Christophe,

from your list I don't see the need for advanced 3D support, or am I wrong?

I would suggest a Quad-Core machine (still useful for multi-tasking, i.e.
calculations in the background) with 8 or 16 GB RAM, fast harddrives (at
least boot disc + data disc), two nice screens with high resolution and
good color reproduction, good keyboard and mouse.

Regarding the operating system, probably XP 64 would be the best
compromise. Not sure about the Vista x64 support of the programs you
mentioned.

One option would be an Apple Mac Pro, Mac OS on a separate drive would
offer additional features.

Michael


> Dear listers,
>
> I have to buy a new computer for our team that will be used as for offline
> image analysis. The software required (ImageJ, Metamorph, Matlab) require
> to
> build a Windows/Vista machine. The cost would be around $5,000 / 5000€.
> The
> job would be processing (a lot) and rendering. My questions are :
> - Should I go for a "traditionnal" computer, I mean a 32-bits, dual core,
> XP
> computer with maxed RAM (I guess it is 3GB or so) ? Is it usefull to go to
> more fancy stuff like 64 bits, 4 or 8 core, 8 to 16GB RAM machine ? Would
> ImageJ/Metamorph/Matlab really benefit from it (I would love to have an
> answer from the Metamorph/Matlab people) ?
> - What about graphic cards and GPU ? What is the best choice ? I've heard
> about new strategies to speed up processing by making the GPU churn data
> as
> well as graphics, but I don't think it is really commercially available
> now
> or implemented in commercial software yet.
>
> Thanks for your advices !
>
> Christophe