thanks for all the replies, regards to the software im not sure what i will be using yet, i wanted to build a powerhouse to try it with. i think its going to be a i7 950 12gb 1333 ram 2x 5870 gpu's whats good for rendering benchmarks? Cheers
Fur mark would be worth a look also 3d max. Thats going to be a seriously powerful rig, it'll have the benefit of being a kick ass gaming rig as well.
Just to let you know, as far as I am aware Autocad doesnt rely on the GPU for rendering purposes. It is handled by the CPU(s). At work we have dual Xeon machines with pretty basic Nvidia Quadro NVS 285 128mb. The visualisation artist in the office uses a render farm for the big visualisations; which uses lots of Xeon processors and lots of Memory, no GPUs. I would assume Bentley Microstation is the same. The Graphics card in the machine is used solely for looking at the files on screen live; So a good card is required for that purpose. However it will not boost rendering times; with that in mind, I think a single GPU will suffice (as you mainly look at the files as wireframe).
Update from the 3D artist at work: in 3D Studio Max, there is a process called Quicksilver hardware rendering, which does requires additional GPU resources to work effectively. 512mb Graphics memory is required as a minimum (1GB+ is ideal).
I dont know if you have seen this but you can get some nice and well priced 1600mhz 3x4gb kits now for example Thats less than i paid for 6gb in the summer! they also have a nice corsair dominator kit too!
i will look at those benchmarks definatly. also that ram is a complete bargain. how do i7's price up against dual xeons setup? and how does the perfomance differ?
