Theoretical workstation build

[tricky]

I'm looking into costs for building a high performance vray render and vray RT workstation. The board that caught my eye is the EVGA Classified SR-2 motherboard which can take 2 Intel Westmere Six Core processors at 3.33GHz.

With these two Xeon processors, there will be 12 physical cores. Hyperthreading (or whatever it is called these days) will double this up to 24 cores. Are all these cores the same 'power'? In other words, is it really like having 24 'full' cores, or something much less than that?

[peterguthrie]

Doesn't answer your question, but I've had my eye on that motherboard as well, one thing to bear in mind is that there aren't many cases that can accommodate it. In his 3dats tech blog, Andy suggests a supermicro board instead (http://www.3datstech.com/2010/08/sep...kstations.html) which presumably isnt as good at overclocking, but fits in normal cases.

[Morne]

to answer your HT question, no its isn't double the cores speed. You'll get about 30% to 60% extra speed out of Hyperhreading

[beestee]

to answer your HT question, no its isn't double the cores speed. You'll get about 30% to 60% extra speed out of Hyperhreading

Those gains depend a lot on your system disk and/or RAM also. With 12 physical cores and 24 hyperthreaded, I am curious how much RAM it would take to feed them efficiently when rendering.

[Donald2B]

I am definitely a fan of that EVGA motherboard. I like that I can run non ECC RAM which can be a pretty large savings, plus you get the added benefit of running higher speed memory too. The board is HUGE! So it may not work in many cases, but at the same time there is more room for stuff to breath! All of the these new GPUs get HOT! It sucks that the Northbridge is located directly beneath the video cards, because it definitely is going to run HOT! If you have a big case I think that the EVGA is a great buy.

I am personally thinking about building my next machine around it, but only putting in one CPU and 12GB of RAM. Then upgrading a little later once the processors have dropped and then adding another 12GB of RAM. That would be a pretty nice machine. Not to mention you have the flexibility to run multiple GPUs at 16x which may come in handy in a year or two. I can typically get at least 3 years out of a computer and I think that I may even be able to stretch this one out to 4 years if I play my cards right during the upgrade process.

NOTE: Not a fan of that supermicro motherboard, with only 1 16x PCI Express slot, it makes it a little difficult for GPU Expansion. I already have a HUGE case, nothing a little fiddling with and all should be good. Did I mention the EVGA motherboard is HUGE!!!!

[jujubee]

I was just looking at it with wishful thinking... Then I started to try to price out cases. The only one that fits it is a Lian Li, and I couldn't even locate one here in the states, let alone the price. I have an E-ATX case already, and I still don't think it will fit it.

[jujubee]

Well, assuming you can get a case for under $500, I managed to assemble an entire system for around $6,000. This would include:

1) Two nVidia 480s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130551
2) 1200W EVGA PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817438003
3) 120 GB SSD drive for the OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227551
4) Two Intel 5650s (6 cores each): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117231
5) SR-2 Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188067
6) Two WD 600GB Velociraptor drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136555
7) 24GB DDR3 1600 memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136555

I didn't include the case or the DVD Drive, and on the fence about a separate RAID card. There's a slight package deal on some of these items at present. Of course, you could also bump the memory and processors up as well as down - but if you're spending that kind of money in the first place and are looking for a sweet spot without paying the absolute premium (which could easily run an extra $3,000)... You could also always upgrade the memory and add in even two more graphics cards later. This system should last for 3 or so years before the average consumer systems start to catch up (assuming tablets don't start dominating the market driving traditional PCs up in price.)

[pskdude]

im waiting on this to build my next pc. i Think it comes in 1st quarter of 11'.

Intel Core i7 X 995 @ 3.60GHz

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Scores are great. =)

[peterguthrie]

thanks for doing the hard work jujubee, I think I might stick to getting a 980X based system with 2 kick ass graphics cards.

[tricky]

The problem with using just graphics cards is you still need good CPUs and RAM to render the final output. It would be a pain to have a super fast RT machine, only to find it takes 8 weeks to render when you send it to render properly!

(Though I am sure RT will develop so that it does render out final images/passes etc)

[peterguthrie]

yep, I'm under no illusions about the whole RT thing, I see it really as just a way of quickly setting up lighting on basic stripped down scenes. Most of my work uses all available ram I have (often over 10gb) so I don't see RT as being much use to me in getting final output (as you say though, maybe things will change)

[Morne]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
Scores are great. =)

So how is it that the i7 970 @ 3.2GHZ is faster and cheaper than the i7 980 @ 3.33Ghz? That doesn't make sense to me. Can some1 please explain it?

Also, the i7 975 @ 3.33GHZ is A LOT slower and more expensive than the 970!

[jujubee]

Looking at pskdude's chart, a single W3680 beats a single 5650, however you can only use one in a motherboard.

As for the i7 X 995, it says that they only have one sample. I have found nowhere else on the web where it has been documented, except for 2 articles which reference the same benchmark. I have seen no information whatsoever that a version has even been released to the public: "CPU First Benchmarked: 0000-00-00" Plus, it may require an additional motherboard. You're probably going to be looking at several grand when it first gets released, then you also have to upgrade your motherboard.

So how is it that the i7 970 @ 3.2GHZ is faster and cheaper than the i7 980 @ 3.33Ghz? That doesn't make sense to me. Can some1 please explain it?

I have no idea. I just spent an hour trying to look it up.

I am going to send them an email asking if these are reporting errors and if the second issue DVP3D is a result of overclocking.

[Donald2B]

Jujubee is right on the money with that system. I am planning on building that system with just a single CPU and 12GB RAM at first and then upgrade it later. Not to mention that you can easily overclock the 5600 series processors almost all the way up to 4GHz on air cooling! I think that this machine will provide the MOST flexibility I have ever seen in a custom built computer. You have both bases covered, since it would be about the same as building a 980X single cpu, only you are using Xeons and can add additional CPU, RAM and GPUs later.

It just seems like the best of both worlds. I would am looking at using this case, probably without all the clear panels and stuff, very versatile. http://www.mountainmods.com/pinnacle-24-cyo-p-498.html

[jujubee]

You could save around $2,000 on that system by cutting out the extra processor, graphics card, and cutting the memory in half. It's still going to run you a nice $4,000.

To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed in my dual x5355 system. i7s came out shortly afterwards (a little over 6 months) and they were near the same performance at a 1/3 of the cost. Then, a newer standard of PCI Express came out and my motherboard doesn't support the newer standard causing newer graphics cards to bottleneck a little (some people say around 6%.) I can forget about SLI too as nVidia was being dicks to Intel at the time. It also consumes a ton of electricity and the i7s are less than half of that.

In all, I've had the system for 2-3 years and had gotten my money out of it, but if I had just waited (or had a crystal ball), I might not do that again.

If my past experience is any indicator of the future, it may be smart to play it safe and just go with a sub-$2,000 system such as a i7 970 or 980. There's a significant price to pay for having the biggest computer in the neighborhood.