AMD Phenom or i7 ?

[lukx]

Does anyone have new 6 core Phenom? Is it worth to go AMD route this time around ? or still Intel ...

And if with intel . Is it worth to buy 970 without Turbo Boost, or better to invest into 980 with TB.

Also what mainboard would you recommend for i7 970. I'm Asus guy but there's so many of them that my head is spinning (was thinking about Asus P6T7 WS SuperComputer
Asus P6T7 WS SuperComputer). Also EVGA Classified Super Record 2 (SR-2) looks tempting ...
I'm not into OC ! It's already very hot where I live so I got to keep heat under control.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

If u want EVGA SR2 then u need xeon.

From other hand what is it for ?
Workstation or slave
If slave I would say ... 2600k intel & oc to 5ghz.

[lukx]

workstation

[add101]

I've also been looking into some of the new AMD cpu's. I used to use AMD, but i've been going for intel machines lately.
Could be worthwhile writing a list of the 3ds max performance chart from Tom's hardware. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/d...2010,2420.html and prices you can get hardware at.
Benchmark is based on a Mental Ray benchmark, but ratios should be relatively similar- tests the usage of all the cores- some benches like passmark are more of a generic score and don't highlight multicore performance at the max.

If you do get the 2600k just be aware of the chipset issue/recall. There is a thread about Sandybrige chipset on hardware forum. Apparently it's ok if you use Sata 6gb/s drives and new chipset should be released by intel by April (or so).
The AMD Phenom II x6 1100T is pretty close to the 2700K 192 seconds for the 1090 vs. 181 seconds for the 2600K.

I think my next machine (as a workstation, then renderslave after next upgrade...) will be an x6 1075 or 1055 , and quite a basic board (the cheapest one that can support PCI Express 2.0). Differences in boards also confuse me a bit. Nice to have some space to fill up RAM Some of the more expensive boards are more geared to overclocking.

For a workstation the 970 or 980 look a good option, but for renderslaves/multiple computers the price to performance ratio might be better with a machine slightly lower on the chart, depending on prices where you are.

By the way- is anyone else having problems accessing new www.3dspeedmachine.com website?

[lukx]

this is nice performance chart on tomssuckware

[Morne]

Haven't used AMD since 486's was around. Intel since Pentium and never looked backed. About 5 years ago there was a brief moment where AMD was better than Intel, but then I blinked and that moment was gone. If you're not into overclocking, I would just get an Intel board together with Intel CPU. I'm looking into getting either some Xeons for a change, otherwise if my budget doesn't allow it, I'll go for i7 980 or maybe the 2600 not sure yet. But for sure I'll get 2 X solid state drives. I currently have an i7 920 and I wait forever for the drive to do it's thing (2 SATA2 drives Raid0).
Looking into the new ATI top line ames card. Quadro's are just too expensive for not that much extra performance (apparently that is different in Max 2012 however)

[cecofuli]

This is my suggestion

I7 970 @ 4200 = 25.2 GHz with one CPU!!! with good thermalright cooler (25x168 vcore= 1.35-1.36 - 75°C)
24 GB RAM (6x4GB) 9-9-924 Corsair
One 560 with 2 GB RAM (ore two if you use a RT)
One SSD F120 Corsair
MB: Gygabyet UD5 7 or 9 are good

The PC is VERY fast, not to much expensive.

The difference cost from 970 (440 euro) and 980 (785 euro) is too much high and you can overclock the 970 very well.

But I think the nex SB LGA2011 will be a very good CPU (8 core and 16 threads)

Or waiting the new Buldozer and see how works

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Nice rig, id only go with 2x ssd in raid to 2x more speed

[super gnu]

id defo go with the i7 if its for your workstation.. the phenoms are good bang for the buck but afaik they dont really compete with the i7 very well. regarding overclocking and temperature, you might be pleassantly surprised how easy and painless it is, and temps on the i7 have never really been a problem for me.. was hot to begin with but oc'ing my 920 from 2.6 up to 4.2 increased my rendering temps from 50 odd degrees up to 60.. still well within the limits of the chip. its almost rude not to when its so easy to get extra performance.... you can come close to a dual xeon costing twice the money with half an hours fiddling. ymmv but ive had no stability issues whatsoever.

you just have to decide how much to oc really.. a little tweak is always worth it, and unless you live in the sahara i dont think ambient temps will cause you an issue.


regarding the ssd suggestion i cant recommend them enough. i have 2x corsair p128's in raid 0 for software and system (plus some space for my current live job if i really need the speed.. video editing etc..) .. cost 500 quid for the pair when i got em - must be more than a year ago now... probably things are cheaper and faster now, is the way these things go.

i have the pair backed up to a pair of mirrored 1tb hdd's for security, these also double up as my work drive. firing up the machine for the first time was a revelation.. the ssd's make so much more difference to the experience than the faster processor.

win 7 boots in about 12 seconds, and max is on the screen a couple of seconds after clicking on it. cant remember the last time i had to wait while the hard drive crunched, and as for video editing.. full uncompressed hd, 4 streams, smooth as butter.

think what im trying to say, is 500 quid for a hard drive sounds a lot, but id actually get a cheaper processor and gpu to be able to afford it.

[lukx]

Regarding SSD drives... aren't yo guys worried about their reliability ? It's quite fresh product and there are no tests so far regarding this important aspect of hard drive.

[MoonDoggie]

I have one of the first SSD's on the market the M-25 by intel, 120gb. Works great, no problems to report at all. I'd argue they're way more reliable than moving parts drives.

[super gnu]

since im running mine in raid 0 i thought whatever the reliability is, its better to back up to another drive anyway.. but ive had no problems with mine apart from performance degradation over time, after 6 months they are getting a bit slow ( still waaaaay faster than normal hard drive), but a thorough clean and restore from backup fixes em for another 6 months.. considering how many mechanical hard drives ive had crap out on me over the years these are already doing ok..

[dmf-123]

This thread convinced me. Just ordered an 120gb Intel SSD. My only problem is now I can't wait for it to get here ...(but then again, if I was patient, I wouldn't want one anyways )

[super gnu]

nice one, i dont think youll be dissapointed. i dont know how the intel ones are with performance degradation over time.. i know they are great in most respects (and quite costy but the problem (with my one at least) is that its very fast to write bits to the drive, but it must delete them before overwriting, (unlike normal hdd's) and deleting is slow. this means after a while, when its been filled and had stuff deleted a few times, it has to do these bit "resets" more often as their arent many unused bits left. this slows it down.

afaik modern ones have a fix for this in firmware, but on mine (and other older models) you have do fiddle around with a dos program called hdderase. this resets all the bits to 0 (a format wont do that) and restores factory speed.

its not such a big deal.. as i said i do it every 6 months or so... but then i normally clean my workstation that often anyway, this adds 15 mins to that process.

[lukx]

Yeah I did some reading and it appears the best ones are with SandForce controller. It keeps this whole performance degradation in check. So mentioned CORSAIR got very good reviews. I I had money for it I would get one for sure.