3d Studio max and vray rendering

I just finished building an i7-950 system for 3ds Max 2011. The person I built it for does not use Vray. It works, very, very well for 3ds Max. However, WITHOUT Vray, the renering time is totally dependent on CPU power, so I would have to think that a Sandy Bridge system would be even better (faster rendering times).

However, if you are using Vray for all your rendering, then I don't think it is so important. I don't know about Vray, but I know that Octane Render can use several Nvidia GTX cards together. If Vray is similar, then I would think the most important thing for you would be a Motherboard that can support several video cards.

no, vray is Cpu dependant... i was thinking on a AMD with 6 cores, its better to randering, but its not that goon on other things, thas why i prefer the 950.. but now i am confused, with all this of the new i7... i dont know what to do.

if the i7 950 price is going to drop, i prefer to wait, but i want to know if its whort to buy a 2600k for a higher price.

tnx anyway.

??? Then what's the point?

i dont render 100% of the time.. i need a good procesor at a good price.. the point is to know, if the build i posted is right for the price, or if i have to wait to a price drop, or just go with the 2600k (the one i dont know anything besides is new and more expensive).\\

by the way... i have 8gb OCZ RAM, can i reuse this ones? or i have to buy ddr3?

I'm pretty sure the common wisdom here is to wait if you can for Sandy Bridge. If you CAN wait, then wait. But I can tell you that the system we built, i7-950, 12 GB DDR3 ram, GTX-580 graphics card, ran 3ds Max VERY well!

There was NO slow-down at all when manipulating inside the view-port window. I built it for a 5th year architect student. She told me she had never seen a computer run 3ds Max as good as this.