Opteron Problems

[RE:FORM_STUDIOS]

I've been told from a number of sources that max struggles when it comes to working with dual-core opterons. There are, apparently, some weird random problems that cause max to take ages to load, for cpu's to lock at 100% when doing nothing, and for cpu's to not be fully utilised when rendering...
I hope its not a common problem! What's everyone's experiences here with Vray?

I'm planning on getting a new machine, either dual 252 or dual 265. I know the 265's will be slower in viewport speeds, but I'm not sure whether it will be noticeably slower. I also know that the 265's should be alot faster while rendering (if we assume a processing power of 1.8*4 vs 2.6*2 (ie a hypothetical 38% advantage when rendering with the 265s if fully utilised by the renderer)

Are there any 265 owners out there running vray? What are your experiences?

Can everyone with opterons list any problems they might have had?

Check out this thread for more details of the issues I am talking about, apparently alot of people might not even be aware that their system isn't firing on all cylinders! (there's also links to plenty nice cpu comparisons)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...5&page=1&pp=15

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this as I've not had much joy hearing from vray users on cgtalk or from my PC suppliers about vray's efficiency with quad core systems.

[vergefio]

Hi, i've both here, intel xeon (3,6) and opteron system (275), no matter what i do, amd is the best on everything, no faults and no problems at all with max and vray, and really incredibly fast...

[Clifton Santiago]

I just got a dual dual-core opteron, but I forget the processor spec and I don't have it in front of me now.

It renders 3-4 times faster than either of my old dual 2.2 Xeons. I've been cranking out renderings on it and not had a problem at all.

In fact, we are so impressed we are considering getting a blade server/render node setup based on either single or dual-core AMD's.

[RE:FORM_STUDIOS]

Nice one guys.

Think I'm finally coming round to a decision.... getting the 265's... then I can upgrade to a faster dual core when the 280's drop in price over the year, and I'll have a nice pair of 265's to stick in a render node when I upgrade.

Just one issue left... will be running winxp until win64 gets better support... so I will only be able to address 3Gb... which means the NUMA architecture will restrict direct addressing for 2 cores to 1/2 gig each.

Would it be better to get the 4Gb now, in advance of upgrading to win64?

will running 3Gb in winxp hit the performance much? This area is a bit confusing to me so any advice would be appreciated.

[jacksc02]

i would reccomend getting winxp 64 now rather than later.
I recently got 3 amd dual core 64bit render nodes with 4gb of ram and they render anything! My dual xeon 3.4 doesnt like rendering large scenes.

[Clifton Santiago]

Okay, my new machine has dualie 280 Opterons. Supposedly clocking at 2.4 Ghz per core, but it seems faster in comparison to xeons.

Yeah, I think we might need to go to winxp 64. I have 4 gb in this thing, but XP (w/ 3Gb switch enagled) only recognizes 2.87 Gb of physical memory.

[Infrared digital]

We just got a dual 265 Opteron dual core with 4GB ram - it handles max and VRay very well. The operating system is XP64, there are some interesting times with this but generally it breezes through renders and can handle large scenes exceptionally well.

Costs but, worth the investment.

n

[meanadam]

Right - most important - AMD uses less memory when rendering so your scene is less likely to crash out on the memory limits. This alone is reason enough to drop the xeons, but if you need another.... I just discovered the bit about no onboard jumpers - and the chip speed being controlled by the bios. So in the long run - upgrades will cost a lot less, and be less headache as you don’t have to rebuild the entire machine.

[TRGraphics]

I'm currently running an amd x2 4200 on my main machine. Should I expect a descent increase in speed with the opteron 265 over that? I may even go dual 265 if the speed and file handeling is that much better. Thanks

Tony

[sjmoir]

I read the cgtalk thread you posted and it all sounded quite scary. However, I have to say we have run a dual opteron for two months with vray (arch viz) and we love it, very quick. Just ordered two more from Armari (great systems, slightly disappointing delivery times though).

[pshupe68]

Tony - I have been looking into that exact question and it looks like for the jump in money your better off going with the AMD Athlon X2 4600 over a dual Opteron 275. - they bench mark about the same but the price difference, I think, still waiting on quote, is substantial. The Athlon 4600 kills the dual 248 in the testing.

Check out the Autodesk Forum under hardware, my post entitled - "What do you think?" or any of Matt Stachoni's posts may shed some light.

I think people are just normally programmed to think dual dual dual for any heavy render rigs. I have a dual Xeon and wondering about differences with my new AMD X2 4600, should be interesting.

Regards Peter.