go to dell.com to order.

"trendwhore" :)

be a trendwhore, build it.
1.5gb's of ram being the minimum and arguably the most important part of the computer, i'd think.
then a good hd (100gb+), and a good processor, in that order. the video card should be good, but this is 3dsmax, not a video game where realtime rendering is needed, hence, pick things in that order.

RAM is your friend.

thanks people!
what type of videocard is exactly for 3dsmax???

in addition to ram and a large hard drive, be sure that said hard drive is operating at 7200 rpm minimum (most do these days, but double-check...if it's a lot cheaper than others of the same capacity, this is probably why). the faster the drive can move the arm across the plates, the faster it can physically get the data and make it available.

adding to addictionbomb's advice, the main considerations for graphics intensive processing are:

ram (1.5GB min)
frontside bus speed (1000 MHz these days)
hard drive (100GB - 7200 rpm min)
processor speed (2.5-3GB is relatively affordable)
video card (at least 256MB ideally)

with a case and other necessities, this might test your $600 limit, but you can push and pull the parameters and priorities to suit your needs and budget. i don't know your experience level, so if you're building it yourself, just be sure all your components are compatible. newegg.com has some good prices and good reading material. good luck and have fun!

thank you very much!

$600 dollars is hard number to work with.
At $779.00 dollars you can but a refurbished dell (www.delloutlet.com)
Details:
OptiPlex GX520
Pentium 4 - 2800
Genuine Windows XP Pro
160 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
2 GB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)
DVD-ROM;CD/RW
MiniTower
I believe the video card on this system is integrated.

Bleh, integrated video.

I personally would add a 10,000 rpm drive for the system...western digital raptor

buy a mac mini.
http://tinyurl.com/rpmsu
l.

well now that you can run pc software on a mac as of yesterday you should get a mac

windows won't be slow on the new macs?

Dell refurbished is the way to go. Not really any options for $600.


Windows 'should' run just fine on the new Macs. it's the same hardware as a PC laptop. Expect a showdown soon.

$600 is going to stretch pretty thin. do you have any parts from your old computer you could reuse? (optical drive, HD, ram, case?)

well this computer will be taken by my brother i think.
hmmmm...
maybe i should get a mac mini if I can run everything on it, but will the intergrated graphics make it too slow?
it says the video ram is 64m.

i am sure u can google up more reviews and tests.
eventually i would max the 2 Gb ram out. but of course then it won't be $600.
for jump: with boot camp win xp sp2 runs native on intel macs. it boots up from xp and that's it. no emulation. as fast as any other similarly configured pc.
l.