3d station recommendations

[marvins_dad]

Been needing to get a new machine and now that the new year is here the funds might be coming soon from my company.

 

I am using 2006 Architectural Desktop and primarily I am working on models in 2006 Viz with Mental Ray.

 

End of this past year I finally his the ceiling of what my current Dell machine can do and it finally started choking on a Mental Ray rendering with water and the numerous reflections from the water and the windows that were adjacent to it.

 

I am currently using an Dell XPS Pentium 4 - 3.4gh w/ 2 gigs ram and a 256mb DDR ADI Radeon 9800 video card.

 

What would be a good setup for me to jump to?

It has only been the last half of last year that I have been starting to do full time models and rendering and I can see that I am growing out of this machine because I am spending most of my time waiting on the renderings or watching the model crash.

 

Thanks

[AJLynn]

The machine you have already is very good; there are really only two ways it could be better - dual-core CPU (to double your render speed) and a QuadroFX card (to speed up the Viz interface), so get something with both of those.

 

Of course, there are other options - since you already have a very fast machine, you might be better off making changes to your working methods, using stand-ins or "display as box" to make your modeling run smoother, or tuning up your mental ray settings. Depending on what render featues you tend to use, switching to VRay Free might dramatically speed up your renders without costing anything. Also, make sure you have ATI's latest drivers - that could help with the crashes.

 

Another option: Ebay a Quadro card for your current workstation and add a cheap box with 1-2 gigs and dual CPUs (you can find these used or refurb'ed pretty cheap) to add rendering horsepower. (That's how I work - never spend more than 25% of the new market value for equipment - but your company might not do things like that.)

 

You can get Specviewperf from http://spec.unipv.it/gpc/downloadindex.html and use it to compare your current video card to what nVidia and ATI are offering these days - http://nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html and http://nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html - and some tests by people here - http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12329&highlight=specviewperf

[marvins_dad]

Thanks for the advice.

 

What specs of QuadroFX card - I just searched and that runs the gammet of $75-$1500 depending on the amount of ram you need.

 

I'll definately be checking out those links after I get finished with this series of renderings that is tying the machine up right now.

 

I believe this machine is a dual core processor - it says that it has two processors, but I am pretty sure it is one physical chip. Maybe my next machine needs to have two separate processors.

A few years back I had a good dual render machine at the house until it got fried by a power surge.

 

Any other ideas from anyone?

Who makes the best new equipment?

We are primarily Dell in this office, but I might be able to spring for a special machine for the rendering tasks.

[AJLynn]

I'm pretty sure Dell doesn't have an AMD dual core option, and won't in the forseeable future - and AMD's dual cores currently beat the pants off Intel's, so see if you can get one. Athlon64x2 is a great value. There's no real advantage to having two single CPUs versus one dual-core. Also, AMD is conservative in their numbering scheme for dual-cores - what you should do is take the actual MHz per core and multiply it by 3 to get a rough Intel equivalent - e.g., if it's an Athlon64 dual with 2x2.0GHz cores, it's equivalent to about 6GHz worth of Intel chips.

 

Dual-dual is an option but it costs a lot. It's currently available with AMD Opteron CPUs. This would give you the equivalent of a 4-CPU system - should be able to handle mental ray just fine, make sure to get a lot of RAM.

 

There are several good vendors out there for workstation-class boxes, but I've never heard anything but good things about boxxtech.com.

 

As for Quadro cards - depends on how much power you need, really. I was doing fine on a Quadro4 900 128MB until I tried to do a model of all of downtown Boston - but even then, with buildings grouped by neighborhood, I could hide the neighborhoods I wasn't working on and it went okay. If you can budget a QuadroFX 3400, go for it, but most people will do fine with a 1400.

[marvins_dad]

Sorry - wrong term - the Dell has "PENTIUM 4 PRESCOTT DT" and I think it has hyperthreading or something like that - basically if you look in the Device Manager is lists two CPUs.

 

I do have an Acer Ferrari 4000 Laptop that does have the Turion64, which is really nice! Haven't installed Viz on it yet though to see if it can handle a rendering product.

 

Thanks again for the suggestions on video cards I will def check them out.

I had been looking at Boxx because I have a industrial design friend that is using their products - I'm guessing boxxtech is the same company.

I got confused on thier site with their rack mount renderers vs. the workstations last time I visited.

 

Thanks:D

[AJLynn]

Yeah, that's the same company. The rackmounts are for render farm use - you have one workstation and a rack of render nodes to distribute the work.

 

Hyperthreading and dual-core are not the same. Hyperthreading has the appearance of being 2 CPUs but it's actually one, with a very good system for multithreading. Gives a bit of an advantage over a normal CPU, but not nearly as good as a dual-core.

[jonel]

Dual-dual is an option but it costs a lot. It's currently available with AMD Opteron CPUs. This would give you the equivalent of a 4-CPU system - should be able to handle mental ray just fine, make sure to get a lot of RAM.

