Architosh Staff ([email protected])

5 June 2003

 

TidBits: Strata 3Dpro news, NewTek and BOXX vs PowerPC 970 items

Strata 3D News - New Windows version and Simply Strata Web Site

Strata is now shipping Strata 3Dpro 3.8.2 for Windows. More than just a port of the great Mac version, 3.8.2 for Windows provides more speed, stability and power than any previous release of Strata 3Dpro (for Windows that is).

Simply Strata (simplystrata.com) is a new site devoted to the program and specifically for tutorials. Check it out here.

NewTek and eyeon Software Offer DFX+TM

NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading 3D animation and video products, and eyeon Software today announced that through June 30th, purchasers of NewTek's LightWave 3D [7.5] full seats will receive eyeon's DFX+TM and two add-on modules at no additional cost. In addition, this offer also includes a free upgrade to LightWave [8] by download when it ships later this year. Registered owners of LightWave [7.5] and earlier versions who pre-purchase a LightWave [8] upgrade for $495US during this period will receive DFX+ immediately, at no additional charge, and will receive the LightWave [8] upgrade in electronic form when it ships later this year. Purchasers who are upgrading from LightWave [6.5] or earlier versions will also receive an electronic upgrade to [7.5] at the time of their purchase.

For more information go to: www.newtek.com

BOXX to offer Dual AMD Opteron 240, 242, and 244

BOXX, a maker of high-end DCC workstations using Intel and AMD processors have announced support for new M4 workstations featuring dual AMD Opteron 240, 242, and 244 processors. The new machines are now shipping. Designed to work with 64-bit Linux or 64-bit Windows, these machines offer Nvidia Quadro graphics architectures supporting OpenGL and DCC application certifications on such programs as Maya, 3ds max, Softimage XSI, LightWave 3D and Houdini.

A base system 3DBoxx M4 with dual Opteron 240 processors starts at $2,489.00US. To read the specs on this system go here. A fully loaded system with two Opteron 244 processors and 4GB of RAM starts at $5,077.00US.

Architosh Analysis: These dual Opteron systems offer the strongest performance coming from the AMD x86-64 bit platform. It's possible to run either Windows XP-64 or a 64-bit Linux OS. They feature HyperTransport bus technologies and 333Mhz DDR RAM. It should be interesting to compare the performance of these systems with Apple systems based on IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 with a 900Mhz bus. The cost differential between the Opteron 240 and the 244 amounted to $1200 plus for the dualies. So AMD is clearly charging a premium for the highend model Opteron. Word on the Net is that IBM's PowerPC 970 will be even cheaper to buy for Apple then Motorola's current G4 processor. If that news is true, Apple may be able to offer performance-over-price ratio leadership. However, many have speculated that Apple may go for large margins instead of aggressive perf/price ratio leadership -- something we hope will not be true -- because they need to grow their marketshare aggressively in the Creative and technical markets.

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