First to NADa's comments, I agre softmod i a nice combination of both worlds, but I've had limited positive feedback of the HD2K softmod. I haven't used it yet myself though as I haven't even had time to make re-installing Maya and 3DSmax worth it for me (currently just sticking to CS3 until I full roll back to XP) let alone try to make these work mobile.
Here's where I got my copy of the moded drivers;
http://www.techenclave.com/graphic-cards/hd-2600xt-mod-to-firegl-v5600-98532.html
3DSMax performance depends alot on the render mode, OGL shows a noticeable difference between Workstation and Gaming card, so for low complexity 3D models should be fine, for DX mode they are much closer to almost draw even with good gaming cards (IMO the HD3870 would beat a moded GL in DX but be slower in OGL, however they handle the vector nature better out of the box IMO than their counterparts, which was the case before too where nVidia got huge boosts from their drivers, and ATi only mild ones where the ATi's would start off stronger and then get destroyed by mediocre driver boosts. Of course this is all viewport acceleration, and the output files take about the same time.
This review will give you some insight into the differences;
http://www.hothardware.com/articles/ATI_FireGL_V7600_512_MB_Workstation_Graphics_Card/?page=3
In OGL 3DSMax the drivers are everything, and as you can see in gaming the Quadro just nose dives (although the FireGL does fairly well playing like it's HD2900Pro counterpart). However it really does depend alot on the app as to the effectiveness of the card.
Softmoding is nice because you can flip back and forth between gaming and workstation profiles. There is a huge difference though in performance between the HD2600 and HD3870, in games though, so if you're looking for good game performance you may want at least an HD2900Pro, but that does increase the power and heat issue a bit and still gives you about only 80% of the performance of the HD3870.
So the major queston becomes how important is your viewport acceleration?
If they update the SoftGL mod to include the HD3850&3870 that would be the clear winnner with the best of both worlds. So you could game on that too, I haven't actually checked if people were succesful with an updated mod.
HPINitro :
Moving to an intel X38 platform I feel positions me to upgrade to a better processor, that is an extreme, as the prices adjust. Is the E8400 a good match for the HD 3870?
Cetainly, I think that would be the best match-up, of course aSkulltrail would be nice, but likely a bit of overkill for a home system. I agree with NADA though a Quad over dual core, the Q6600 is a great value with lotsa potential.
Going to 4G of DDR3 at 1333 should give me a little more than 2GB after the system requirements are satisfied. Is this also a good match for the health of the system?
Yeah I think 4GB is a good current position, and if you have free slots for more later that would be good to, although more for the 3DsMax side of things than the photoshop. Of course if you support higher resolution captures and higher bit depth either captures or process files you'll find no amount of memory is too much. The speed of the memory depends, I would be surprised if faster memory didn't help with some 3DSmax titles, but it always depends on where the bottleneck is.
I do not feel that overclocking will be an issue yet I feel that the Thermalright solution should keep the processor and video cool. Is this resonable?
The need for 2 WD HD's are because photoshop and painter swap to the hard drive often and I don't feel spliting one drive into multiple partitions is the right way to go.
Oh definitely, RAID makes alot of sense, you choice of method depends on your weight on speed or speed and redundancy. If you're going with those Drives, I'd recommend a very large external storage unit though as well, heck even ploping a large 'internal' HDD outisde the rig would be a cheap solution that gives you the benefit of more archice space and not affecting your heat profile.
Last thought 750W should cover the power requirements for now providing I do not get several more drives or purchase a higher end video card. If you think going with a larger wattage is a good move I think I can fit it into the budget?
Yeah I'm a fan of PC Power&Cooling's PSUs for serious work. You can find alot of other models out there, the Thermaltake looks ok.
EDIT to add other reply;
I am a flight sim junkie - and like civ...so my requirements on one side are frame rate driven and not so high in the world domination in civ...Also the two card idea may be worth some more investigation.
If those are the games you'll be playing then the focus on them is the CPU too, go with a moded HD2600XT and spend more on your CPU then. The HD3K series would be better for FPS games like Crysis and such but for flight sims and games like Civ, really the benefits of more powerful cards is really for things like increasing AA levels etc.
From years gone by I was told that processor speed was the cornerstone to rendering and why I picked the 3Ghz chip.
Yeah but workstation apps have always been very multi-thread aware, and they are the few apps that truly shine going from dual core to quad core. Sure an Extreme QX6850 would still outperform a Q6600 due to the speed boost but a Q6600 should outperform the faster but dual core E8400. Of course the EQX9650 with the same speed as the QX6850 would likely still outperform thanks to the increased Cache size, but the most important benefit will remain the number of cores to share the workload.
3Dproffesor is a good sight for additional information about the workstation cards and apps.
Also I believe the last THG review included both OGL and DX performance number for 3DSmax.
Yep, here it is;
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/09/workstation_shootout/index.html
First two tests are DX mode, second test is the standard OGL mode in SPECViewPerf's tests IIRC.
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