Computer Specs

[simmsimaging]

really?

could you link some review? I'm starting to evaluate some hw upgrade, as well

The 10% is what I took from the benchwell.com site linked before. Have a look through the various times/test rigs and you can work out the relative differences in quite a few setups. Just keep an eye on the clock speed or the far right column to be sure it's not an over-clocked system you are comparing.

That difference was for the Xeon chip I was quoting for, and is not reflective of all Xeon chips - just the one that was in my budget range.

Rest of the stuff I read I just googled, I didn't keep track of it though.

b

[stevesideas]

Little worried. I was on the understanding that the i7920 cpus were outperforming the dual xeon 5355's. I have just ordered 10 of these i7920 machines with 6gb in each. I hope im not dissapointed !! :

Also, is 16gb really necessary....i think you're just showing off !

[zeronove]

mmmh, maybe a bit of confusion is growing here

Is there anyone stating that an i7 (actually only single socket 'till the end of 2009) is faster than a dual xeon config at same clock speed? that means 4 cores faster than 8 cores!? If yes, I'm very interesed to read something about that, please suggest me some links to support that

[RErender]

pretty close

[zeronove]

wow, it sounds good, maybe I have to give it a deeper look thanks

but from this benchmark the results seem to be quite different

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

maybe some lucky i7 owner could say something more about that

[RErender]

Still pretty close in that benchmark, I think the difference with the Maxwell benchies could be attributed to that rendering does a lot of memory swapping where the i7 really excels.

[zeronove]

maybe I missed something but
...to me they seem still quite different

[MoonDoggie]

The performance that I've seen is pretty close as RErender said on that maxwell benchmark. My argument would be the i7's with triple channel DD3 memory will perform faster in some cases because of the increased memory bandwidth. Please note: this is not founded on solid evidence, but with the faster memory bandwidth vrayproxies should load faster as well as the entire scene pre-render calcs while clocking slower on the actual render.

This is just methodology and is not backed-up. Though I hope someone will find a page that supports my argument Also, once you find a website substantiating my argument please feel free to use the phrase "MoonDoggie is a genius" liberally.

-Colin
Keep it coming, I'm upgrading soon.

[zeronove]

will perform faster in some cases

now it seems to me more convincing

[MoonDoggie]

Is PassMark software synthetic? I've never used it. A benchmark scene would be appropriate and we can do our own testing, I have a Xeon E5440 here at work with 8gb of ram I'd be happy to compare with, if we can find an i7 and a newer one.

[beestee]

I'm convinced by what I have seen so far. I have started ordering parts to build an i7 920 machine for home. Will probably have it complete within a few months. Keeping my eyes open for good deals as I go.

My computer at home is probably 7 or more years old now

[MoonDoggie]

oh my! I'm running a core2duo e6600 at home and it's certainly get old (albeit only 2 years).

[simmsimaging]

I might be able to tell you if I could get the damn things to find a Vray license!

4 i7 920's rolled in today and I cant get them to work with Dr or BB yet! Frustrating.

b

[rmejia]

i7 vs Xeon

Is there any new benchmark scene available? Apart from the old scene done back in 06'. Anyhow I too am very curious about the render time on those i7, price wise they are way more attractive compared to the Xeons My octa core MacPro is rendering the benchmark scene in 1:05, let's see what those i7 920's can do

Old Benchmark scene

[simmsimaging]

Preliminary test:

Scene is just a quick one made up but....

Dual Xeon 5355 8GB RAM: 8:26 (minutes)

Then added in the new i7 920 12GB RAM nodes, adding one at a time:


+1: 4:35
+2: 3:07
+3: 2:24
+4: 1:59

(Then with my Q6600 and an older 4 core Opteron system as well: 1:42)

b