I produce instructional technical animation video and reqired a much higher rendering speed to improve through-put. I decided to built a new workstation based on the TYAN K8W S2885 mobo and a pair of Opteron 250s. 2GB PC2700 RAM and a pair of 200GB SATA drives in RAID 1. The OS is Windows XP-PRO

I work primarily in AutoCad and 3DS max rendering to AVI files in NTSC 720 X 480. The editing is done in Adobe Premier PRO and exported to DVD.

I have had mixed success with ATI video adapers and nVidea cards and would like to avoid the expensive "trial and error" routine of getting the best display and rendering performance out of a new work station.

There is a world of expert experience out there, I wonder if you guys can give me some advice in re:- BEST VIDEO ADAPTER, BEST BIOS, BEST BIOS SETTINGS and any other advice you think may be helpful.

Many thanks in advance Pick.