It really depends. As it stands with Carrara's low end system req's the easiest and cheapest would be obviously option 1 (and pound for pound an AMD rocks better clocks than a pentium in most benches). If you are looking to the future (to have the computer still running in about 3 or 4 years where you might think about upgrading parts rather than the whole thing), then 64 bits is prolly a good choice as Win64 should conceivably out next year and lots of migration will be that way. A dual 32 bit system would be my last thought, as it is a cute thing for rendering, I'd rather shell out the bucks for a single processor running at blazing speeds. As I am in the market soon after I get married to get some new hardware over my dilapidated Athlon 1.1 GHz, I have already set my mind that this machine has got to be built with forward thinking in mind, so I'm thinking of getting and AMD64 4000+ (or so) when I finally have the cash to get it. Hope this helps, Trothgard