High end machines
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I have been doing more due diligence on the above topic and cemented my initial thoughts on the i7.
Some interesting finds:
While the i7 is a multi threading dream and recommended on all rendering forums as the best option right now for the fasted renders it is also a single core dream, I know this sounds too good to be true and almost impossible to have the best of both worlds...but it's true.
Turbo Mode is a potentially exciting new feature that automatically unlocks two additional multipliers and allows the processor to self-overclock based on thermal conditions and workload. If the Power Control Unit (PCU) senses that only one core is active (like when using SU) and the other three are in an idle state, it will use the unused power and thermal headroom to overclock that single active core to ensure superior single-threaded performance. Conversely, if you running a multi-threaded application, the PCU will measure the thermal headroom and if the processor is running cool enough it will overclock all four cores. Turbo Mode can overclock a single core by a maximum of two speed bins (multipliers), thus 266Mhz higher at the stock 133Mhz BCLK. When overclocking all four cores, it can increase the frequency by 133Mhz
So the i7 is a solution for heavy scene rendering, and SU, not forgetting that the new Mobo's that it uses has triple channel DDR3 ram slots...6 of them so if one loads it up with say 6x2GB or soon to come 6x4GB ram, one will have a rig that can literally handle anything one can throw at it.
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I also have a processor with hyperthreading (although this is an older generation solution). It's 3.8 GHz so "ideal" for SU but when it comes to rendering,it acts like a dual core. Obviously this i7 is similar - just implemented in a much higher level.
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E5520 and greater seems to have turbo mode too. Core i7 can compete against Xeon 55xx family only with price, features are same. Add a second Xeon 55xx and the story is different... From legitreviews:
Also E5520 has a tdp of 80, sounds like a good target for over clocking, if motherboard has any support for it.
btw Xeon W3520 is basically same as i7/920/D0 stepping
and it do OC! -
Solo,
I recently bought, and built a machine for $2200. Dual Xeon processors with HT (so 8 cores and 8 virtual cores) 12gigs of DDR3, two 150gb 10,000rpm on RAID and a 1.5gig ATI Radeon HD video card, which looks like a car engine (sounds like one too). Runs nice and smooth for a PC, rather would have got my new MacPro though with similar specs, The Mac is still twice as fast. These Xeon's are built on the same technology as the i7's but have are built more robust since they are server processors, and I have found they are able to carry more processes, I have been rendering in Vray, editing in premiere and aftereffects, editing in Photoshop, email, web, music and Sketchup all going and it still hasn’t had a hiccup (except in SU since it doesnt utilize any of the HP of the machine). -
JHuman, The mac pro is 2x faster then your Xeon setup? WOW, but why? Should we be considering a mac pro with Windows (I once read somewhere that because it is a Intel processor, you can install Windows on Mac hardware. Is that correct? Got to admit that I don't know a lot about hardware.)? A lot of us require a PC for reasons other then SU.
Btw, isn't HT just a form multi core that will speed up programs that are not compiled for multi core?
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Honolulu, you can indeed run windows natively on a mac due to the now intel based hardware. I believe stinkie currently runs this setup (or at least he used to), so you could ask him about it if your interested in it.
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Honolulu,
Windows on the MAC runs like an OS should run, fast and effecient. Which is kind of sad that Windows runs better on another platform than on its own machine, makes a lot of sense right? Run it through bootcamp and it will work awesome. It also installs all the drivers for you via the MAC OSX disk. My next machine will be another MAC, never go back to the PC, JMHO. They tend to be a little bit more pricey up front, but well worth it, they last longer and look much better. I have a G4 powerbook (1.5ghz) from about 5 years ago and it still runs just like it did the day I bought it, it is still faster than my other dual core pc (2.8ghz). Plus MACS have much higher resell than PCs. That powerbook on Macmall.com and on Ebay runs for about $1100 to $1200 used -
To go 2X faster then a Xeon system? I would be interested. The only hitch I can envision is that my setup requires that supports MS's Virtual technology.
Well I guess I am off to the Apple store to follow up on this.
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Solo (and others),
A few posts back you said that the Quadro cards don't show much difference in performance from the GTXs. The tech guy at my office has recommended a PNY Quadro FX580 512MB card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133273 in the new system he's ordering for me. Can you explain a little more about why you would recommend the GTX280 over a Quadro graphics card? Is the Quadro better for non-3d applications?FYI, The new setup will be an Intel Quad Core I7 920 w/ 6 Gigs DDR3 1333, running Vista Business 64 bit. I use SU, PS & Indesign CS2, and Autocad 08 (soon to be Civil3d), usually with more time spent in CAD and Photoshop than SU.
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Wyatt
Don't get me wrong, Quadro cards are great for 3d work, but also limeted to 3D work. They are much more expensive and the driver support is much slower than the mainstream cards.
For these setbacks the difference in 3d performance against a mainstream gaming card is not really noticable.
Even though one may want a dedicated 3d card initially you may in future want to either play a game or do some heavy video editing which will be dificult with a Quadro card, so my suggestion is based on having a card that is able to cover everything one may want to use it for as opposed to one that's limited to one function at such a high price.With CUDA coming in and render engines getting set to use the awesome power it will give us in the very near future, the regular geforce cards may be more cost effective when one starts stacking them up to boost ones overall pc speed.
Rumours have it that Vue 8 will have CUDA support for Tesla personal supercomputers already. -
@unknownuser said:
The tech guy at my office has recommended a PNY Quadro FX580 512MB card.
Wyatt,
IMO the proposed graphics card is a bit out of step with the rest of the setup. I would guess that it is the cheapest of the Quadro FXs available, and characterized as á "low-end" card, so as your specs otherwise are of the "latest and greatest" category, it might be a bottleneck. They are OK for 2D AutoCad work, but for 3D I would choose a 1700, 1800, 3700 or 3800 card. The "highest-end" ones might be ridiculously expensive.
Anssi
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@jhuman said:
Honolulu,
Windows on the MAC runs like an OS should run, fast and effecient. Which is kind of sad that Windows runs better on another platform than on its own machine, makes a lot of sense right? Run it through bootcamp and it will work awesome...But can you run xp 64 through bootcamp?
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Well, the mac did not run windows, and my setup twice as fast. Btw, PC's are not Windows machines, MS doesn't make computers, and a PC will run other kinds of OS. If a Apple is faster then the equivalent PC, it must be something found in the board bus, or some other aspect of the design. I did not get far enough to verify Apple's bios support for the Virtual Machines I use. In any case it didn't seem worth it for me.
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