Dear All

I am working on a short animated film for my showreel. The software i'm working on are Maya, Photoshop, Aftereffects, Combustion & Premiere(Yes Windows for the time being, dun have time to learn the Linux counterparts). It's a 4 minute video with a soundtrack. I got 2 months for it. Currently working on the draft copy(pre-production). Everything is done by me, storyboards, animatix, staging etc. Yes it sounds like a lot for one man, but i want to do it coz i believe i can do it.

Ok this is my current hardware.
Pentium 4 HT 2.8 Ghz
1 GB DDR 400 Mhz RaM
256mb Geforce FX 5700
865GBF Intel motherboard.

This hardware was adequate say 1.5-2 years back. But now my system is coughing while rendering the huge amount of data in my scene(animation,lights,textures etc). So i've zeroed in on two configs below.

Config 1
_________
Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 @ 2.4GHz
Motherboard : Intel P965 Express
RAM : 1 GB DDR2 @ max speed
Video : Nvidia Quadro 560 128MB/256MB

Config 2
_________
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ @ 2.6GHz
Motherboard : AM2 nForce 570SLI
RAM : Same as Config 1
Video : Same as Config 1

NOTE: Please remember my budget is around Rs 30,000(approx.US$600)[I'm not a rich man]

Now my doubts:
1) Are these both 64bit processors?
2) Both C2D & AMD X2 are priced the same but i've read better performance reviews of C2D. Is this true?
3) I don't care about games but Maya should work(especially the Rendering) like cheese. Have i choosen the right Workstation graphics card? Is it better than my current card?

Hope you guys can give me some inputs about my dilemma. I tried other forums but couldn't get a satisfactory response. Sorry for the long post.
Thanks All

1) Are these both 64bit processors?

yes

2) Both C2D & AMD X2 are priced the same but i've read better performance reviews of C2D. Is this true?

read more, you'll find some that say it the other way. Since the GHz barrier was broken, the performance difference is minimal, don't worry about it.

3) I don't care about games but Maya should work(especially the Rendering) like cheese. Have i choosen the right Workstation graphics card? Is it better than my current card?

what does the graphics card have to do with Maya?
Maya is specifically cpu and ram with no real use of the gpu.
[ as will all 3d modelling and animation software ]
games are the only applications that really use the gpu, everything else uses the cpu and ram.

you might want to look at getting ram in excess of 2GB for this, it will make it much faster for the rendering.

Cinelerra, a linux video editing / compositing package, requires a minimum of dual opterons and 2 gigs of ram.
this is a good baseline for any serious video work.

here is the current hardware requirements for cinelerra from the community version website http://cinelerra.org

Hardware requirements

Cinelerra is by no means a "light" program. The demands of reading, decoding and playing video on your system can be quite taxing and very resource hungry. Performance and thus usability of Cinelerra is directly related to the speed, I/O, video and memory of your hardware and to the type of stress that you expect to put on the system. For some users working with audio only or light video formats, a small system might prove sufficient, but to anyone trying to work on DV with several tracks of audio plus a healthy set of effects and transitions, it would be completely useless. As a general rule, it is suggested running cinelerra on systems with not less than the following specs:

* CPU speed
At least 500 MHz CPU speed, anything less would be useless. Dual-core and SMP processors greatly improve Cinelerra speed.
* Memory
When working with video, a large amount of memory available can help speed up things by avoiding unnecessary disk swaps and keeping material ready accessible. To get a basic idea of what Cinelerra can do you should have at least 256 Megabytes of memory. To really use Cinelerra for larger projects much larger (> 1 Gb) memory space would be required.
* Storage
Storage requirements are based on your particular video editing needs. If you expect to produce long pieces in heavy formats (DV uses about 3.5 Megs per second, or 12 Gigs per hour) you should get large (>200 Gb) and fast disk drive. For smaller projects you might get away with 1 Gb. Video editing can be quite I/O intensive. For better results be sure to use a fast drive and to configure it appropriately.
* Video adapters
Since version 2.1, Cinelerra can benefit from OpenGL hardware acceleration. Make sure the video card you use supports OpenGL2.0 in order to benefit from that acceleration. Nvidia series 7 (ie. 7600GS) are known to work well. If you are interested on producing a composite signal to send directly on a TV or Video Recorder, make sure your video card of choice supports it.
* Multiple monitors
You can use XFree86's Xinerama features to work on multiple monitor heads. This feature can be a very effective way of increasing productivity.
* TV-Out
If your Adapter supports a TV-Out option, connecting a TV or S-Video monitor to it is a great way to view your material as it will be seen on TV screen.
* Video grabbers
If you have an analog video camera, or want to grab video from a trusty old VCR, you need some sort of video grabber. Video grabbers are supported through Video4Linux in Cinelerra.
* Firewire
Firewire is the fastest way to download material into your system. Unless you will be downloading all you media materials from a CD or any other pre-captured format (or use an analog video grabber), you will need firewire on your system.
* DV cameras
There is an large variety of DV cameras that can be used with Cinelerra. As a matter of fact almost any camera that can connect to firewire will work. What is important is to be sure to set the appropriate parameters on the video grabbing system to match the particulars of your camera.

Thanks for that, I bought Config 1 already!