Optimal (limited budget) computer for SU+Vray and 3ds max
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I'm upgrading my computer focusing only on 3d modeling and rendering. I'd like it to run SU+Vray and 3ds+vray as optimal(fast) as possible. So far I narrowed my choice down to
geforce 580 3072mb gddr5, amd bulldozer 8150 or fx-4170 and 8 gb 1600mhz ddr3 RAM. Since sketchup uses single core I'm trying to have as fast clock on single core as possible and as many cores as possible for 3ds. Does Amd work well with SU? Did anyone have similar dilemma and maybe found better solution?Also I found Geforce 550 TI with 3gb ddr3 and 450 with 4gb ddr3 Axle3d gpu's really cheap. Does anyone have any experience or heard reviews about those card. Would they be significantly slower than 580?
Please help, I would appreciate any info that would help speed up my work flow hardware wise.
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you should really better look for an intel i7 or i5. The overall performace is better and single core performance is much better. And the FX8xxx is even worse than the X6 most of the time. And has a higher power consumption.
Look at these values:
Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up For Ivy Bridge
Well-optimized for threading, the two six-core Sandy Bridge-E-based chips run away with first and second place in 3ds Max 2012.
Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com)
Single threaded:
And why did you select a high priced high end GTX 580 for a "budged" low end system with amd processor?!? Do you plan to do mostly GPU rendering?
For sketchup this will give you nothing compared to a midrange card like the GTX 560 TI - only a higher power bill...
Sketchup is still highly CPU dependend.
But don't take a GTX550 TI... it's only a small difference in the model number but performance is better for the GTX 560 (TI). The only reason to take a 550 TI would be a pasiv cooled version - i don't know if there is one?!?
And a 450 with 4GB RAM is a joke...So i would say for Sketchup the best bang for the buck would be an i5 2500 (K) with a GTX 560 or 560 TI (maybe with 2GB video ram) and 16GB RAM (RAM is very cheap today)
Or for better rendering an i7 2600K, 2700K or 3770K.If you're willing to overclock the price/performance ratio for these CPUs will be even better! 4,0-4,2GHz should be absolutely no problem for all of them, even without overclocking experience (stock speed for them is between 3,4 and 3,5 GHz and with turbo up to 3,8 - 3,9 GHz on one core.)
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Thanks you for your valuable input. Really apreciate it.
I found brand new EVGA GTX580 for $200 (although offer is no longer valid) and I heard good things about it on this board so I thought it could have been the one to go with.
Seeing and hearing how vrayRT is developing I wanted to think ahead and set up machine that wouldn't be too expensive for me and could handle vrayRT GPU render preview that chaos group showcased some time ago, one that could render fairly quick and wouldn't be too sluggish while operating on 150mb+ sketchup models . Since it's just for fun and I care only about 3d modeling, animation, rendering and I'm stretching my budget a bit, I want to cut down as much as possible on things I donāt need.
The reason why I wanted to go with FX-8150/8120 is the fact that in benchmarks focused on 3d modeling and rendering it seemed almost on par with i5 2500k but for almost $100 less. I donāt care about games and I have laptop for work so if sacrificing some functions wouldnāt hurt my main goals significantly, I wouldnāt mind it.
So what to pursue? Right now, Geforce 650 ti just came out (at least here) and they seem to be pretty cheap for what they offer, I am also weighing GTX660 and GTX660 ti but they are twice as much. The have 760, 960, 1344 CUDA cores respectively. Would it matter if vrayRT for sketchup came out? And if so is there a significant differce in preview time/quality between 760 and 1344? How much size of GPUās memory matters? Is 1, 2 or 3gb enough?
So the bottom line is that I will probably come down to either taking better CPU at a cost of GPU or vice versa.
One last thing is that Iād rather leave my computer to work over the night or even for 2 straight days but I would hate it if after 6 hours of rendering I noticed something isnāt how I wanted it to look. I donāt have enough experience to always know how rendered image will turn out so I really like the idea of GPU preview.
Please help.
Thanks in advance.
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The limited RAM capacity of GPUs is one of the biggest issues atm, if you want to render bigger scenes with high res textures. So if you really want to do serious GPU rendering then i would say at least a GTX 570 (2,5GB RAM) or a GTX 580 (3GB RAM). Or the 660 TI you mentioned with 3GB. To get 4GB RAM you would have to take a GTX 670 or 680, which would be much more expensive.
