I'd go Pentium actually. You could do a dual system, but I'm not sure if its worth it, especially if you are building it, there are many compatibility and hardward issues to overcome with dual chipsets and boards. And I'd avoid the 64 bit unless you want to spend a fortune on the system, in order to get a powerful chipset thats on par with the current highest 32 bit systems you'd have to go AMD's FX (correct me if the naming is wrong) chipset, which is quite a hefty price.

I've done some tests on some pentium 3.0+ hyperthreading computers and the speed of rendering is incredible. And thanks to Carrara's multiprocessor support, the rendering functions like Multi-processor system due to the nature of hyperthreading and it does shorten the rendering time in comparision with a comparable AMD system. If you are on a really tight budget then a 3200+ AMD is a good choice. Get lots of RAM and a nice Video Card, geforce variety of some sort.

Brian

Message edited on: 11/04/2004 23:15