So confused with all the P4 processors right now.

Ok, here's the situation: I need to purchase a couple new notebooks to do animation/3d rendering with. I've read the warnings about Alienware's customer service, and realize that Voodoo and Falcon-nw has 1-2000$ paint jobs.

With that being said I've called around about the video cards and for 3d animation the 1400 is the way to go as it is designed for the creative professional... however for gaming the 6800 is the way to go.

So what's left is I am totally confused by the 30 different P4 processors available and the difference between them. I don't mind paying the money for a 3.8, but for animation work will I see the most benifit or a 3.4 with all the bells and whistles attached?

If someone could answer this for me: Supposing I don't mind spending the money, what would be the top 3 processors that I should most seriously consider and why? (maybe notating the difference between 2048 or 1024kb L2 cache - would be nice too 8 )

Thanks so much... I appreciate any feedback on this topic.

 

What software will you primarily be working with?

cheers,

yass

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by echo-oche

 

Primarily 3DS Max, Maya, and Poser.

Thanks!

 

I recommend the 6xx series of Pentium 4 processors. They outperform the 5xx series (at the same clock) and also feature 64 bit capability (will become useful in the future) and clock speed downthrottling (so that the battery lasts longer and the notebook will be cooler). For your work, dual core would probably be the best, but as of right now, there's not a dual core notebook available.

 

As stated dual core would probably be the best. You should probably wait a few months and they'll start coming out with Pentium D processors. You can already order just the processor from newegg so it will take a bit of time before manufacturers start incorporating them into laptops.
If you don't want to wait have you looked at some Sager laptops? Many of them are built to be quite powerful and are cheaper than some of the other brands you listed.
Also Dell's current 35% coupon might be useful too if you want to get something like a fully loaded XPS 2 with the 6800 Ultra. Not sure how good it would be for work with a Pentium M, but probably wouldn't be too bad. Finally there are also the workstation machines designed for professsionals like yourself which will feature cards such as the 256 MB quadro or Fire GLs. Dell sells a few of these, and probably so do most larger manufacturers such as IBM.

 

For rendering/encoding, a Pentium 4 simply can't be beat. Not even the top Athlon 64's can catch them. However, there are not too many laptops with them these days, most laptops having the Pentium M. The Pentium M is very efficent and fast, but it doesnt have the brute power that a Pentium 4 does, no matter what anyone says.

A 3.4GHz or so would do, no sense on spending the extra $$ for the 3.8.

I would also recommend the 6xx sequence P4's, as they, in addition to the 64-bit, also have a 2MB L2 Cache, which will improve performance in CPU-intensive programs. Plus, there are some speed increases in the front-side bus, and some pipeline tweaks that allows it to be more efficent.

If you have to,I would say get a 2.0Ghz Pentium M+ for the work you are doing if you can't find a suitable P4 notebook. It should do the work just fine.

For speed at a great price, you might think about getting a HP Pavilion ZD8000 or Compaq X6000. While they don't have a GeForce 6800 in them, the Mobility Radeon X600 128MB can still push your pixels quite well. You can get up to a Pentium 4 650 (3.4GHz) and 2GB of DDR2 533 Dual-channel RAM.

So, good luck and I hope I cleared up some things for you.

 

What about going with a p4 3.4 alienware for this. I am in the same boat where I want to be able to push out the power.

 

Well, I have done a lot of research and have finally made my decision to get a Sager 7620 as it met my needs. The only downside is not having a 17 inch glossy LCD (instead it has a 15.4 inch WUXGA LCD) but it only cost me $2100 including a 3 year warranty.

Apocal, let me put it this way. Alienware, Sager, and a couple of other brands are all supplied by a company called Clevo. Sager is less expensive than Alienware and PCTorque.com is offering some pretty good deals on Sager computers. Alienware is also a good "niche" brand, like Sager, but there have been many complaints about there customer service. There have also been many complaints about dead pixels in the lower end models from Sager. I always say to take the complaints with a grain of salt as the complaints are always louder than the compliments.

My cousin has the Alienware notebook (don't remember the model number) and it cost her $3000, I built the same notebook on PCTorque and it was $2500. A Pentium 4 3.4GHz will handle any encoding job you throw at it, now many video encoding software titles are supporting HT technology so it really puts the P4 up there. There is not a huge difference between a 3.4GHz and 3.8GHz model. I highly recomend (as others have already) getting the 6xx series Pentium 4's as they have the higher L2 cache size, run cooler, has speed step technology (ie the processor slows down when idle), and have EM64T technology (compatible with 64-bit extensions).

Like ChazMan421 said, the X600 with 128MB of memory can do what you want. HP offers a good solution with their ZD8000 (HP pulled the X6000 from their online store). However, a X800, GeForce Go 6800, and GeForce Go 6800 Ultra will suite your needs much better. Both Sager and Alienware offer all three GPU's with GDDR3 RAM (highly recomended). If you want the performance of Alienware but don't want to pay the high price, nor deal with their tech service then I suggest going with Sager and purchasing it from PCTorque as they currently have the best deals.

Just remember that P4 notebooks will still run hot, it is the nature of the Pentium 4. I don't feal anything when people buy P4 notebooks then complain about the heat. That's like buying a H1 (Hummer with a monster engine) then complaining about getting less than 20 MPG.

 

If I might be allowed a 4chan-ism, O RLY? Please note who wins the benchmarks in 3DS. I'm not trying to troll the thread, but if you google for Athlon 64 benchmarks on 3DS, maya, and poser, you might find that the Pentium 4's reputation is rather exaggerated. Better performance can be had from AMD, but just as it's hard to find P4s in laptops with all the Ms out there, it is similarly hard to find well configured Athlon 64 laptops for this kind of work. In general with rendering one is better off with a desktop.

 

yea..that is veryy true...maybe in a few years all that might change

 

The NetBurst Architecture of the intel Pentium 4 processor with HT Tech. allows it to encode/render better than any other current processor with very few exceptions.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/pentium4-13.html
and here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/pentium4-14.html

As you can see, the Pentium 4 is at the top of the charts for 90% of the benchmarks. And not just the highest clocked ones: the FX55 is outpaced in encoding and rendering by a 3.2GHz Prescott processor in some circumstances. So the P4's reputation is not exaggerated.

And you are correct, to do rendering, one is better off with a desktop.