I don't know how the GTX 6xx series performes on V-Ray RT. Other GPU renderers had problems with the new Kepler architecture and were slower. But this can be a driver issue, i don't know, but it seems that a GTX 6xx core is weaker than a GTX 5xx core. -
ok, so i decided to trust both of your advices and i went with i7 2700k + EVGA GTX570 w/ 2,5 gb ram.Btw, thank you guys so for help, much appreciated.
I just saw a trailer of THEA4su's utilization of gpu in scene rendering and i'm considering overclocking my card up to about stock 580 performance and cpu to about 4,2~4,5ghz. Is overclocking gpu, cpu or ram recomended for non professional rendering? I haven't bought mobo and psu, yet, so i have some wiggle room for minor tweaks.
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overclocking the 2700K should be save depending on the cooler and if you watch the temps and you don't go above 1,3-1,35v vcore.
For the geforce i'm not sure if overclocking would be a good choice because they are made for gaming and not full load over longer time, like with rendering. Quadros and teslas which are made for rendering are clocked even slower than geforce. There have been posts on some forums about dead geforce. Not sure if they where overclocked or stock. But maybe with a good cooling and not so heavy clocking it should be ok. (If you watch the temperature)
Overclocking the ram will give you nothing for rendering and 3d. Just take a standart 1600 MHz with CL9 or CL10. Maybe kingston or corsair low profile (!) to have enough space for the cooler.For the psu i would take a Seasonic M12II or X-Series, maybe with 650-750W.
(i have 9 seasonic PSUs running at the moment - 8 in overclocked machines - and never had any problems with them.) -
Thanks numerobis. I have couple more questions (hope I'm not too much for you:) ). I took a maybe 2-year-old 600w psu from one of the servers(they're made to be more reliable than those for PCs and all of the cables and supply fit so I hope it's enough to power an oc'ed 2700k and the single 570 card) that I don't use anymore for now. I'm planning on getting better psu in 750w-850w range and the second card in near future. I've decided to order Asrock Z77 extreme4 for my mobo 8gb Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz CL9 and zalman cnps10x optima (I saw couple tests where it kept 2700k oc'ed to 4,8GHz under 74 degrees and I don't plan to overclock it that much. Plus Zalman includes one of the better thermal pastes so I won't have to buy it). Other than that I have couple questions that popped up in my mind this week.
I read somewhere that Vray will try to use any OpenCL card I have in my set up as long as it is the same type of architecture as the main one. So first of all is it true? If so could I also use 6xx series (providing that the new drivers will make them better than 5xx series at rendering) since small kepler is pretty much a revised fermi architecture? Is it the same in Octane, iRay etc.? On the side note If I've ever lost my mind and went to try is (aside from sketchup) Radeon's new 28nm architecture better or at least at similar level as 5xx geforce series at GPU rendering?
Based on those two links having AMD and nVidia at the same time is possible:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/355840-15-running-radeon-geforce-time
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=156878 (nvidia's forum doesn't work though)
Speaking of extra video cards. I still have an old 8800 GTS and will have 3 PCI-E slots on asrock. Would it be beneficial for me to include it in my setup (when I get stronger PSU of course) for viewport or something or would it be just couple cents more on my monthly bill?
I am open for suggestions and constructive criticism.
Edit: Temperature is in celcius. -
600W is more than enough for this setup - i think it will be around ~400W under load. I suggested a ~700W PSU because the efficiency typically is the best around 50-60% load, and because it should have at least 30A on the 12v rail for the geforce and for overclocking. But this should be only a problem if the PSU has two or more separated 12v rails. I don't know how this one is build, but newer PSUs have combined 12v power rails with 70-80A combined. So they are more flexible.
The other point with a server could be that maybe the fan is quite noisy because it is only optimized for power and not noise. But you'll see (hear).ASRock should be fine, i'm running my farm on ASRocks (i7 970 and 2600K/2700K) - i don't know the Extreme 4. You should read some reviews for more info.
I'm no expert in GPU rendering, i'm only using CPU. But i think, mixing nvidia and amd would be no good idea, even if it seems to work. But maybe i'm wrong.
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