Need advice on a new rig

[phildlight]

So do you guys recommend getting a single i7 2700 instead of the dual opteron route?

I've been out of touch on hardware for too long I guess. I'm trying to understand which would provide the best render times.

Do I understand this correctly?

i7 2700 = (4) 3.5GHz cores w/ HT so 8 render buckets

vs.

dual Opteron 6274 Interlagos = 16 cores per cpu so 32 cores total and 32 buckets.

On this passmark chart http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html the i7 and 6274 are almost equal in performance, but that's comparing a single i7 to a single 6274. I haven't seen a dual socket LGA 1155 board so I'm assuming any i7 solution is a single cpu solution, vs the opteron route with a tyan dual cpu board and two 6274's.

Wouldn't (I'm asking here) the dual opteron route be twice as fast as a single i7? I realize there is quite a cost difference between a single i7 and a dual opteron, but I'm looking for performance.

[super gnu]

if youre looking for performance, then the current xeons are a better bet than the opterons. if youve got wads of cash you can get the 8 core xeons. 2600k is best price/performance at the moment i think...

[Morne]

there is new i7 with 6 cores (12 threads)
look at the Core i7-3930K

[super gnu]

ye those are pretty meaty, but not ideal for me, as you can get a lot more juice per £ with the 2600k, and also the mini itx boards cant handle em!

[phildlight]

Here's what I'm looking at and my thoughts. Can you guys comment on this list?

What I'm thinking about doing is starting out with 2 identical configs with the thought of buying a 3rd when needed. Hopefully this link works: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=14406514

It's 2 i7 2700's w/ 24gb per machine. I got a cheap GPU for one and a decent one for the other with the idea being I'll use the better GPU card for modeling/animating and use the 2nd machine as a dedicated slave. That way I can render with both when needed and I still have my current home machine for backup modeling (it's a decent rig already and is fine for modeling and animation).

The more I read, the more I realize that while the opterons have more cores, their IPC is crap, so the xeons and sandy bridge's smoke them in performance.

Looks like the 3930K is out of stock on newegg. I could look at some other sources though.

Strike everything below.
DVP3D, I just saw this "kit" on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229301 which has the 3930K. That seems like the best money/performance option right now. according to this: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html that 3930K is a good bit better in terms of performance than almost everything else on the list. EDIT> nevermind on that prebuilt machine. I'm sure I could spec better components for less $.

[Inaxis]

Watch out with that 24gb memory because its a triple channel kit and it's for socket LGA 1366 processors. The core i7 2700K (socket LGA 1155) needs a simple dual channel kit and the core i7 3930K (socket LGA 2011) needs a quad channel kit for maximum performance. If I were you I would build 4 PC with core i7 2700K from the price of two core i7 3930K

[phildlight]

Good catch on the memory. I fixed it to use 4 x 4GB dual channel pieces.

I'm leaning that way too (re: build (4) 2700K's for the price of (2) 3930K's). First, the 3930K's are hard to find right now. Second, they're almost 2x more money with only about a 20% increase in performance.

4 of those would get me 32 efficient cores. That should smoke some HD frames.

[phildlight]

Just pulled the trigger. I guess I bought all the 2700K's they had because they ran out on my order and I had to get a 2600K to be able to build them all. Now I need to make room for all this gear. Thanks again for all the help guys!

[phildlight]

I wanted to drag this thread up to ask a few questions. Right now I've got 4 machines that I'm rendering with. It's all well and good and they're built on the i2700 & i2600 processors. Now I'm working on some more animations and I need more render power. I took note of the idea of a micro ATX build and that's what I'm thinking. Rather than stuff them in a case, I'm thinking of building a rack for them. I've got a pretty complete machine shop at my disposal, so i can fab up all the parts.

I'm a fan of intel chips but as I'm looking at the cpu benchmarks, I can't help but notice the AMD FX 8120. There are a ton of micro ATX board w/ AM3+ support and onboard ati graphics (don't care about graphics other than w/ onboard you don't have to buy a gpu) for cheap. That 8120 chip is an 8 core w/ performance on par with $600 xeons for $180.

Question is, are there any issues mixing processor types? I remember it used to be a problem or could be a problem with differences in frames if they were rendered on different processor architectures. Is that still an issue?

Any comments on a micro ATX farm build on the AMD's?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I think that the 8 core amd is not as fast as intel in terms of computing, not sure. But yea I have sameq uestion as u, any1 got answer? I think they all render that same...

[phildlight]

I'm looking at this: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html#. Scan down the right hand side from top to bottom. Essentially, that 8120 is the highest up the list for the lowest price. In that list,you see that the 8120 is only marginally slower than some $1,000 + chips. Looking at the list in this mode: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html#cpuvalue puts it in perspective also.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I was loking at this http://pcpartpicker.com/benchmarks/c.../overall-list/ The AMD is slower than the 2600k one...

[phildlight]

NM. You're right. The cinemark test is better than the 3dmark test from the other list. It's also worth noting that the 8120 is a good bit cheaper than the 2600 and 2700 and not much of a performance drop. Doh. I was looking at the i5's....

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I think it comes down to the price for entire rig ratio and how well they OC. U might be able to OC 2.6k to 4.3-4.6k (I dunno how well they OC) and AMD might go to 5.2 or so... Then the gap might be smaller or so...

[phildlight]

Yep, total rig cost is important. I did price out an i5 farm of 5 micro ATX rigs and an amd fx farm of 5 and I think the difference was $200. OC'ing them plays a big role in performance/cost. I'll have to look into that. Bottom line, it looks like, initially anyway, that either would work for about the same price. I figured around $2,300 for a set of 5 nodes without any cases since i'll put them in a rack.