i7 Processors..any good ?

[stevesideas]

huh? you mean by having just 4 cores instead of "8" it is faster?

The I7 is only 4 cores...hyperthreading just handles the data differently...doesnt it ?!

[stevesideas]

I have my i7920 running at 4.0Ghz stable with air cooling system (1795 RPM).
my tests with prime95, I got 71C for CPU and 68-70C for cores

Are there any tutorials you followed to overclock your cpu ?

[Spikeadeliv]

i7

Bought one recently for £1100 ready made as I couldn't source stuff to build my own any cheaper, i7 920, 6 gig mem, cheapish card, but it is awesomely fast without overclocking, approx ⅔ sometimes ¾ the speed of my work HP dual 2.6 Xeon (quad core each) which cost £3500.
Being an Asus board it comes with oodles of O/C'ing applications, maybe not the ultimate but it works.

laters

spike

[flino2004]

I followed this article
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...-core-i7-920/1

this was my first OC, I found this article and they are using the same memory speed that i have.

if you have ASUS MoBo

"We found that enabling the HPET (High Performance Event Timer), or as Asus label it, APCI 2, is critical for keeping the clocks on Core i7 CPUs accurate. Without it turned on, the multiplier jumps around crazily if we watch CPU-Z, but with it on, the multiplier reading is solid and the clock frequency only jitters very slightly according to fractional variations in the base clock"

APCI 2 is under power (bios) some people that overclocked their i7 couldn't find this option.

happy OC

[posterus]

we did some tests awhile back on the 920 and found some interesting results if anyone is interested. http://blog.renderstream.com/?p=92

[Morne]

we did some tests awhile back on the 920 and found some interesting results if anyone is interested. http://blog.renderstream.com/?p=92

Yes it is this test I was thinking about which shows it is faster with hyperthreading on. Which is why I was suprised another user says the other way around.

[Morbid Angel]

any benchmarks to see how those i7s holding up with the amd phenom 2?

[beestee]

any benchmarks to see how those i7s holding up with the amd phenom 2?

It compares more closely to the Core 2 Quad Q6600 it seems.

http://randomcontrol.com/index.php?o...=140&benchid=1

The real question is how much would it cost to build a Phenom II render node. Since you are looking at ~$1k US for an i7 node, it would need to cost well under $800 to recoup the ~20% loss in performance.

[RE:FORM_STUDIOS]

CPU: DualXeon QuadCore E5440 2.83Ghz@3.25Ghz
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't realise the xeons were overclockable.

Still, even with them overclocked the i7 is better bang for buck.

[posterus]

in case it hasn't already been mentioned is a good reference for 3ds max cpu comparisions: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2...2009,1380.html

thats a good point bestee. another thing to consider that i think some people overlook is power consumption. the i7 is also very energy efficient. for example our high end render farm system has fourteen dual quad core blades in a 7U box. we also have a phenom 945 based render node. the phenom node draws 400 watts. the entire 14 dual quad core 7U box draws 1400 watts.

it will take 34.4 of the phenom nodes to equal the computational power of the 7U system. in other words, if you run the 7U system for 12 hours a day and assume 28 cents/kilowatt hour, you will spend about $141 to operate that system.

in contrast, if you run the 34.4 of the phenom nodes over the same time at the same rate you will spend about $1,390 to operate them.

this doesn't mean that the phenom node is a bad option. it just means that building a system like this is only cost effective up to X number of nodes. maybe 4-5 nodes i'd say. it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your farm.

-joe

[jonahhawk]

Looks like OC 920 is about the same as our Dual 5520s without HT.


AUTHOR: moi

MACHINE: Dell T5500

Software: 3ds max 2009 - 64bit

Renderer: VRay 1.5 SP3

RAM: 24 GB

CPU TEMP : --

CPU THREAD : 8

CPU: Dual Xeon Nehalem E5520 2.27 Ghz HT OFF

RENDETIME: 16m 53sec



Same machine with HT ON

RENDETIME: 13m 15sec

[stevesideas]

Ok, this is strange. I just happened to turn off hyperthreading in the bios as I read somewhere that Arma 2 runs better. So I thought I'd try it for rendering too and have some suprising results.

I have a 940 on my main comp and i920's on my render nodes. On a particular scene I am rendering at the moment, using irr map and brute force, the i920's are both in at around the 2 minute mark, but the 940 is about 41 seconds...what the hell!!

[werticus]

you probably have the lc set to 4 passes not 8?

[stevesideas]

I have always had my passes set to 12. My other render nodes still have hyperthreading on which splits each core into 2 threads.

[werticus]

I have my i7's running at 3.8ghz on air cooling, they are not even hot, and only require a small voltage increase to get this speed? I've just read some earlier posts saying 4ghz required water cooling? Maybe that is an old stepping?