Content Creation

[Verdant]

This latest gen of video cards seems to have a big boost in compute performance...


but, i do not have a good handle on where the bottlenecks are for 3D content creation, i know that render tests, etc are generally bound by cpu, but i am not certain what factor the cpu and gpu play in rendering performance.

I am looking to build a workstation for a series of maya courses I will be taking. I am a newb to 3D content creation, so I have no idea.

I develop games (2d) but will also be looking to author some 3D games once i understand the creation of said assets better!

so my question is, in the fall... say i split $1,000 on cpu/gpu where should the money go?

 

[Stiganator]

Well once GPU rendering comes out, I imagine it will be much faster. I would say go for as many cores as you can get. Get two medium quad cores I'd say and a GPU with 128+ stream processors. That should cover your bases.

 

[Munky]

For 3D content creation, you'd want a professional video card, one from Ati's FireGL series, or Nvidia's Quadro series. These cards aren't cheap, and you may be better off spending the money on a faster cpu, but if you want to get the most performance out of a 3d app, these cards will do better than regular gaming cards. Take a look at how they perform in this article:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...y/firegl-quadrofx.html

 

[Stiganator]

Pro cards are pointless unless you are actually a pro and I mean high end pro that works on this stuff 10+ hours a day at Pixar.