XEON vs. i7 again - TESTING INTERIOR SCENE

[glorybound]

I'll have to look into it.

[Morbid Angel]

Yours is 2 seconds faster!
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Are you running NUMA?

I haven't looked in the bios yet, fresh system just got it a few days ago. Its damn fast though, at least twice to three times faster then my old xeon x5650. In small renders i have to run two deadline slaves on it and it performs worse on fast renders (waiting for few buckets), but running two slaves at once makes that performance go back up.

On large scene what I had rendering (ocean) for 1 hour on xeon x5650, turned to be 21 min.

I'm surprised it overclocks the cpu to 3.3 ghz! during rendering that's impressive.

[Morbid Angel]

However, isn't that a $2500 processor?

Well, it was a $2500 x2 cpu's, but in CAD for me, so it might be cheaper in USD. I still think the new i7's are better bang for buck cause they run at much higher clock and only one very fast cpu makes your day to day tasks that much faster.

With that said, DDR4 ram and 9 Gt/s is super!

[JezUK]

New build over the weekend.

i7-5960x OC
32Gb Ram
M2 SSD
Quadro K4200

3DS Max 2016
V-Ray 3.20.

Embree ON

1m 35.4sec

[Morbid Angel]

New build over the weekend.

i7-5960x OC
32Gb Ram
M2 SSD
Quadro K4200

3DS Max 2016
V-Ray 3.20.

Embree ON

1m 35.4sec

very nice! If only they would allow for two of those monsters in one board!

[JezUK]

very nice! If only they would allow for two of those monsters in one board!

Yeah, and the price is just amazing - I might build myself a second as a render box - with a price point of around £1500 I think I can do that.

I have a bit of time today so will stress test this evening with a recent production render that took my previous machine (i7 4930) 1hr 30mins.

[Morbid Angel]

if you could seat two of them on a single board then xeons would be kinda put at a disadvantage, that's probably why intel wont allow for it. I mean my single xeon cpu was $2500, and this one is $1000 but it performs as nearly two xeon cpus. Ugh!

[JezUK]

Oh man, I'm in heaven !

I've got two K4200's in this machine and setting one to take care of monitors while the other purely does RT is just something I've never experienced - truly amazing Went straight to CarPaint Material to figure that sucker out !

[JezUK]

if you could seat two of them on a single board then xeons would be kinda put at a disadvantage, that's probably why intel wont allow for it. I mean my single xeon cpu was $2500, and this one is $1000 but it performs as nearly two xeon cpus. Ugh!

Oh yeah for sure - many moons ago I used to use only dual xeon, but nowadays, when it comes to pulling the trigger on a new machine purchase, I just can't justify it in my position. Two i7's, yes, but not a dual Xeon. The figures simply don't stack up for me (though, no doubt do for many others).

[valvevanguard]

Time: 1 min 19,4s
Dell T7610 Dual E5-2680v2
VRAY 3.10.03
Max 2016
win: 7

[Streetwise]

WOAH!!. I SERIOUSLY need to think about a new workstation...

Time: 11 min 47s
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (6-core, 6-Thread) @3.20Ghz
16GB RAM
GTX-470
VRAY 2.4
Max 2014
win: 7
bitmap paging OFF

Light Cache build: 2:07
3 Prepasses: 1:14

Three Warnings:
- Subpixel color mapping is on: rendered result may have incorrect brightness.
- Camera matrix is not orthonomal and 'Max-compatible ShadeContext' is ON
- Standard materials and lights may shade incorrectly

So if I have about $1500 - $2K to play with, What are some good options?
Xeon? i7?

[3LP]

Best deal is 5960x OC at around 4GHtz

Would be around 10 times faster than your current WS

Stan

[Streetwise]

Oh man, I'm in heaven !

I've got two K4200's in this machine and setting one to take care of monitors while the other purely does RT is just something I've never experienced - truly amazing Went straight to CarPaint Material to figure that sucker out !

So how does one tell VRay to use the second card in the machine? Also, is the K4200 similar to the GTX980? Could one use two GTX780's in the same manner (one for monitors, one for RT)? I'm trying to figure out how best to utilize GPU power. I mainly do 5K stills for print, but on occasion, I'll do HD animations. I have a GTX470 now, but the viewports will hang as I scrub the timeline. It seems fine for still though. But then again, the RT thing sounds really slick, especially with playing with lighting.

[Streetwise]

Best deal is 5960x OC at around 4GHtz

Would be around 10 times faster than your current WS

Stan

Agreed. Of the 40 or so responses, I made a spreadsheet to try to figure out a few things including cost per core. Looks like slightly more than half prefer Xeon's in their work. However, the i7-5960, overclocked, looks like that's the best value. I think I'm going to go that route. I'm also thinking about building another node or two that use the X5670. Older technology, but looks like those things scream just as well as the 5960.

[3LP]

Yep
A quick spreadsheet I've done tree months ago and for those who are interested to know what is the best performance/price ratio (Prices are in AUD$) :





The x5650 and x5680 where refurbished nodes so they where more attractive.

Stan