for "hardware 3D" video but are doing 3D "rendering"
in software that outputs as 2D? Sounds like a Matrox G550, best 2D on the
market.

 

[jmnugent]

You had mentioned in a different post that you were interested in a ATI 9800
"All in Wonder",
From what you say below about "high quality photo manipulation and video
capture",....the 9800 AIW
would probably be a good choice...(considering your price range and
requirements)

--jmnugent

Well, my main use for Maya/3dsMax is to compli 2D graphic works done in
Photoshop & others. I didn't make myself clear in the 1st post, I'm more
into high-quality photo manipulation and digital video creation. My needs
also include video capturing from VCR. I'm now using a pretty generic
nVidia VCard that came with Dell, so with this new build, I'm shooting for
something that will be stunning for 2D graphic and more than decent for

3D.

 

[Larc]

| unbekannt wrote:
|
|
| >
| > I don't think I made myself clear in my 1st post, I'm not looking for top-
| > of-the-line workstation graphic cards like nVidia Quadro FX 3000 type, but
| > within the mainstream high-end VCard. I'm using 3D as compli to my 2D
| > graphic design & video production, and I also need to capture video to
| > VCR.
|
| So you're not looking for "hardware 3D" video but are doing 3D "rendering"
| in software that outputs as 2D? Sounds like a Matrox G550, best 2D on the
| market.

I agree! And it's only about $100 shipped from Newegg.

Larc



§§§ - Please raise temperature of mail to reply by e-mail - §§§

 

[DaveW]

Get a 'high quality' 450+ watt power supply to run that configuration.
Antec power supplies are recommended.

 

[Ancra]

| unbekannt wrote:
|
|
| >
| > I don't think I made myself clear in my 1st post, I'm not looking for top-
| > of-the-line workstation graphic cards like nVidia Quadro FX 3000 type, but
| > within the mainstream high-end VCard. I'm using 3D as compli to my 2D
| > graphic design & video production, and I also need to capture video to
| > VCR.
|
| So you're not looking for "hardware 3D" video but are doing 3D "rendering"
| in software that outputs as 2D? Sounds like a Matrox G550, best 2D on the
| market.

I agree! And it's only about $100 shipped from Newegg.

Many of his apps requires him to view, build and manipulate 3D models
in OpenGL 3D. Thus he needs a 3D hardware card.
I still have a G550 in one of my PC's (GeForce in all the rest). But
frankly, it's getting a bit long in the tooth. It's too slow at
OpenGL, for consideration in a new PC.


ancra

 

[Ancra]

P5 will probably out of my budget of $2200.

- Ahh, "Learning licences" then? A moment there, I thought your budget
was close to unlimited. I would think Autodesks apps would be hard to
get "formal" learning licences for, but as I'm totally disinterested
in both AutoCAD and 3Dmax, I really don't know.

(The P5 is not the 'Itanium' - or "more correctly" - 'Itanic',
which IBW is being stomped all over by the $700 Opteron, and is
currently undergoing its third major "reengineering" at Intel. The P5
is another shitty mediachip, just like the P4, which is also the basis
for P5.)

I have read this thread, and I think I want to point out a couple of
pitfalls:

- Too expensive! Two reasons: "1st time builder" and the fact that
your expected lifespan of 3-4 years is a bit unreasonable. Not only
will you be on a 'stoneage' platform by the time you get warmed up on
your apps, any 32-bit platform may be totally irrelevant for your type
of applications in a close future.
Stay yourself at 2.8GHz 800FSB. You lose very little performance in
the short term, but save money that will do for a good upgrade in
about 20 months.

Radeon 9800 - Considering OpenGL, you might want to stay away from ATI
altogether. Go Nvidia. I don't think a specialized expensive board is
necessary though. I have done very well with ordinary GF4 Ti cards.
I had hoped the 9600, 9800 would have cleared ATI's OGL difficulties,
but it seems software producers remain lukewarm.


ancra

 

[Ancra]

2.8GHz@800FSB seems like a good buy. The benchmarks I have seen suffer no
significant performance disadvantage against 3.0GHz, but it does it stack
up against 3.0GHz in daily-to-daily heavy multitasking? I remember seeing
some almost identical benchmark scores for 400MHz v. 450MHz but falls far
short in daily performance. Don't want to make same mistake on 2.8 v 3.0.

Sure you don't want Xeons, with 2MB cache? ;-)
Well, what can I say? That 400/450 deal would sure puzzle me, and I
would be sure there's some non-MHz reason for it. As far as I know,
that 2.8 comes with the same HT and caches as the 3.0? - Or?

But you kinda miss the point. Performance is exactly what I'm talking
about. Who enjoys best performance? The guy who blows his money on a
5% faster cpu, and lives with it for 40 months? Or the guy who buys
ANOTHER cpu after 20 months, that is also 5% slower than the cutting
edge, ...THEN, 20 months later?
(Ok, ok, it's not that easy, often you need a new mobo, ram,
reinstall, god knows... But I'm sure you get the philosophy.)

I kind of like Radeon AWI's multimedia capability, I don't think I need
hardware 3D accelaration at this point. 3D is a compli to me, I'm more
concerned with 2D graphics and video editing.

Ok. And they're very capable on 3D. and 9600 and 9800 supports OpenGL
2. So it might be worth a try. Maya personal learning licence is free,
so it doesn't cost you anything to try. 9600 is considerably cheaper
than 9800 as well, you might consider that.
- Oh, and buy an ATI built ATI. That's what some people say, at least.
Me, I know the ATI's are crisp and nice, and you like quality images,
so...


ancra

 

[unbekannt]

(e-mail address removed) (Ancra) wrote in

Ok. And they're very capable on 3D. and 9600 and 9800 supports OpenGL
2. So it might be worth a try. Maya personal learning licence is free,
so it doesn't cost you anything to try. 9600 is considerably cheaper
than 9800 as well, you might consider that.
- Oh, and buy an ATI built ATI. That's what some people say, at least.
Me, I know the ATI's are crisp and nice, and you like quality images,
so...


ancra

Well, I've decided to settle with Matrox Millennium P650, still need a good
capture card though, any good recommendation?