I currently have a late 2009 iMac that is no longer meeting my needs. I was looking the last 2 days at a Mac pro tower and Apple is making me crazy, so I really need some help deciding what my options are.
I am a 3d hobbyist that is starting to make some side money and need to upgrade my system. I currently use Blender (and render textures), Zbrush, and also looking to move up to Photoshop CS6 extended from CS4 extended. Obviously my iMac is not going to cut it for dealing with larger scenes and higher poly count models.
So first question being..I talked to both the Apple store in my area and to Apple online. Both places are telling me I can never upgrade the Mac pro from the ATI 5870 card, how can this be?
I was looking at the Nvidia K5000 (which is a mac card) and they tell me I can not use this card? This makes no sense at all. I am not 100% sure this is the card I will end up wanting, but just a card I am looking at as a possibility, but I do know I will not want to stick with an ATI card that is not even the newest gen card, probably not now and definitely not in the future.
2nd question...for the programs I mentioned above that I am using (also hopefully Maya when I have a bit more money after the new rig) what kind of pro tower set up should I be looking at to get work done the fastest and handle things without any hiccups?
I would like zbrush to be able to handle at least 4 mil poly count, which is def can not now, but even higher poly count would be great. I am really tired of not being able to take my current programs to their max with an iMac and think I am ready to throw this iMac out the window! Also, I need to be able to have large scenes in blender and batch bake out textures overnight, currently my textures take at least 5 min a texture and this is DEFINITELY not cutting it.
Any advice would be great!
I am a 3d hobbyist that is starting to make some side money and need to upgrade my system. I currently use Blender (and render textures), Zbrush, and also looking to move up to Photoshop CS6 extended from CS4 extended. Obviously my iMac is not going to cut it for dealing with larger scenes and higher poly count models.
So first question being..I talked to both the Apple store in my area and to Apple online. Both places are telling me I can never upgrade the Mac pro from the ATI 5870 card, how can this be?
I was looking at the Nvidia K5000 (which is a mac card) and they tell me I can not use this card? This makes no sense at all. I am not 100% sure this is the card I will end up wanting, but just a card I am looking at as a possibility, but I do know I will not want to stick with an ATI card that is not even the newest gen card, probably not now and definitely not in the future.
2nd question...for the programs I mentioned above that I am using (also hopefully Maya when I have a bit more money after the new rig) what kind of pro tower set up should I be looking at to get work done the fastest and handle things without any hiccups?
I would like zbrush to be able to handle at least 4 mil poly count, which is def can not now, but even higher poly count would be great. I am really tired of not being able to take my current programs to their max with an iMac and think I am ready to throw this iMac out the window! Also, I need to be able to have large scenes in blender and batch bake out textures overnight, currently my textures take at least 5 min a texture and this is DEFINITELY not cutting it.
Any advice would be great!
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