Planning Ahead

[billroper]

It looks like I'll eventually be building a new computer again. We headed out to Frys today and picked up an Antec Sonata 3 case that was on sale for $50 off.

I have no idea when I'll actually be building the computer, but at least I have the case. :)

Comments

[dave-ifversen.livejournal.com]

Intel Core 2 Quad (accept no substitutes!). I just built one of those to assist the render farm on Darren's movie; OMFG is it fast! (Renders that took ~2 weeks on a dual processor AMD system (and ~2.5 days on a Core 2 Duo) end up taking ~18 hours on the Core 2 Quad. I was completely astounded.)

[billroper]

Really? I had been thinking of getting an AMD quad core when I got around to it. Is this a case where the particular software is taking advantage of special instructions on the Intel chip or is it just running that much better?

[dave-ifversen.livejournal.com]

I know that the Adobe software we use (After Effects, Premiere Pro) works better (or in some cases only works) on Intel chips. The rendering software we use is Lightwave 3D (they used this for Babylon 5, among other shows and movies); I'm not sure if that works any better on Intel than it does on AMD. I have never tried an AMD quad core - when I was looking at the various reviews (granted, this was some time ago), most said that the Intel chips (Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad) did slightly better than the comparable AMD chips. Looking at the specs (again, quite some time ago - things could have changed recently), the Intel chips seemed to do better with power consumption, drawing less watts than the AMD chips (this is for the Core 2 series, not the Pentium D dual core - the Pentium D's are power hogs and their instruction sets are not optimized well). If I can scrounge up enough money to build another system, I will give the AMD quad core a try, and see how it does rendering a scene for the movie head to head against the Intel quad core.

[mdlbear]

I'm particularly fond of Antec cases; my current favorite is the Solo, but the newer Sonatas are pretty good. I have one of the first Sonata series; it's a little noisier.

[billroper]

I've built three systems in Solo cases so far; one for the studio, two for friends. The Sonata was a good bit cheaper and has a lockable door, which is looking like a better and better idea, given Katie's fondness for turning the computer on at unscheduled moments.

[mdlbear]

*chuckle* Been a while since I had to worry about that one, but I understand perfectly.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

If you're building your own, and coming down as far as Fry's anyway, don't forget there's a Microcenter in Westmont...