Luca, Easy decisions:
- 64 bit operating systems - 4+ GB of RAM so that you comfortably run one or more virtualized operating systems at full peformance. - As many cores as you can get, since tools like PyMOL can already make use N-cores on some tasks and will increasingly do so in the future. - nVidia based video card, since ATI/AMD's drivers have problems with OpenGL "immediate mode" rendering and since Intel can't compete on raw performance. Hard decisions: - nVidia Quadro vs. nVidia GeForce The Quadro is a lot more money, but you'll likely have access to profesional-grade stereo 3D visualization. In your shoes, I would probably buy a $250 USD GeForce card today and replace it with a $1,500 USD Quadro card if/when the extra cost is justified by the availability of a 120 Hz time-sequential stereo 3D LCD solution. Cheers, Warren > -----Original Message----- > From: Luca Varani [mailto:luca.var...@irb.unisi.ch] > Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2009 9:17 AM > To: pymol-users@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: [PyMOL] Build a new pc for 3d stereo display > > Hello, > > I hope you can help me with a rather practical matter. > > I need to build a new pc, to be used mainly for molecular > visualization in stereo 3d. > Subjects will range from small proteins to large virus > surfaces displayed with pymol (and chimera when pymol fails). > > The system would have to be dual boot linux/vista, and I > assume that I need the 64bit versions so that I can use a lot > of memory (6/8 Gb). > > I wonder if you can recommend a system for the task and in particular: > - which processor (Dual or quad core)? > - which graphic card? > - I can wait a few months for the stereo capabilities > (doesn't have to be the Zalman monitor now), but I would > really like to buy the right system as soon as possible. > > Thanks a lot for the help, > Luca > > > >
