STRAT Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 until software is optomised to run on opterons you wont be getting the opteron advantage. so i'd wait, or save money and get the xeons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doimus Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 Well, since I believe that software should dictate the hardware decisions, I would advise to go with Xeons... Most of the 3d viz software is heavily Intel-biased and optimised. Anyway, AMD 64-bit technology is fairly new and still has some bugs to be fixed and some standards to settle down, while xeons are "older" and proven technology. But, as with anything with computers, things could look much different in a year or so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted January 8, 2004 Share Posted January 8, 2004 hello all I need to make a decision and now ,i can afford either a dual opteron 240 or dual xeon 2.4 ,,, please which is going to be good for a 3dmaxer/vray for arch vizing .......... please pretty please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 9, 2004 Share Posted January 9, 2004 My recommendations right now... If your using vray, brazil, fr, mental ray...Xeon's or P4's with HT. If your using Maya, anything Athlon FX or Opteron. I think I'm swappin XSI to FX/Opteron now as well. The race between P4's and FX/Opterons in lightwave is unbelievably close now as well. Since the opterons/fx's now include SSE2...the P4/Xeon's are no longer utterly dominating. Just because something doesn't have "optimizations" yet doesn't mean its not fast. Just means its got alot of room to grow. Of special note here is the performance difference between an Athlon XP and an Athlon 64. The performance difference is incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted January 9, 2004 Share Posted January 9, 2004 Cebas claims that Final Render has been made to take advantage of the 64 bit, so would you still recommend getting the Xeon's over the Opteron's? Is there any news of Intel making a chip that will compete directly with the Opteron (at 64 bit and price wise)? Or are the resting on their reputation and just staying with the Xeon's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted January 9, 2004 Author Share Posted January 9, 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1001_3-225585.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 12, 2004 Share Posted January 12, 2004 Intel's already late with the consumer 64 bit. I'm sticking behind AMD. By the time Intel's solution meets the mass market, AMD's will have been out over a year ahead of time. Just think whats going to happen when the Retail Version of Windows XP 64 is released... Think dell is just going to sit their and let their competitors release 64 bit computers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted January 12, 2004 Share Posted January 12, 2004 Greg, Do you think their claim is accurate? As I understood it, there is not any software (for our profession, anyway) that really runs at 64 bit. Am I mistaken? Just wondering because if it really does utilize the 64 bit techology, I'd assume that the AMD's would kill the Xeons with fR (which I use and will hope to get a new system in the next 6 months). " Intel 64-bit chip gets venture fund Last modified: May 10, 1999 " Ouch!! That was a while ago!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 12, 2004 Share Posted January 12, 2004 Do you think their claim is accurate? Whose claim? Not really sure about your question. Basically the 64 bit processors (AMD FX, 64, and Opteron) are capable of not only 64 bit, but 32 bit as well. They're FASTER then athlon XP/MP/Barton in 32 bit operations. So just off the bat, these are hella fast chips, whether 64 bit is even on the menu or not. The advantage of AMD's processors is that they can DO 64 bit. This means even if you buy now, you'll still be able to make the move to 64 bit programs and operating systems without changing hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted January 12, 2004 Share Posted January 12, 2004 I'm sticking behind AMD.I'm with you on that, but I'm a convert from way back. Do you think that the message about the high quality 64bit offerings is sinking in with anyone outside the believers? Just think whats going to happen when the Retail Version of Windows XP 64 is released... Think dell is just going to sit their and let their competitors release 64 bit computers? They are right now. Dell is big enough that they can convince customers that anything they do not offer is not worth having. You would think that by now they would have at least a token Athlon offering, but they do not (as far as I know, and I get their catalog frequently). As for buying 64bit AMDs now, I think a certain maker with a squarish name will give a buyer a copy of XP64Beta if they ask nicely.\, at least that's what a rep told me when I asked about their current line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 14, 2004 Share Posted January 14, 2004 Microsoft will also send you a beta as well. They were handing them out at siggraph . Dell will change their tune once they see microsoft throw their brunt behind AMD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted January 16, 2004 Share Posted January 16, 2004 Hey thanks people ,,,, so since i cannot keep upgrading the system for another 2 years i think i shall go with opteron and see what happens , i mean it cannot be slower than a athlon xp so what the heck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioVOY Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 i am a user of a dual xeon 2.4 and 1 gb of pc2100 memory, working with viz and brazil, times of render in a very complex escene are fast but if you get a xeon look for a motherboard with faster memory support ( maybe a 333 or 400) because thats the only inconvenient of the actual xeon based motherboards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neptun Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 