> My ultimate aim is to improve my overall productivity in povray: I want to have
> a fast way of rendering very complex high res still images and very long low res
> animations, without needing any manual work to set the render going and retrieve
> the result (i.e. if I have a PC farm it should be entirely automated so I don't
> have to do any more than if I were rendering on a single machine).

Keep in mind that if you want to render radiosity scenes on multiple 
machines (or multiple processors meaning multiple instances of POV) 
you'll have to do a first pass render to get the radiosity render which 
will be used for the final trace. This additional work is not necessary 
with a single CPU and might be a reason to choose the latter one if this 
"entirely automated" workflow has such a high priority for you. Keep 
also in mind that a multiple-CPU/PC-environment *almost* always means 
more work, both in setting it up and keeping it running (even with 
automated software installation scripts etc.).
OTOH, a dual-CPU system could be used for single CPU traces on the one 
CPU and developing scenes on the second CPU, so in that case it would 
improve your workflow.

My choice would be to get one dual-cpu and one single-cpu PC. The dual 
one for developing and optimising the scenes, the single one to run the 
finals (while you can go on and develop etc. on the dual one).
Of course the CPU is not the only thing that'll make your system fast. 
Raid systems for disc access, good RAM, etc. will be important, too, but 
I guess you know that already :)

HTH,
Florian

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