Workstation Question

[leehumphries]

Although there has been many posts on this. I could do with a bit of info.

I am about to spend max ?8k on a machine, i have been using a fairly old 12 core machine for a few years now and slowly becoming troublesome with complex scenes.

My question for advice would be spend ?8k on a dual xeon E5 2697 v4 with 128 gb 1080ti etc which gives me 72 buckets or get 2 i9 7980XE with same spec.

My worry is having the one machine again and when rendering your limited 2 turning off cores to carry on working. I also do Phoenix sims so single core is better an when rendering complex scenes i could distribute the i9s together for the same amount of buckets.

Advice appreciated - thanks

[Morbid Angel]

I went from i7 to xeon long time ago and never looked back. yes i9 is fast, yes its cheaper, but there are two xeons on the board and only one i9, at this point I think xeon while slower at some operations, over all (over time) is faster. During my last upgrade I went from dual xeon x5650 12 core to dual e5-2680v3 and 128 gb of ram, very happy with the system to date. If you want, you don't have to go 2697 as they are expensive, get a 2680, and for the difference you can build a second i9 with lesser ram which you can run sims on, it will allow you to work on main workstation while sim is running. New phoenix I fix uses a lot of threads, its tough for me to work even on a 48 thread systm.

[JezUK]

Just curious, why not Threadripper ?

Xeons are of course good, but at a premium. I personally prefer i9's (or the new Threadripper) as their boards can usually support more double-width GPUs than a Xeon's (mine can support 7 gpus) - I'm not aware of any Xeon that can hold that many.

Plus of course you can overclock them (one-button click if you prefer).

All depends on your workflow, clients, deadlines, confidence in self-build etc - but a Xeon wouldn't be my first choice (btw, I've used both).

Threadripper would be my first choice.

[Companioncube]

just my opinion. getting 2 systems with overclocked 1950x threadripper or i9-7940X (no need for i9-7980XE) will be equal speed to the dual E5 2697 v4 system and much better single threaded performance if that is important to you.

but you'll need an additional license for the 2nd machine, 2 systems will use more electricity and you get ECC memory in the xeon system which should mean more stability.

[danio]

just my opinion. getting 2 systems with overclocked 1950x threadripper or i9-7940X (no need for i9-7980XE) will be equal speed to the dual E5 2697 v4 system and much better single threaded performance if that is important to you.

but you'll need an additional license for the 2nd machine, 2 systems will use more electricity and you get ECC memory in the xeon system which should mean more stability.

I believe threadripper supports ECC. I recently built a threadripper system to replace my dual xeon system and I love it. Fast and quiet. OC?ed to 3.9ghz without even trying hard, gonna leave it there. IPR is very responsive.

[leehumphries]

Thanks for all the info guys - went with 2697v4 had a certain budget and max?d It out
it?ll be a little better than a 12core i7 anyway

[Morbid Angel]

good choice! did you go with single or dual cpu?

[leehumphries]

Dual CPU 128gb ram 2SSD and Optane drive.
You mentioned something about new Phoenix fix helps with multiple cores - can you explain a bit more. I was always lead to believe dual chips always slowed things down

[Morbid Angel]

as far as I understand its quite complex to split the sim between the cores, I just go by observation, when I'm simming with phoenix at times its 80% and often 100% of the cpus loaded, so that's imho good utilization.