We are currently looking into buying a new system. This is my currect system:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40GHz, # of logical cores: 32
Quadro K4200 4096MB
NVIDIA driver version: 384.76
Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Vray Benchmark (CPU): 01:13.530
The work I do is arch viz stills, with sometimes an animation. The exterior scenes are pretty heavy most of the time, with lots of grass/trees and other objects. I do mostly CPU rendering, with a VRAY RT for previews (if the scenes aren’t to heavy.). Recently I’ve had some scenes crashing when rendering (CPU rendering, not RT) wich might caused by my 32GB RAM limitation.
Due to contracts the IT department prefers buying a HP setup (so no self configuration).
The two main questions I have are:
What’s more important, more cores at a lower MHz or fewer cores with higher MHz.
Will upgrading to a NVIDIA Quadro P5000 benefit for me (compared to a P4000).
And is switching to AMD Threadtripper so much cheaper/more bang-for-bucks that it’s worth mentioning our IT department so that they might consider buying a different system than HP)?
If some of you have more tips or advice, that’s much appreciated.
For a workstation I’d go with higher clock speed on your processor. Some tasks just use one core and with 2.4GHz it will take a while.
Threadrippers are too new for me to give a solid recommendation on what’s best but I have three and they’re fast. Guess the advantage of HP is you can call their technical support. I’ve had issues with RAM and I was left being the IT guy. I can share what I’ve learnt if you decide to go that route.
As DPS mentioned, it’s better to have fewer but higher clocked cores than more slower cores. It goes without saying that multi-thread speed will be a bit better with Threadripper, about 20%, but single/dual core operations will execute faster too and your system will be overall snappier. If you can wait a couple of months or so, maybe it’s better to see what Threadripper 2 (2950X) will offer before you decide. If we judge by the newly released Ryzen 7, TR 2950X should be about 10% faster than TR 1950X. Or you could buy an even cheaper 1950X. All in all, I’ve been extremely happy with my Threadripper system. So far not a single problem with it.
I think you can argue both sides. At least, I have read just the opposite more often than not. My understanding has always been the more cores the better.
Sure, more cores are always better but only if that particular CPU as a whole is faster than the lower but faster core counterpart. Or maybe I’m missing something?
When I was rebuilding the consensus was more cores. I would have gone with less but faster, but that’s not what most said would be the best way to go. I don’t know, maybe that has changed.