Hi everybody.

My company are offering an imac 27“ for the employees for a good price.

This is good, BUT it is ”only" the i3 DUALCORE version with 4GB RAM.

It is not possible to upgrade to a Quadcore processor unfortunately.

I need the bigger screen and the more power than my 3 year old Macbook Pro can deliver now.

My question is, when using Houdini can I make up for some of the lost processing power by putting in more RAM in the imac ( with ATI Radeon HD 5670 512mb graphic card) for example 12 GB ram ?

Appreciate your input.

Thanks

Timmi

Processor will help lessen render time and simulation (particles)
Ram is also needed becaus some heavy scenes require lots of ram


I'm using 3gb ram and i'm fine!! :?

I would go for more ram…
you can always let it sim overnight and it will take a little longer. But if you run out of ram, there is only so much you can do to optimize your sims…
I'm on 8gig atm and that's ok for now.

If the 3.6Ghz i5 is offered an option, you'll also get Turbo Boost with that processor (up to 3.86Ghz when running single threaded code, which Houdini has a lot of). The i3 does not have turbo boost, so it always runs at 3.2GHz when one core is maxed.

You can add more RAM later, but it's more difficult to upgrade a processor. The amount of memory Houdini needs really depends on what you're doing. So, if you have plans to upgrade both, one now and one in the future, upgrade the processor when you purchase it and get the memory upgrade later. However, if you're only planning on upgrading one, I'd say choose the greater memory size.

Thanks for the answers.

I am planning on using the imac for effects like fire, smoke, explosions, water, both in Houdini and Realflow.

Unfortunately it is not possible to upgrade the processor, so I gues I´ll put in loads of RAM…..

Timmi