AMD FX8350, i7 3930K (S2011) or i7 3770k for render slave

[tricky]

i7 3930k is most expensive, but 6/12 core
i7 3770k is good value, 4/8 core
AMD FX8350 is a bargain 8 core

Which would you go for?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

"i7 3930k is most expensive, but 6/12 core" - I get this one.

And then once intel 8/12/14/16 core desktop cpus come out on socket 2011 I'd sell it and get bigger cpu. Naturally OC to 4.5 ghz.

[Morbid Angel]

I've just built two machines each i7 3930k, I can successfully overclock it to 4.7 ghz under water cooling and the 6 cores perform as fast as my 12 xeon cores (in my workstation) while the xeon cpu was $1100 each so $2200 in total, where as the 3930k is $625 per cpu. I wish they made them go into dual mobos!

[tricky]

I've never had much time/fun with overclocking. Too many variables for me.

The i7 3930k is the route I think we will be taking. I think I can build a desktop-style cased box (so they can be stacked) for around about £1k.

[Morbid Angel]

Cool, I think you can make them into rack servers as well but they won't be quiet. I have to maximize my space, so I can't have too many of them, so I gotta overclock to make them work x1.5 times faster probably will burn them out faster too...

[tricky]

Hopefully all parts will arrive today so I should be putting the test machine together later on.
i7 3930k, Corsair H80i CPU cooler, 32GB RAM, SSD disk and a £20 gfx card!!

I had bought a desktop case (a HTPC type model from Silverstone) as we wanted to stack these up, but it turns out that you can't really get a CPU cooler to fit in a case like that after all, so I have gone for a mid range mid-sized tower instead. Its a pain, as most of the space is wasted. Who needs space for so many DVD drives these days? Ideally, I just want a smallish case that will fit a CPU and big cooler, lots of ram and 1 hard disk. Perhaps a couple of GFX cards if we go down the RT GPU route at some later date.

[Morne]

If you're not gonna overclock you can just get stock cooler. The i7 3930K doesnt come boxed with a cooler, but a standard simple "stock" cooler will do apparently

How about sticking your system in a 2U rackmount case? I got a quote recently and locally a 2U rackmount including the condensed cooling works out about 33 percent more expensive than a standard tower case for the 3930K.
33 percent is a bit much, but if you're worried about space and power usage, maybe its an option?

[jacksc02]

"i7 3930k is most expensive, but 6/12 core" - I get this one.

And then once intel 8/12/14/16 core desktop cpus come out on socket 2011 I'd sell it and get bigger cpu. Naturally OC to 4.5 ghz.

Is socket 2011 going to be the standard for the next gen of desktop cpus?

[alvius]

Is socket 2011 going to be the standard for the next gen of desktop cpus?

LGA2011 supports current Sandy Bridge-E and upcoming Ivy Bridge-E CPUs. Btw there will be no >6 core CPUs in Ivy Bridge-E desktop line which is dissapointing.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Int...eak,21781.html

[tricky]

Well, it is built and running. Some clever OC utility comes with the board and automatically ups the settings until it crashes and then uses those settings that 'passed'. It is over clocking by 36% and is stable in Prime95. I think the water cooling helps.

Trying to check that I am seeing 12 buckets dancing around in a DR render, but they move so quick its hard to tell. We did a screen grab and can count only 10 buckets from this new machine. The CPUs 12 cores are flat out when using task manager. What is the best way to check that all cores are working as they should?

[super gnu]

do a slower render


but really, ive never heard of someone not getting all their buckets. if 12 cores show up in task manager, then youll have 12 buckets.

[jacksc02]

up the global subdivs mult to something ridiculous to get a nice slow render

[jacksc02]

Tricky - what motherboard and cooler did you get?

[tricky]

There were 12 buckets. Used a more complex scene and counted them all.

CPU cooler is a corsair h80i and the board is an ASUS P9X79.

[Morne]

What make of 32GB ram did you get and is it 8 X 4GB?