Workstations For Poor 3D-artists

Peter writes: "Ace's hardware has written an 'article for the creative people, who are searching to build or buy an affordable number cruncher to run their favorite workstation application. Maybe you already have an Athlon Thunderbird/XP and you are wondering if a dual Thunderbird/Athlon XP workstation might make sense for you. Or you might be interested in an affordable dual Athlon MP 1800+ workstation.' Included are benchmarks based on almost all available 3D-animation packages."

Comments

Re:3D Artists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. Warez.

I can make one cheaper.

[glowingspleen]

Man, that's nothing. A really good 3D Modeller can make a cheap PC using nothing more than $20 worth of clay and a few chisels.

The best part? You can usually find free Cyrix chips in most PC Repair trash bins.

Consider all of your options

[Walter Bell]

I'm not sure about you guys, but I noticed a really subtle pro-AMD bias in this article. For instance, the banner ad on the top of the page was for the new Athlon XPs and linked to AMD's page. And the author gave Intel a few token references, and then completely ignored them in the benchmarks.

Well, as a very satisfied Pentium 4 owner and a somewhat satisfied Athlon owner, I can tell you that if you're serious about getting work done (not just overclocking your Unreal box), you'd be best off going with a P4. My Athlon had some heat and manufacturing issues (this is my second chip because the first one was DOA), and really isn't any faster in the real world than my P4. In fact, having rebuilt my kernel with the new Intel compiler, the P4 just screams and leaves the Athlon in the dust. And with the bargain basement prices that PCs from major manufacturers (read: Pentiums - face the truth) are going for, there's no reason why they would be more expensive than a slower Athlon box.

So be forewarned - this article, like those on so many other hardware sites, was bought and paid for by the folks in Austin. Take this infomercial with a grain of salt.

~wally

Lies and statistics

[Walter Bell]

Let me get this straight: You refute an article that is packed full of actual metrics by saying that it's biased, and then you say that people should get a Pentium 4 if they're not going to "overclock their unreal box" (again an absolutely absurd supposition given that we're talking about an article where the AMD trounced the Intel chips in something much more serious than "overclocking their unreal box").

Well, these "metrics" you claim to trust so much also indicate that the IBM 75GXP drives have a "normal" failure rate. And we all know the truth about that, don't we?

I am not biased whatsoever, and if Intel comes out with something that is competitive with the XPs at a similar price then damnit, I'll be there. But I owe nothing to Intel, nor do I owe anything to AMD, so I lack "brand loyalty" and simply go for what is proven the best at the best $. If only more consumers were that way.

Just as John Wayne Gacy could claim innocence until the day they threw the switch, you can claim that you have no brand loyalty whilst condemning the Intel product (which, by the way, you haven't even tried out). And you can accuse me, who has both systems side by side, of lying. What nerve.

Next time you have occasion to leave your folks' basement, take a ride out to Best Buy and check out the excellent deals on a P4. Maybe even pick one up and try it out. I think you'll like it.

~wally

Re:Macs

[autocracy]

Obviously an enhanced spell checker that covered grammar had nothing "too" do with it...