Originally posted by Greg Hess: If your using vray, brazil, fr, mental ray...Xeon's or P4's with HT. I would think a CPU with powerfull FPU would be preferred for heavy rendering. Can you explain some more why you recommend Xeon for these senarios. There have been a long debat on the splutterfish forum about HT, and generally its about 5-10% you can gain. Athlons have a much strong FPU than the P4 CPU, so I guess I don't really understand your suggestion.... so please enlighten me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 On a dual xeon, if you enable HT in Vray, you'll see upwards of a 25% increase in rendering performance. With a single processor its around 10-15%. Vray, Brazil, FR assign buckets to logical and physical processors and make extremely efficent use of Hyper-Threading. So, yes having a faster FPU is very important for render performance...but the Xeon's ability to suddenly boost performance almost 25% is pretty hard to beat. Move back to scanline, or many default renderers, and this performance boost is lost, or greatly diminished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 I have someone benchmarking my PHotoshop series of tests on an AMD 64 box this weekend Greg - Will let you kknow as soon as I get back some detailed conclusions and results. I might be able to send you a copy of the test too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buttman Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 Do you think it's a good idea to HyperThreading's on forever? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 Best advice on hyperthreading... 1) If its a Xeon, make sure your running Windows XP (SP1) first. 2) If its a P4, make sure your in Win2k (SP3 or later) or Windows Xp (SP1), or Windows 2003. Turn hyperthreading off. Render some of your stuff. Record the times. Make sure to do some renders at higher res's, like 2048x1536. Record the times. Try out a 3rd party renderer. Record the times. Restart, go back into the bios, turn hyperthreading on. Repeat the previous steps. Compare times. This is something everyone can do themselves, and find out for themselves whether its useless, or useful. You don't have to take my word for it, be proactive, find out yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neptun Posted January 25, 2004 Share Posted January 25, 2004 I would.... just need to borrow a P4 system... with max... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neptun Posted February 3, 2004 Share Posted February 3, 2004 Greg.... Not to disrespect you but I still find it a bit hard to belive that XEON's beat opterons when rendering with a render like brazil. I have heard from brazil users stating that a Dual 248 (2.2Ghz I think) opteron system renders over 50% faster than a dual Xeon 2.8Ghz system. As far as I know this is not in XP64bit. So if you could post some links to benchmarks where something besides scanline, lightwave, povray, cinema4d is being used for the benchmark I would be happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted February 4, 2004 Share Posted February 4, 2004 I am basing my data on Vray tests. If the brazil guy's aren't running Windows XP, then most likely the Dual Opteron's would win, as hyperthreading would be disabled. And if their enabling Hyperthreading in windows 2000 with a dual xeon...they can see as much as 40% reduction in performance if their not running sp3 or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neptun Posted February 4, 2004 Share Posted February 4, 2004 he just told me that it was XPsp1. He also said HT was great for rendering but since single threaded stuff like meshsmooth was being a pain he did not have HT on anylonger. :/ So I guess its back to the beginning. Still don't know the influence of HT on brazil rendering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelperfectg Posted February 4, 2004 Share Posted February 4, 2004 Here's another Opteron vs. Xeon test that uses 3dsmax (scanline I think..sorry) http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=487 note: I get an error when I first load this page. However it works if I hit reload....I have no idea why though. [ February 04, 2004, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: pixelperfectg ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Hess Posted February 4, 2004 Share Posted February 4, 2004 Scanline 3dsmax rendering and Brazil/Vray/Fr are completely different. The standard 3dsmax scanline engine hasn't fundamentally changed since R2. Vray/Brazil/FR are bucket based rendering systems, which have the capability of utilizing advanced instruction sets, and assigning buckets to physical and logical processors. So basically with a Dual Xeon, you get 4 buckets in Brazil/FR/Vray. In Vray, on a heavy render, at high resolution, HT on/off can have as much as a 25% performance impact...massive difference. IMO with Hyperthreading enabled, Xeon's still hold the performance crowd in these renderers. With HT off, the Athlons win. Its a close race. If anyone has information to the contrary, please share it. I've done only limited testing on opterons, so of course, I could be very wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtutaj Posted February 5, 2004 Share Posted February 5, 2004 Greg, My question is this then. I am using FR currently. and need to buy a few systems for a rendering farm in the next 2 weeks.. also taking into consideration that I might be using combustion also.. which dual system would I get the most bang for buck.. dual Burton 2800+ system or xeon? and with that if I go xeon, I would have to run FR in PIII mode since, I have other PIII machines and amd machines on the farm as well (due to a FR mixed core rendering issue).. won't that kill the performace gain by HT?? I've stayed away from Intell for the last couple of years.. and am debating with this thread should I attempt to go back... Thanks, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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