Hi im looking to buy a new computer. Im and architecture student and do heaps of high res rendering in programs like microstations and was wondering in the actual rendering process how much of the process is done by the graphics card and how much of it is done by the cpu?
And therefore when i get my new computer is it worth me getting an awesome graphics card or just and average one and then just heaps of processing power?

Hi, fryz, and welcome to the forum.

I have a friend that has an old HP (around 7 years) with just the onboard graphics. He has Inventor and Solid Works installed. Both of these are very demanding programs, which is evidenced by the fact that they take a long time to load on this system, and any motion of an object being worked on will be slow and jerky. But, this just shows that even an old and inadequate system will still run programs that the mfgr. says won't run on a system of this ilk.

If you want really smooth and fast performance with these programs, a high-end processor - around 3 GHz. - and a lot of RAM (4 GHz preferred) are required. A higher-end video card with at least 256 meg. RAM is also needed, but top drawer (expensive) cards are not. I have a good video card, an nVidia G-Force 6600, with 512 meg. RAM that has handled everything I've thrown at it with no glitches, yet it's cost was only $107 when I got it over a year ago.

Remember that 'processing' is done by the computer processor, and I would think that rendering is, too.

correctumundo, Jim. At one time I worked with 3 dimensional rendered objects, and in rendering, including shadows and light, the CPU is the key. If you are going to do this and are using state of the art programs, go Pentium Quad-Core, and absolutely no less than 3GHz CPU, and two gig RAM. You want to be running minimally 800MHz FSB. Even if you pay more, you will bless the day that you did. Double-especially if you are going to be doing "heaps" of rendering! You can get a really good video card that will help for under $200, running at least 600MHz chip on the card and minimally 250 MB memory on the card. For example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130291
Tom's Hardware guide used 3-D Studio to test and may help in you decision making:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

Fryz,

Check the manual of your application (Microstation), or ask them (email Bentley Systems support).
Most recent applications will use OpenGL (or DirectX) to render, in which case the graphics card will make a huge difference.

We use 3D applications like Lightwave, Maya, Houdini etc, and those all take advantage of the hardware acceleration of the GPU (graphics processing unit, aka video/graphics card).

For 'home' use, I suggest a card based on the nVidia 8800GT chipset. Decently priced and great performance. Make sure you get a PCI-Express card (and supporting motherboard), not AGP.

The more RAM you have in your system, the better. Note that this is not HDD (disk drive) space, but memory modules (e.g. DIMMs). You would be surprised how many people do not know the difference...

I noted that you did not say what kind of computer you're looking at (Windows or Mac).

If you're looking at Windows (I would stay with XP, not Vista - but that's my preference) get at a minimum 2GB of RAM. You do not need more than 4GB since XP cannot access more than 4GB anyway. Only XP64 can 'see' more than 4GB but the application needs to support it as well (i.e. a 32bit application can still not see more than 4GB of RAM, regardless of the OS).
I'm not much help for the Mac side. If you do want to get a Mac, please say so and maybe others can give you more pointers.

Hope this helps,

ronald.