Spare no Expense

[Steve Roberts]

Investment? Computers? Hah! 🙂

Get the fastest box for your (no doubt, already chosen) platform. On OSX, that would be an Eight-core. Wait until Adobe introduces a CS3 update for Leopard … so you might have to wait to purchase a new Macpro. On Windows (XP, of course), I’ve heard Boxx workstations are good, but you should probably check with the 3D app guys on that. Keep in mind, OpenGL doesn’t matter with AE at this time — we switch it off.

If you haven’t chosen a platform, I’d say let the apps choose the platform, probably the NLE, since they tend to be pickier about hardware.

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

I’m a PC guy, and I have both a Boxx and Boldata computer. You get a better price on Boldata for the same thing.

But, PC-ness aside, If you have the ability (i.e., funding) to get yourself an 8 core mac and tons of RAM, why not go that way? You won’t get that kind of power in Windows right now. Even with XP 64’s ability to use more ram, I haven’t seen a PC with 8 processors that was nearly as afordable as a mac.

Admittedly, I haven’t looked for about 6 months so that may have changed.

Of course the currne issues with leopard make it iff at the moment, but I’m sure that will change.

Aharon Rabinowitz
Email: arabinowitz (AT) yahoo (DOT) com
All Bets Are Off Productions, Inc.
Creative Cow After Effect Podcast
Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web

[Victor Nash]

Thanks Everyone.

Im in a situation where Im integrated with 2 other stations in designing and animating station promotions tied into local sale strategies (AECS3). Our Commercial Production is the only department that has the MacPros, for which I’ve been extremely happy. Part of our Promotions department that creates the Opens, Stingers, etc.. for our station and 2 others are gearing up for HD this year. The stability and reliability with my MacPro has been the main reason why I was pushing part of the Promotions Department to get the Mac. I personally work on both and have no favourites, just to be nice 🙂 .. Im just looking for the best value in terms of Stability, Reliability and Power. Thanks

[Brendan Coots]

The 8-core Macs are roughly 35% faster than quad-cores when rendering with After Effects CS3. Apple just made octo-core the standard configuration for the Mac Pro and dropped the price in the process making them even more attractive.

Bear in mind that processor speed is still far more important than number of cores when it comes to general use, those additional cores are really only helpful when it comes time to render. I would get the highest Ghz rating (3.2Ghz ideally) you can afford, especially for HD work. You should also stock it up with 8-16GB RAM. If this seems cost-prohibitive given Apple’s grossly overpriced memory, get OWC RAM from Other World Computing for half price.

Often overlooked in the performance department is a 10k RPM main hard drive and separate 10k RPM cache drive. A 4+ drive RAID 5 system for media and project files would also increase performance. And finally, keep # of installed files to a minimum, ample room on all drives and frequently repair your disk permissions etc.

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Zo Alexis]

i’m looking for the exact same thing (but spending my own money – eep)

so far – 8 core 3.2 – 16GB RAM

Now the question – hard drives… just scratched the surface investigating CalDigit, G-Raid, Sonnet… what’s best?

Thanks!

zo