render workstation buiild help?

[napier]

HI,
I am looking to build a computer which will be primarily used for cad work and rendering. Is it possible to use a server board with dual cpu's? I am looking at a motherboard like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131373

but my question is will I be able to use this with windows? Would I have to find some kinda special drivers or something?

[glc]

To me, that board is overkill, but Asus does have full driver support for XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, Server 2003, and Server 2008.

[Khalil]

I agree with glc but how much money you want to spend on a system like this? I am running a Dual Quad for my workstation, I do game design, music and video editing with it, they are not cheap to build. How big do you expect your projects to be? Are you going to need Raid? Is this for professional use or a hobby?

[napier]

Well I am an engineer, and this will be used mainly for freelance cad modeling. I think I am going to end up just going with a core i7 setup as I have some decent size projects ,but I dont think dual xenon is going to be that much better. What do you guys think? I was just thinking that maybe it would be better to have dual cpu's for room to grow as I plan to get more into CFD as well. As for price my budget is 3k ,but that dosent include monitors,speakers or any of that stuff as I already have all that.

[Khalil]

i7 is not as powerful as Dual AMD Opteron Quads or Dual Xeon Quads.
For 3K you should be able to build something really good. i7 I do not recommend because it is unstable, it is a hot rod, as reliable as a race car. i7 is good for someone who has a lot of time on their hands to deal with bugs and issues.
I would recommend going with Intel Q9550 or AMD Phenom II 955 thats all the power you will need for what you described. I highly recommend you seperate your system drive from your storage drive(s).
The Asus P5Q Pro is a very stable motherboard and would work very well for you. Since you don't plan on gaming look into workstation graphics cards

[napier]

Do you think it may be worth it to go dual xenon e5520 ? I priced out a system using a supermicro board with 2 of them and its actually not as much as I thought it would be. Thanks for all the help khalil.