vid card and CPU recommendation for computer animation?

[Liam]

I'm building my wife a decent PC that she can use to do some computer
animation and CAD on.
Not counting the monitors, I have about $800 or so budget.
Any recommendations on what video card(s) to get. She's dual-
monitoring--is it better to get one powerful card with two outputs, or
two separate cards?
What about CPU? Intel or AMD better than the other for animation and
rendering? Do number of cores and MHz matter more or less than the
amount of RAM?

Thanks for any advice!
Liam

 

[Liam]

I'm building my wife a decent PC that she can use to do some computer
animation and CAD on.
Not counting the monitors, I have about $800 or so budget.
Any recommendations on what video card(s) to get. She's dual-
monitoring--is it better to get one powerful card with two outputs, or
two separate cards?
What about CPU? Intel or AMD better than the other for animation and
rendering? Do number of cores and MHz matter more or less than the
amount of RAM?

Thanks for any advice!
Liam

PS: This machine won't be used for gaming, just applications like
Lightwave, After Effects, etc.

 

[Conor]

PS: This machine won't be used for gaming, just applications like
Lightwave, After Effects, etc.

nVidia Quadro FX. Intel CPUs beat AMD hands down.

 

[Liam]

nVidia Quadro FX. Intel CPUs beat AMD hands down.

Wow, Quadros tend to start at $400. That's half my budget.
It amazes me how different the video tech can be that you can spend
$500 on a video card that's supposed to be amazing for CAD and
rendering, but can't run games. Crazy.
Well, again, gaming isn't a big deal for this machine, but $400+ is
kinda steep.
Any recommendations for more around the $15 to $250 range?

 

[Richard Crowley]

"Liam" wrote...

Wow, Quadros tend to start at $400. That's half my budget.
It amazes me how different the video tech can be that you can spend
$500 on a video card that's supposed to be amazing for CAD and
rendering, but can't run games. Crazy.
Well, again, gaming isn't a big deal for this machine, but $400+ is
kinda steep.
Any recommendations for more around the $15 to $250 range?

Perhaps I'm just simple, but I haven't bought a video
card for my last 5 generations of computers. I just buy
a motherboard with internal video and I've never seen
any problem doing video NLE (which must be at least
as demanding as animation.)

IMHO, fancy video cards are not necessary for most
applications. Gaming seems to be the major application,
and I'm not a gamer.

 

[Liam]

Exactly. I've been editing video and audio on machines with only on-board
video cards for years.

The overwhelming majority of the fancy processing on plug-in video cards
primarily relates to 3D rendering, which for most people means playing
games.


There are two exceptions that to mind:

Playing over-the-air HDTV video can require special processing that has not
shown up in on-board video cards, at least until very lately.

Playing Blu-Ray discs has also required special processing that has not
shown up in on-board video cards, at least until very lately.

One of my concerns with on-board video has always been how much memory
and processing for the video is being taken away from other mobo
resources. Maybe none, I suppose, but it seems to me that a dedicated
card is more efficient.
But, if you guys have had personal experience with rendering and
onboard video--I should listen.

 

[Liam]

You could get something like a 8800GT, or something else you
soft-mod if your applications support that acceleration.http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539&pgno=0

As for CPU, budget out the rest of the system then see how
much you have left for a (preferribly quad core) intel CPU.
Number of cores and MHz matter more than amount of memory so
long as you have enough memory though I can't say what
amount that might be.  Given memory is fairly inexpensive it
could be best to overshoot the mark a bit, if the system is
to use 32bit OS, go ahead and get 4GB of memory.  If 64bit,
see how far the budget will go towards more though I doubt
you'll make good use of 8GB so 4GB is probably the best
starting point as 2 x 2GB modules... plus you'd have to see
what the motherboard you choose, supports.

Most decent video cards support dual monitors, pick one with
the outputs your preferred monitors need.  You can decide
later to add a 2nd video card if it seems necessary,
providing you choose a motherboard with the 2nd slot for it.
At that budget I would think 1 video card is the right
answer.

While the system won't be meant for gaming, there won't be a
lot of difference in spec'ing it out except you may benefit
more from multiple CPU cores, and since video isn't as
likely to be a bottleneck you may find more benefit to
faster memory - as fast as your preferred motherboard can
support while still retaining the right price-point to stay
in budget.  DDR2-800 is the default budget choice but given
some hunting for deals you may find the budget allows
higher.

Great; thanks for all the advice!!
I really appreciate it.
-Liam