Processor cores and vray

[Smalerbi]

Hello,

I'm upgrading my current work station to a dual Xeon 10 core processor. So if I understand this correctly, that means with hyper-threading on, each processor will put out 20 rendering buckets for a total of 40 buckets. Will this happen or am I under thinking this? When does the point of diminishing return start to take place? They have 16 core processors now so do the math on that. So what do we do, continue to decrease the render region to accommodate the additional cores?

Thanks,

Scott

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Yea thats right. Just make sure ur buckets are proportional to ur render size and just render. Remember however that Even tho u have 10 cores they still slow cores... There is quite few tasks befor and after the render that use 1 core and during work. So as for workstation its debatable if its better to have 20 cores clocked at 2.6 ghz or 6 cores clocked at 4.5 ghz. I find that its better to have fast 4.5 ghz worksation to work on and then use DBR 20 core slave to render test renders... Just my 3 cents.

[lllab]

yes i have a 20 core machine 3.4ghz(i use a "vray renderbox" which we sell) ,it is super fast with vray and you have 40 buckets, vray seem to scale very nice

stefan

[Smalerbi]

Yea thats right. Just make sure ur buckets are proportional to ur render size and just render. Remember however that Even tho u have 10 cores they still slow cores... There is quite few tasks befor and after the render that use 1 core and during work. So as for workstation its debatable if its better to have 20 cores clocked at 2.6 ghz or 6 cores clocked at 4.5 ghz. I find that its better to have fast 4.5 ghz worksation to work on and then use DBR 20 core slave to render test renders... Just my 3 cents.

mmmmm.....that's interesting. I was so wrapped up in the amount of cores I completely forgot about clock speeds. Stefan mentioned his cores are clocked at 3.4 not 2.6 so I'm not sure if he is over clocking the processor. But if he is not then based on that information, it would appear the 10 core machine would be quicker, however, I also need to evaluate the price to performance ratio. 10 core Xeons are going for around $1200 US dollars a pop where the 6 cores are around $500.00. The 10 core machine would not be two times faster then the 6 cores so it's something to think about. Any further thoughts.

Thanks

Scott

[Smalerbi]

Stefan......could you please share what information you have on the "Vray Renderbox"?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

mmmmm.....that's interesting. I was so wrapped up in the amount of cores I completely forgot about clock speeds. lllab mentioned his cores are clocked at 3.4 not 2.6 so I'm not sure if he is over clocking the processor. But if he is not then based on that information, it would appear the 10 core machine would be quicker, however, I also need to evaluate the price to performance ratio. 10 core Xeons are going for around $1200 US dollars a pop where the 6 cores are around $500.00. The 10 core machine would not be two times faster then the 6 cores so it's something to think about. Any further thoughts.

Thanks

Scott

Yup thats the trick

Also the thing with marketing is that people always say the max core speed WITH Turbo Boost enabled. So as you can read lllab has his xeons clocked at 3.4 ghz but are they running 100% at 3.4 all the time? Or thermal specs and Turbo Boost 2 is jumping them between 3.4 and 3.2 etc etc. Its E5-2690V2 are clocked at 3.0ghz and turbo boost to 3.6 and if u read detail specification for this cpu (Which I cant currently ) It usually say that

1 Core turbo boost 3.6
2 cores turbo boost 3.4
4 Corest turbo bost 3.3
all cores turbo boost 3.1 etc etc - thos are imaginary numbers but that how turbo boost usually works.

It really do depend what you will use the machine for. Is it Workstation that artist work on or just render node? If its render node then yea more cores better I would even go for dual 12 core rig if I had the money.

But for workstation u have to ask yourself how much of your programs are well multithreaded and so on. Simply exporting 500 mb proxy on 3.2 ghz xeon could take 5 min and on 4.5 OC i7 could take 3 min and so on. Simply because certain tasks are 1 core and are better performed on 1 cpu. Same with simulations, cloth, water etc etc(some of them are well multithreaded) but its just to remember...

