Buying a new computer....need help!

[javi1024]

my machine finally crapped out 2 months, and i need to get back into my work. i need to make sure i get a machine that can handle Max and Maya 2007, along with Photoshop CS3, After Effects, Zbrush, and Corel Painter. and of course id like as little fuss as possible. ive been looking around getting estimates and looking at different options, and i need to know if i have good options.

1) a shop building me a machine with an AMD Phenom 355 processor and Radeon 3650 512MB DDR2 AGP Graphics Card

2) buying one of these two machines from Micro Center:

a Phenom II quad core with ATi Radeon HD3200 Video Chipset
http://www.microcenter.com/single_p...duct_id=0320347

or and i5 with NVIDIA GeForce G310 graphics card
http://www.microcenter.com/single_p...duct_id=0326372

these are all (as far as i can tell) sufficient machines and within my price range, and i need to make a decision soon.

[McKronic]

you don't need anything to crazy to 'handle' those programs it also really depends on what you plan to do with them. You could go out and pick up a pre-built machine from a local box store like best buy for $500-$1000 or w/e and it will work just fine. In the end it's all a matter of whats sufficient for you, I would say as long as you have a decent video card, duel or quad core processor, and 4gb of ram or higher you should be able to handle most projects.

[Nukie]

For rendering purposes, I think quad core is more sufficient. And also if you are going to deal with very large scenes you might even consider 8gn of ram (although 4gb might be enough at first).

If you are not going to use the machine for gaming, but pure cg work, you might even think of buying a Quadro videocard from nVidia. But those aren't the most cheap onces on the market.