A question that has been asked many a time, yet I must ask it once more.

I'm putting together a 3d workstation, the primary focus of which will be Houdini work. My budget is in the $3,000-$4,000 range (US dollars). I have a decent idea of what I'm looking for, but I'm caught on a couple of technical details that I have researched to no avail.

So far, I'm looking at the following:

Supermicro Server Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182177 [newegg.com]

Nvidia 460 gtx - I haven't settled on an exact model yet.

14-16 gb of ram

Processors - Dual Six Core Xeon. This is where I need a bit of advice.
A newegg search yields many similar looking products across a very large price range: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000727&IsNodeId=1&Description=six%20core%20xeon&name=Processors%20-%20Servers&Order=BESTMATCH [newegg.com]

I don't think I can overclock these on a server motherboard (correct me if I'm mistaken about that). What I don't understand is the other differences. For instance, this model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117252 [newegg.com]
is an Intel Xeon W3670 3.2GHz 130w for $600, while this model:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117230 [newegg.com]
is an Intel Xeon X5660 2.8GHz 95w for $1220.

Why the significant price difference? I can't figure out why some of the higher GHz are such lower prices than some lower GHz. Does the W3670 / X5660 have some significance I'm unaware of, or is the large price difference based solely on the wattage?

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Feedback on my other choices would also be helpful.

Thanks!

Ka-boom!

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-area51-alx/pd?refid=alienware-area-51-alx [dell.com]

sorry, i'm not a tech geek so can't provide much details.

eitht.

Why the significant price difference? I can't figure out why some of the higher GHz are such lower prices than some lower GHz. Does the W3670 / X5660 have some significance I'm unaware of, or is the large price difference based solely on the wattage?

Welcome to the world of Intel model numbers - you'll have better luck making logical sense of an Escher painting. However, I believe that Xeons in the 3 series are single-socket only, while 5-series allow for dual-socket operation. Because the 5660 is designed to go into a dual socket motherboard, its TDP is lower at 95W to keep thermals under control. The 3670 is designed to operate on its own, so it can have a much higher 130W TDP (and thus clockspeed).

So, if you're looking to put together a dual-socket system, the 3670 is not for you.

Also, for a video card, you may want to look at an Nvidia model with at least 1.5GB of VRAM, preferrably 2GB, if you're going to be handling large data sets. There are a few GTX570 and 580s with 2.5GB and 3GB of VRAM.

Thank you both for your replies, they were very helpful. I now understand the processors a bit more, and I think I may use that link as a template for the pieces I'm putting together. I'm now uncertain about which motherboard to get, though. I had been planning on getting a server motherboard, as they are very stable and can house a lot of ram. The workstation linked above uses an Intel X58 ATX Motherboard, though I'm not sure exactly which model - the ones I looked at got mixed reviews. The benefit of that over the server mb would, obviously, be overclocking. So, with the processors I'm interested in, do you have any motherboard recommendations?

twod,
do you know if Houdini will able to use all of the VRAM and performance
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2048MB can offer ?

H12 will be able to use your VRAM and GPU power in the viewport much better for larger models and scenes. Fluid sims will take as much GPU power as they can get