Hope this somehow helps you out...

lllab is not overclocking his xeon YOU CAN NOT overclock E5 xeon cpus

[lllab]

no the machine is not overclocked, it is the normal xeon. but i was wrong it is 3.0ghz, boost is 3.6 though for single threaded operations (XEON E5-2690 v2)
it comes with one or maximal 4 titans

the vray renderbox we produce (with our german partners),if you search for 3dtools.eu you find it. not sure where you are but it is only in europe available.
it is quite faster in render than any other pc i know at least.
(but yes if you use a lot of single threaded it depends what you do and how you work i guess)

[Smalerbi]

Yup thats the trick

Also the thing with marketing is that people always say the max core speed WITH Turbo Boost enabled. So as you can read lllab has his xeons clocked at 3.4 ghz but are they running 100% at 3.4 all the time? Or thermal specs and Turbo Boost 2 is jumping them between 3.4 and 3.2 etc etc. Its E5-2690V2 are clocked at 3.0ghz and turbo boost to 3.6 and if u read detail specification for this cpu (Which I cant currently ) It usually say that

1 Core turbo boost 3.6
2 cores turbo boost 3.4
4 Corest turbo bost 3.3
all cores turbo boost 3.1 etc etc - thos are imaginary numbers but that how turbo boost usually works.

It really do depend what you will use the machine for. Is it Workstation that artist work on or just render node? If its render node then yea more cores better I would even go for dual 12 core rig if I had the money.

But for workstation u have to ask yourself how much of your programs are well multithreaded and so on. Simply exporting 500 mb proxy on 3.2 ghz xeon could take 5 min and on 4.5 OC i7 could take 3 min and so on. Simply because certain tasks are 1 core and are better performed on 1 cpu. Same with simulations, cloth, water etc etc(some of them are well multithreaded) but its just to remember...

Hope this somehow helps you out...

lllab is not overclocking his xeon YOU CAN NOT overclock E5 xeon cpus

Thanks for the information. It will be my own stand alone work station. I will be using the following programs:

Max 2014 / Vray 2 (Primary) with multiple plug-ins
AutoCAD - no rendering, just 2D work
Adobe AE, PS
Fume FX
Ray fire
And I'm thinking about some fluid dynamics as well - not sure what program to go with.

I also realize the above programs and plug-ins will require a robust video card so I'm leaning towards the NVIDIA K5000

With above information, perhaps someone could recommend which processor may be best.

thanks.

Scott

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

By my eye you have lots of single to few threads usage here. I would go for 1 powerful OC single CPU workstation + render node. Whats ur budged where u live?

[Smalerbi]

By my eye you have lots of single to few threads usage here. I would go for 1 powerful OC single CPU workstation + render node. Whats ur budged where u live?

Yea....unfortunately, I do not have the budget for a new workstation and a powerful rendering node. I do have 5 blade rendering nodes but the processors are a bit dated, Duo core. I use them from time to time for DR with the current workstation and simple animations. I will upgrade them at some point, just not now. All the heavy animation, I farm out. So my workstation needs to be a good all around work horse. So the question is, keeping the price to performance ratio in mind........dual 6 core or 10?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

U cant have dual 6 core. Only single core. But for the price of 10 core u can have few 6 cores...1 workstation+few slaves for DBR... It all has its + and - unfortunately...

[Donald2B]

I'm with DADAL on this one. You don't really have much on there that will fully benefit from a LOT of cores outside of rendering. You will be much better served with a fast 6 core and then if you need additional rendering power, just build another one, replacing the video card with something VERY cheap.

I also would probably suggest you go with a GTX 760Ti video card...will save you TONS of money! Unless you are working on some crazy engineering data, you won't notice much difference between the two. Use that savings to build another computer to supplement rendering if needed.

In this scenario, you will be MUCH better performance in almost all of those programs, since they are heavily single threaded (Outside of rendering). So daily work will be much faster. Just trying to save you some cash and get a machine better suited to what you will be working on.

[Smalerbi]

I also would probably suggest you go with a GTX 760Ti video card...will save you TONS of money! Unless you are working on some crazy engineering data, you won't notice much difference between the two. Use that savings to build another computer to supplement rendering if needed.


Thanks Troy for the information. Interesting choice on the video cards. The GTX 780 is primarily a gaming card. I would be a bit concerned if it had the proper and stable performance drivers for Max. Do you have any hands on experience with this card?

Thanks,

Scott

[joconnell]

I worked with a lot of fluid sim artists recently and they said that data transfer between two CPUs really slows sims so a dual CPU machine won't mean twice the speed of a single CPU version, they're all going for the fastest single CPU they can get. Rendering is a different story of course but for a sim machine, single CPU is way better value.

[jpmartin]

Interesting choice on the video cards. The GTX 780 is primarily a gaming card. I would be a bit concerned if it had the proper and stable performance drivers for Max. Do you have any hands on experience with this card?

Thanks,

Scott

I had 3 generations of quadro cards and finally switched over to a titan, which is more of a gamer card. The titan has been rock solid - as good or better than any of the mid-range quadro cards I had