Hello guys!
I am quite happy with my current Win7 x64 Professional but I am thinking about trying the 2008R2 workstation version. (the pre-done one, or just do it myself according to the instructions).

My question is though, do you think there will be any difference in terms of performance? Like, rendertimes, viewport framerates and such? Has anyone used 2008R2 for such things and such applications? (I am using a wide variety of 3D, 2,5D and 2D applications like Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop, 3dsMax, AfterEffects, Nuke, etc.)

I am asking this, because I haven't really found a certain statement about the performance comparison with Win7 in terms of CPU-Intensive tasks, multithreading, memory utilization and so on. At least some benchmarks would've helped, but so far I haven't seen any. If there are any of these, posted somewhere, please don't hesitate to drop a link here.
One would say - "You can't expect different performance, from the same hardware and just different OS"... Well I can. I had OSX Snow Leopard installed about 2 years ago, and that thing was running WAY faster/snappier/colder and was eating less memory than Win7. So I guess there could be a difference between the Win7 and the 2008R2.

(P5Q-Deluxe, C2Q Q9550 @ 4.02Ghz, 8GB of DDR2 943Mhz, GeForce GTX275, WD Velociraptor 10k)

Well, a 2008R2 system well configured and with a little tweaks will run a lot less services than win7, and because this, maybe will run the programs smoother, but the kernel of the o.s. is almost the same when we talk about general programs.

An important thing is be sure that your programs can be installed in a server o.s. I'm saying that because all autocad versions newer than the 2009 edition cant be installed in a server, licensing issues probably. Maybe Autodesk use the same politics in other products.

btw, my autocad 2009 is crashing, a lot. had installed all service packs, but was no help. but, i think its an issue not related to a server o.s. tried repair the instalation, but still the same: i open a file, and everytime the machine has to load something new, 9 of 10 times cad will crash. it means: i cant use cad for even zoom or select objects.

any sugestions?

i have been using 3d studio max 12 and it works a treat.
the render times are good too

ROB

got a "not bad" solution for me:

1st: re-enable pagefile (only 4GB ram, 8GB may be the sweet spot for win2k8r2 64)
2nd: install cad in a partition with lots of free space (my system/programs has just 7GB free, its too little space)

now, it stutters a little when load some commands, but it may be due to my half-life hd, which cant pass in a lot of tests anymore, and it's asking for rma...