Processors I7 vs Dual Xeon, and GPU Configurations

[Skgator]

I'm sure this topic has been posted and talked about considerably in the past, however looking back through some of the previous threads I was unable to locate what I was looking for. My firm is getting ready to build a new computer for rendering purposes. I have a $5000 - $7000 budget for this build, and am curious to get feedback from the group regarding which is better the I7v3 or dual Xeon processors, and why? Likewise would love to hear recommendations on what you would suggest for this build, inclusions, omissions, GPU, etc... We have multiple slave systems ( in house that all run the I7, and we use these systems for distributed rendering, so our render times are fairly quick. My goal is to build this unit to be fast on the up-front calculations and still use distributed rendering for overall faster render times. Likewise I want to build this computer to last, keeping in mind Vray is always evolving, which is why i'm also interested in your suggestions for GPU's. We all currently use GTX 780ti's, but i'm under the impression that we may want to consider switching to a workstation GPU for this unit.

Thanks for your help, idea's, etc.

[Skgator]

Wow, no one wants to chime in????

[Morbid Angel]

If you used i7 before I'd say stay with i7. I have both i7 and xeons but I tend to roll towards xeons more as they have more cores and come in dual cpu configs where as i7 do not. You'd have to overclock i7 to match the dual xeon speed if you want to spend the time doing that.

If its a system for rendering, you probably don't need a high end graphics card that will save you some money. I'd suggest to look at the cpu stats for the i7 you are looking to buy and compare it to the most fastest cpu on the market from xeon 2697v2 - a dual cpu with that config will yield 24 physical cores and 48 logical - not something that i7 can match but its way more expensive.

For any gpu info its best to read the gpu forum. What I would say is what has been true for last few years - gpu is the future but its not quite here. People are trying to use the gpu today and have some success. However don't expect it to work as its ever changing ever evolving nature by design (from nvidia) makes render engines stability very easily breakable - one driver it works next driver it doesn't. Some years from now it will be more stable, but not now.

[Skgator]

Thanks for the response.

This workstation will be a dedicated rendering machine, so speed is important, hence the Xeon's. I agree with the GPU not being an issue.

[Morbid Angel]

I had a look after I posted, and they have an even faster cpu here:

http://ark.intel.com/products/81059/...02.60%20GHz%29

The good thing about single powerful machine is that you have more room to be cost effective even though the upfront cost to build the machine is high, for example you only need one windows license, only one set of ram, psu etc if you were to go with few i7 machines that price would add up. In terms of performance, i7 is a better workstation with higher ghz, but xeon is a better render with more cores (bottom line for me)

I've been on a xeon for a very long time and can say that they are very solid machines (typically go with supermicro) or recently I bought a few refurbished dell precision workstations - also good but way overpriced if you were to build one from scartch because they put quadro cards in there (which is just a ripoff imo)

With the gpu I look at it like the cpu right now (in the future), yesterday they have titan, today titan z, tomorrow something else if you commit $10k usd to buy some sick render power with gpu 1 year from now it will be so outdated its money down the drain. I need gpu to last me at least 3 years this is how I have it with cpu - one system I build nearly 6 years ago still performs very well today.