New Computer Build Processor and GPU

dkendig · 16 Dec 2014, 17:46

@dkendig said:

personally I wouldn't go with either one, I would get an AMD. Their benchmarks are pretty much the same, but the price point is ridiculously lower than any comparable intel chip.

::ducks to avoid the flame war::

Regardless of pure performance, he stated that he wants to use this machine with Vray. And in a few months you should be releasing v3, right? Which means Embree, right? Which means Intel, right?

Right?

I don't know any benchmark info at all for our product unfortunately, and I can't say exactly what V-Ray for SketchUp 3.0 will or will not have at this point, or how it will benchmark on a given configuration, it's still kind of early in the dev cycle.

AFAIK any high end cpu (intel or amd) that supports SSSE3, SSSE4, SSSE4.2, or AVX... which should be able to use Embree.

dkendig · 16 Dec 2014, 17:49

@andybot said:

space and power get to be a consideration once you have many boxes... also noise, heat. Additionally, you have to consider that node licensing has changed with vray 3.0 - you have to pay for nodes now, so it make sense in that regard to have fewer machines (thinking ahead at least ). @ Devin: I don't know if you realize that AMD cores =/= Intel cores. Intel uses hyperthreading, so you pretty much get double the cores in terms of processing power. I.e. - 4 cores Intel = 8 cores AMD, more or less.

Yeah, I'm aware that amd cores != intel cores. I believe that we charge per every 10 render nodes if I recall correctly, so yes, there is an additional cost (which could be covered by not purchasing a $3,000 cpu). Like I said, I haven't really done any benchmarks, and my job doesn't really involve rendering a ton, I just write the plugin, and talk to you nice folks

Heat, noise, power consumption, etc. I remember back before we had our in house render farm enclosed in a proper server room... Granted, we had a farm of 30+ rack mounted nodes, and not just a couple machines sitting around, but it can still be an issue with a handful I guess. I think one of our developers here has 5 computers at his desk alone, 6 when he brings in his laptop, 7 when he brings in his other one, so I don't think of <10 machines as a big issue.

jiminy-billy-bob · 16 Dec 2014, 18:38

Here is a french website but with nice visual charts:
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/924-9/rendu-3d-mental-ray-v-ray.html

The FX9590 is 30% cheaper than the i7 4970k, but 20% slower on Vray. So indeed, it is a bit more power for the bucks, but not that much.

Btw, we can see on the link above that the gap between intel and AMD CPUs is wider on Vray than Mental Ray. (And Vray is so much faster than MR on a similar scene)

dkendig · 16 Dec 2014, 19:01

yeah, I don't know how much of a difference that 20% slowdown makes in a real world situation. I just render scenes that customers send us when our support guys are baffled. or to verify a bug is fixed. I guess that 1 minute difference would equate to a pretty big difference for a longer render, and so the extra 30% cost would pay for itself after 1 or 2 jobs. I guess the same could be said for the crazy expensive $2,000+ intel chips. If you can shave a minute or two off a little render, then it will pay for itself after a few big renders.

dkendig · 16 Dec 2014, 19:08

so skgator99, I apologize for my AMD tirade, carry on. Please post specs of whatever you do end up building, so we can all have a mess to clean up ::nod::

skgator99 · 17 Dec 2014, 01:29

@dkendig said:

so skgator99, I apologize for my AMD tirade, carry on. Please post specs of whatever you do end up building, so we can all have a mess to clean up ::nod::

Hahaha, no problem. I appreciate all the input, I think I have a better idea of what I want and need, though those are probably two differently entities entirely...

jiminy-billy-bob · 17 Dec 2014, 10:57

@dkendig said:

I apologize for my AMD tirade

Well, you were right about AMD being cheaper for the same power!

andybot · 17 Dec 2014, 14:04

There's a reason people only talk about intel if you look at the hardware section in the Chaos Group forums. I don't think I've heard mention about AMD processors in years.

dkendig · 17 Dec 2014, 19:20

it's a whole other side of the coin that I don't even think about anymore to be honest. I used to be a hardware geek, but these days I'm more of a software geek

jiminy-billy-bob · 17 Dec 2014, 22:12

@dkendig said:

but these days I'm more of a software geek

Oh? What do you do for a living?

Krisidious · 17 Dec 2014, 22:17

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

Oh? What do you do for a living?

lol

arail1 · 27 Dec 2014, 14:52

On the Rhino forum there's a file you can run called Holomark2 that spits out a data sheet when it's complete showing all of the components of your computer and how well they performed with a total score at the top. Real useful. It's Rhino specific, not V-Ray specific but it nonetheless provides real valuable information. Would be great to have something like that here.

Encouraged me to think my next computer is going to be a i7-4790 w/ a GTX-970