Dual processor Workstation Build, Need advice =)

[skyarch]

Hello all,

Im not quite sure what i need to build a workstation. I need a computer for 3D renderingsand maybe animation. Programs i will be using it for are Autocad, 3D max, maya, mental ray, Rhino, Solidworks and ProE.

Mobo TYAN S5396A2NRF or Skulltrail D5400XS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813151100

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121330&Tpk=skulltrail

Processor Xeon 5440 or 5410

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117143

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117149

 

[SuicideSilence]

Well i dont know too much about workstations for 3d work, but i do know that you will definetly want a "workstation" video card. Basicly a card that can help in the rendering of cad and such. Somthing like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133165
For the work your doing, dont get a gaming vga card like an 8800 or any thing, those are made for gaming and not for what you have in mind.
Thats all i can really help you with.
Good luck though.

 

[akhilles]

^^^ Absolutely. You can save a bit of money if you shop at ebay. I bought my Quadro on ebay for $10 + shipping brand new. Look at these:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html

I think you will need one of the mobos you listed & 2 identical cpus you listed + FBDIMM ECC memory which is more expensive than plain old DDR2. Go to the mobo maker's site for the PDF manual & look at the ram support. While you're at it, look for cpu support.

 

[angry_ducky]

^^^ Absolutely. You can save a bit of money if you shop at ebay. I bought my Quadro on ebay for $10 + shipping brand new. Look at these:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html

I think you will need one of the mobos you listed & 2 identical cpus you listed + FBDIMM ECC memory which is more expensive than plain old DDR2. Go to the mobo maker's site for the PDF manual & look at the ram support. While you're at it, look for cpu support.

You got your Quadro for $10!? I know it's a low-end model, but that's an incredible price.

What kinds of programs do you use? Also, do you know which Quadro models support hardware MPEG encoding?

I do video work with Adobe Premiere, and I was looking at the PNY Quadro 570 (I believe it was the 570) Professional Video Edition because it can do hardware MPEG encoding, but it's $180, and I wouldn't be objected to getting a lower-end card if it can do the same thing.

 

[akhilles]

Not sure what exactly you're doing, but I do video encoding with TMPGENC. It's more ram & cpu intensive than gpu. After encoding, I can watch the video on NVS. Maybe look at this:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/qfx_4000sdi.html

My card is actually a HP OEM in a sealed brown box of a manual, cables, adapters, CD, etc. It was like hundreds of dollars when it came out. I think people are overlooking this kind of obsolete tech and they'd rather spend $50 on 8500/8600 doing non-gaming stuff. Again, look at ebay.

 

[angry_ducky]

Not sure what exactly you're doing, but I do video encoding with TMPGENC. It's more ram & cpu intensive than gpu. After encoding, I can watch the video on NVS. Maybe look at this:

I use Adobe Premiere CS3 to edit video, and then I use the Adobe Media Encoder (built into Premiere) to encode my projects to MPEG, but it's pretty slow.

At my school, the video editing machines have video capture/processing cards (you know the ones which can process the effects and do real time MPEG encoding), but those are quite expensive, and I was looking for something which does the same thing for cheaper. Any suggestions?

 

[akhilles]

I'm curious about what your school uses for real-time encoding. Maybe you can ask them? Or bring up device manager on that pc.

It takes about 20 mins to encode a video in TMPGENC on a 4ghz dual core & 4 gigs. It doesn't use 4 gigs exactly. 1 gig will do. A very fast cpu, speedy ram & SATAII harddisk are a pretty good combo for encoding.

 

[angry_ducky]

I'm curious about what your school uses for real-time encoding. Maybe you can ask them? Or bring up device manager on that pc.

It takes about 20 mins to encode a video in TMPGENC on a 4ghz dual core & 4 gigs. It doesn't use 4 gigs exactly. 1 gig will do. A very fast cpu, speedy ram & SATAII harddisk are a pretty good combo for encoding.

I asked my video teacher about the hardware, and the machines are purpose-built dpsVelocity workstations with some sort of dps (I'm guessing) capture card that's optimized for the dps software.

When I saw the inside of one of these boxes a couple months back, it kinda looked like it had dual capture cards, but I'm not sure anymore; one of them might have been the sound card.

All I know is that there's a breakout box, an audio board (Folio Notepad), a television monitor (says "Leitsch" on it when not in use), and a microphone connected to the computer.

Bear in mind that this station is at least 4 years old, using a 2.66GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, and GeForce 5600, so the video capture hardware is probably equally dated.

 

[akhilles]

Thanks for the info.

http://www.videoguys.com/dps.htm
http://www.ieditdv.com/products.html