@dkendig said:

so skgator99, I apologize for my AMD tirade, carry on. Please post specs of whatever you do end up building, so we can all have a mess to clean up ::nod::

Hahaha, no problem. I appreciate all the input, I think I have a better idea of what I want and need, though those are probably two differently entities entirely...

Thanks for all the responses. So Intel is in AMD is out! Any thoughts on GPU configurations? We all currently run the GTX 780ti, my initial thought was to pop three of them in to start (we also use Lumion and Octane on occasion)...

@dkendig said:

personally I wouldn't go with either one, I would get an AMD. Their benchmarks are pretty much the same, but the price point is ridiculously lower than any comparable intel chip.

::ducks to avoid the flame war::

I was under the impression that the AMD Processors weren't even close to the Intel as far as performance? I'm building this computer to be fast and strictly for rendering, and was considering the Dual Xeon E-5 2640 8-core, or similar. Does AMD have something comparable? And is AMD reliable??

Definitely not going to be a MAC, we only use PC's. I can use a full or Mid tower if necessary.

I'm sure this topic has been posted and talked about considerably in the past, however looking back through some of the previous threads I was unable to locate what I was looking for. My firm is getting ready to build a new computer for rendering purposes. I have a $5000 - $7000 budget for this build, and am curious to get feedback from the group regarding which is better the I7v3 or dual Xeon processors, and why? Likewise would love to hear recommendations on what you would suggest for this build, inclusions, omissions, GPU, etc... We have multiple slave systems ( in house that all run the I7, and we use these systems for distributed rendering, so our render times are fairly quick. My goal is to build this unit to be fast on the up-front calculations and still use distributed rendering for overall faster render times. Likewise I want to build this computer to last, keeping in mind Vray is always evolving, which is why i'm also interested in your suggestions for GPU's. We all currently use GTX 780ti's, but i'm under the impression that we may want to consider switching to a workstation GPU for this unit.

Thanks for your help, idea's, etc.