64 Cores? - AMD 16C vs Intel 8C - how many RAM per Core?

[menschmouse]

Dear commuters,

I'd like to build a small renderfarm for vray|max and have many questions about compatibility issues.

1. Does vray support 64 Cores (4x AMD Opteron 6380) or max 32Cores ?

2. The internet says that the AMD Opteron 6380 has equal power to the Intel Xeon E5-2670 but AMD is 30% cheaper. Does VRay runs some algorithms wich are only supported on Intel CPU's? In which solution should I invest?

3. How many GBs of RAM should be available per core?

4. With 64Cores (4x CPUs) I'll need Windows Server 2008R2. Could this be a problem or is it an advantage?

5. When will it be possible to use GPU power on network render nodes?

kind regards,
Dennis

[vlado]

1. Does vray support 64 Cores (4x AMD Opteron 6380) or max 32Cores ?

V-Ray supports 64 cores; however! For machines with NUMA architecture like the 4x Opteron machines, some special setup is required to make the best use of the machine. Just running V-Ray and 3ds Max as normal will give you terrible performance. Proper support for NUMA is added to the nightly builds; if you are interested, you can email me to vlado@chaosgroup.com

2. The internet says that the AMD Opteron 6380 has equal power to the Intel Xeon E5-2670 but AMD is 30% cheaper.

I would do tests myself first before trusting the internet

Does VRay runs some algorithms wich are only supported on Intel CPU's?

No. V-Ray uses the same algorithms on both Intel and AMD machines.

In which solution should I invest?

I cannot answer this question unfortunately.

3. How many GBs of RAM should be available per core?

It depends on what scenes you plan to render. 8 to 16 GB per NUMA node should be fine.

4. With 64Cores (4x CPUs) I'll need Windows Server 2008R2. Could this be a problem or is it an advantage?

It is not a problem; the advantage is that you can use all cores

5. When will it be possible to use GPU power on network render nodes?

This is possible even now if you have Tesla cards and use the TCM drivers, rather than the WDDM ones. It is not possible with consumer GeForce cards. Further questions please direct to nVidia

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Vlado isnt the Embree node exclusive to intel ?

Also what motherboard can run 4x AMD?

Thanks, bye.

[vlado]

Vlado isnt the Embree node exclusive to intel ?

If it is compiled with AVX instructions, yes. But we didn't find any advantage of compiling with AVX and in fact we disabled it in the latest nightly builds; the more standard SSE2/SSE3 instructions should work on both Intel and AMD (though to be honest I have not tried AMD so far). Also, VRayEmbree is not yet a standard part of V-Ray.

Also what motherboard can run 4x AMD?

I can ask what's the one that we have here...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Mm thanks vlado !

[AndresAhumada]

Vlado ...
Buy 2 machines with dual xeon and 2678 w, (32 threads per machine) You think this need for NUMA? can implement in these machines?

regards

Instore.

[menschmouse]

Hi Vlado,

I unfortunately could not reach you via mail or PM.
..
so the day has come and I'd like to give a try on a Supermicro 2042G-TRF with 4x AMD 6380, 64GB RAM, Win8 or Win2012 Std (because of RAM,CPU limitations)
I've checked that one 16C CPU has 2 NUMA Cores... so I've planned 4CPU x 2 NUMA = 8 x 8GB RAM = 64 GB Ram.

You gently wrote that you'll give me access to the nightly build version of v-ray backburner server which supports NUMA in a 4x 16Core AMD CPU configuration...

how should we proceed?

kind regards,
Dennis

[vlado]

Sorry for the late reply; please check your email.

Best regards,
Vlado

[sinner]

Test the machine?

we look for..
Memory 8GB DDR3-1600 ECC REG RoHS x 8
Chassis Supermicro MCP-220-00080-0B
Hard Drive OCZ SSD Vector drive, 2.5 ", 256GB, VTR1-25SAT3-256G
AMD Opteron ™ 16 Cores Interlagos 6272 2.10GHz x 4

would like opinions and recommendations before I spend money