pc/mac requirements for 3D

I know for a fact that there are many questions in the air concerning the perfect system requirements for 3d regardless of the platform.I hope this info will be of assistance.

As a long time user of Maya unlimited, I can tell you one thing for sure, and that is get as much CPU power and RAM as you can afford, with the absolute best display graphics card as well.
Before splashing out on a quad core Mac, ensure that Maya will actually use all the processors, as at present, the majority of software on the Mac or any other platform for that matter, is pretty much only written for dual dual core processors, and before any application can utilize the quad processor systems and by quad processors I mean 4 actual processors not 2 X the 2 cores, I am referring to 4X the dual cores OK.

Maya is now owned by Autodesk, and although they have maintained their Mac versions of Maya, Autodesk, is not a truly Mac friendly company, so in that respect the Dell may better suit your purposes. There is no doubt that Autodesk cannot afford to ignore the Mac especially with Maya, but with their Flagship software 3D Studio Max, they have at least at present, no known plans to port it to the Macintosh, although with the release of the Intel Macs, that may well change.

Overall the Mac is a superior graphics systems, mainly due to its ease of use and setup Etc. It is also, at the moment pretty safe from viruses Etc. This may or may not last. In 2006, there were 3 new attempts to gain access to Macs via trojan horses, however Apple did manage to block these holes fairly quickly.

The latest write up comparing speeds on the quad core with the dual core did indicate that unless the software was specifically written for the quad cores (Most is not), then you would actually get more bang for your buch going with the dual cores.

What generally happens in these situations, is the companies have to get their latest technology onto the market, leaving the developers time to catch up. In my experience, getting the latest and greatest, is a waste of money, because by the time the software is capable of fully utilizing the hardware, a newer better designed version of the hardware is available on the market, that suits more company’s software, than the original release did.
Ultra large agencies that work for Hollywood Etc, can afford to have their software custome designed to utilize all this new stuff, you and I generally cannot.

From the sound of things, you will not exactly be pushing Maya to its Limits, although no matter what you are doing, the more Power you have ACTUALLY available the better off you are. Remember the power may be present, in a computer, however that does not necessarily mean it is available to every application used on that system.

I have used Multi Processor PC’s for 3D applications, and I most certainly do not think that in the Long run that a Dell would be such a good idea.
3D Modeling and animation is such a specialized subject that most people use, computers (PC’s) specifically designed to work as 3 D platforms.
They are fully equipped, often with special Graphics cards that are very expensive, and in actual fact can end up costing more that an equivalent Macintosh.

You will find that there is a wider choice of 3 D applications available for the PC, but the mac has it’s rising stars as well.

Summary, get either a dual Core MacPro, with as much RAM as you can afford with the absolute best graphics card, supporting 3D as is possible. Please note that a 3D card designed for rapid display of 3D elements in a 3D game, is very different from a 3 D card designed to make the best use of your CPU power for rendering purposes.

That will probably be your best solution for an off the shelf system, that is relatively easy to use.

On the other hand, get a PC from a company that designs 3D workstations specifically, I would have to do a Google Search to find one of these companies, as they are increasing in numbers.

Dell may have entered this market, but generally are aimed at the home Business User, Game systems, Business systems.
I am not aware of Dell entering the 3D animation modeling market, although they could have done so by now.

It is the entire system you need to be concerned with, not just the CPU.

A MacPro, is probably the only system that is a standard off the shelf Ferrarri.

All the other companies will have to assemble one specifically for you.
Call Dot at NicheVideo.com, they deal specifically with Autodesk, and Macintosh systems, PC’s as well and will probably be ideally positioned to help make a good decision that will be to your benefit rather than some dealer who sells massive amounts of systems all over the world, who has very little interest in you as an individual. If you do not want to use Nichevideo.com, the find a company that deals exclusively with CAD,3D, Animation and Video. The will be the ones who are the best suited to help you get going in this business.

To a company that sells the entire range of merchandise, that is oriented to the work you wish to do, you are a valued customer.
To the companies that manufacture these items, you are just another sale.
Service is everything and I use only 2 companies in the US to fulfill all my requirements.
One for the Audio/Recording business, Sweetwater.com, because the service they provide me with is incredible, as is there tech support for everything they sell.

Niche Video for the Graphics, Video, Networking basically everything else.

For the same reason I use Sweetwater.

Get a relationship with a good supplier, and you will never regret it. Buy bits here and bits there, and it will not be long before you are queued up on some support forum somewhere trying to get fixes from others who did the exact same thing. It is worth spending a little extra now, to get fantastic support when you need it OK

The bottom line is that although speed is an essential with 3D work of any kind, most of that speed is required for the rendering.
Of course as your works become more complex, you will need more speed just to be able to see what you work is beginning to look like. Often a Snapshot is good enough for this, and you will learn as time goes by, how to turn off the display of certain elements, so that your actual modelling power is not reduced to a Crawl.
The Mac with it’s abilities in Graphics, is in many ways superior to an equivalent PC, but overall the PC’s are faster in terms of raw speed.
That however is not all there is to this game. You will find as time progresses that you need so many support applications for your software, that ease of running the system, and application installation and use Etc, is as important as speed. Above all resistance to viruses and other attacks is well worth thinking about. No one is immune, but Macs seem to suffer less.

I know this is a definitely Mac biased message, but do not go into 3D modelling without at least checking out, specific, custom made PC 3D Workstations, as they can be awesome systems, especially when specifically configured as 3D Digital Workstations.

I hope this message helps to some degree. If you wish, you can contact me directly at stuarta@macosx.com

Stuart