Windows 7 4GB RAM for Maya Rendering

Hello all, I don't know if it's the right place to post this, but here goes:
My friend just got an i7 860 PC with 4GB Ram.
He mainly want to use the system for Maya and rendering.

The system currently has Windows XP PRO SP3 32-bit with Maya 8.
My question is:
If he upgrades to Windows 7 32-bit and installs Maya 2010, will he notice a system improvement in those 2 tasks? Will Windows 7 make the most out of the i7 CPU and Rams in a better way than XP SP3? What do you suggest?
Thankyou kindly.

Hi there
all these apps need DECENT HDD's (or SSD's if you can afford them).

SLOW DISKS will KILL ANY COMPUTER however much RAM and fast the CPU is.

Ensure your disks are trhe FASTEST you can afford -- and if you have a mix put all PAGING AND SCRATCH files (Work area) on to the FAST devices. The OS itself can sit on a slow disk as once it's been loaded most of the OS is available by Pre-fetch from the paging file(s). Not a lot is dynamically loaded from the OS partition after boot up.

Many people make the mistake of putting the OS on the fastest I/O device -- not needed -- ONLY the paging file needs to be on the fast device.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there
If you have a large program like Photoshop it'll probably take a few ms longer to load - but if your scratch and page files are on the SSD you'll MORE than gain in increased performance of the application.

Most CPU's are plenty powerful enough these days (assuming we aren't all going bonkers on trying to run too many apps at the same time etc.)

Even if your RAM is slightly constrained you'll still get a better performance on putting swap / paging files on the SSD - the swap / page in / page out will be MANY TIMES faster than on a conventional disk.

Note you must have more than a minimum RAM size however or you'll get "Thrashing" - that is when there isn't enough RAM do do anything so the page disk just gets continually accessed not allowing the computer to do any thing else.

BTW also for any User type DB's (MySQL etc) put all INDEXES on the SSD -- this will really speed up DB queries since the DB segments can be "pre-read" pending the next query.

It's a complex algorithm but it works.

(OT - last time I was in Florida had "Gator Tails" -- actually quite a decent meal -- until the waitress said "Hope you enjoyed your Snappy Meal" ).

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for your replies guys,
The HDD is a WD Sata 500GB, and all scratch and swap files are on the C partition.
The problem is that my friend has the 32-bit edition of Maya and he wants to be sure if his setup would be faster on Win7 that XP before doing the switch.
Going 64-bit is out of the question for now but remains the last resort after upgrading to 8GB of Ram.

Disclaimer: I do no video editing.

I believe that if your friend only switched to Win7 X86 (32 bit), there wouldn't be a significant performance change. (It could be slower than under XP.)

I'd recommend a system with more RAM, Win7 X64, and the 64 bit version of Maya 2010.

(I run Win7 X64 on a system with 12GB of RAM. The 64 bit version of Photoshop CS4 is significantly faster than the 32 bit version, although I've done no benchmarking.)

Just for example:

Core I7 920 CPU, approx. $300US

X58 motherboard, <$300

12GB DDR3 1600 (6 X 2GB), approx. $300

Win7 X64 Home Premium, $200.

Your friend might need a new PSU as well ($100 or so). A Socket 1156 system could save $200 or more on this, but it won't do triple channel memory. I have no idea what the new Maya license might cost. The hardware upgrade costs aren't pocket change, but they're not much for a revenue-generating PC.

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, he already bought the system:
i7 cpu 860
DP55WB mobo
4GB DDR3
ATI 5850 1GB DDR5
ThermalTake 600W PSU
It's a very fast system, and if he can fork more $ for RAM and 64-bit software, eventually he will make the switch.
But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?
Thank you for all your replies.

TheCROW said:

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, he already bought the system:
i7 cpu 860
DP55WB mobo
4GB DDR3
ATI 5850 1GB DDR5
ThermalTake 600W PSU
It's a very fast system, and if he can fork more $ for RAM and 64-bit software, eventually he will make the switch.
But is it possible that XP SP3 x86 gives better oerformance than Win7 x86 on this setup?
Thank you for all your replies.

(Blush.) I read the first post, but forgot about it in the course of the thread.

It's possible that Maya will be faster under XP SP3 than under Win7 X86, but I wouldn't expect a large difference. I'm not the person to answer that for certain, though.

TheCROW said:

Hello all, I don't know if it's the right place to post this, but here goes:
My friend just got an i7 860 PC with 4GB Ram.
He mainly want to use the system for Maya and rendering.

The system currently has Windows XP PRO SP3 32-bit with Maya 8.
My question is:
If he upgrades to Windows 7 32-bit and installs Maya 2010, will he notice a system improvement in those 2 tasks? Will Windows 7 make the most out of the i7 CPU and Rams in a better way than XP SP3? What do you suggest?
Thankyou kindly.

Be careful though, Maya 2010 is not meant for windows 7 and even autodesk says it might have issues. I am a Maya 2011 user and my graphics card keeps crashing and maya 2011 cannot switch scenes without having to shutdown completely. Maya 2011 is meant for Windows 7