 

bare in mind that mental ray in 3dsmax supports only 2 CPUs, so two dual cores is a waste

[AJLynn]

Really? That stinks. I had no idea. Does the Viz version do raysat? Might be another way to get things faster...

[jonel]

Unfortunately, the mental ray renderer didn't like our dual Opteron 275 system. It refused to use all four cores to the full because the license for 3ds max's integrated version of mental ray will only use two processors, no more. AMD has been pushing software makers to do their licensing on a per-CPU rather than per-core basis, but some current workstation-class programs will probably present this sort of problem, at least until the licensing model for dual-core products is fully worked out and programs are updated.

 

http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q2/opteron-x75/index.x?pg=7

[marvins_dad]

Thanks for the heads-up!

[cH1ooo]

I'd go for an opteron myself... anyways, here are some benchmarks i recently gooogled. they might be able to help u on some aspects u're looking into...

 

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=opteron275&page=7

" 3D Studio Max can take advantage of all four processor cores of a dual Opteron 275 configuration, and not surprisingly, the Opteron 275 processors deliver the best performance on the market for this application. The fastest dual-core Opteron runs about 25-30% faster compared to the fastest dual-Xeon setup on the market today in this application, despite the Opteron processors running at 1.2 GHz slower clock speeds. This is one application that shows that multiple slower processors can provide better performance compared to faster single cores. "

 

Good Benchmark for "Intel-Xeon-vs-AMD-Opteron" comparison...

http://www.mcadonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=73

 

 

" 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 "

 

" 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. "

 

the above comments are from:

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13554&highlight=opteron

[RAYMOND]

also, i would suggest to get a BOXX...

[marvins_dad]

also, i would suggest to get a BOXX...

 

Workstation or dedicated rackmount render server?

[RAYMOND]

http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=32951-1&afterinter=true

 

i was thinking about WS.

however i don't have one yet... but plan too

most research i have done is quite impressive...

 

my 3 cents...

[marvins_dad]

Thanks for the link - I'll check that article out.

 

Wow - 2 more cents and I can by some nickle gum!

[STRAT]

extra help about AMD's and hyperthreading -

 

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=308141

[tecton3d]

Workstation or dedicated rackmount render server?

 

workstation chassis for a workstation... clearance for workstation class video cards, access to optical drives, usb, multiple hard drives...ect, but only if this system needs to double as a workstation. If not, then it would be nice and neat to have the render server part of the rack that houses the farm.

 

Ditto on the BOXX recommendation ~ I have a 7300 (basically the 5400 line)

and love it : )

[ltravisjr]

I am in the market for a new machine for home and this advice has certainly been valuable. Could I add some general questions that could help my search as well? I am still just learning 3d and therefore spend most of my time in 2d applications (CAD, Photoshop, etc.). Would these applications function better under a single processor sytem? If so, would it still be prudent to go dual anyway in case the 2d apps of the future can take advantage of it? What about the upcoming Windows Vista? What kind of processing power will that need?

 

Thanks!

LT

[AJLynn]

Most 2D apps don't benefit from dual cores and will perform better with a single core that is faster than one of the cores of a dual (e.g. a 3.6GHz CPU will outperform a 2x2.8GHz). However, a lot of companies are working on making their software work with duals, so don't count on this continuing to be the case.

 

MS makes every version of Windows larger, more feature-bloated and more resource-intensive, so Vista will probably need a more powerful PC than XP. Also, Vista will be better able to handle 64-bit CPUs, e.g. all the recent AMD chips. So all things considered, if you can budget an Athlon64 dual core, go for it - it's the best value out there.

[marvins_dad]

I think I have narrowed it down to the Boxx system after all the recommendations from you guys and from my friend that also uses one at work.

 

I'll talk with their tech about setting it up and which he recommends (WS vs Rack)

 

Thanks again!

[AJLynn]

Rackmounts are generally for when you need to put several computers in a limited space - it's literally a rack that you can slot special computer cases into. The cases can be ATX form factor so they can have the exact same internals, and come in various sizes in a module called U - 1U and 2U are common, and I've seen 3U and 4U.

 

If you don't plan to put several PCs in a small space (e.g. a render farm) you're probably better off with a tower case - the rack has a larger footprint and is in some ways inconvenient, and I haven't looked at Boxx's specifics but usually they cost more.

[marvins_dad]

I think my main reason for thinking about the rack mount is because it could be mounted with our switches at the server - we have rack space. That and we might have a couple more people needing to be outfitted with rendering capabilities.

[marvins_dad]

Boxx Tech recommended the following:

 

Dual Core Opterons...

 

For starters he suggested 2 render nodes per artist.

 

Apparently he states that the main need is Ram and Processor...he said Vido did nothing in the rendering process. Their render nodes come with an onboard 8mb video board just so you could check and see what it was doing, but video really isn't necessary in a render node.

 

He definately suggests the AMD's however they do have Intel machines...but for what he has seen the AMD's are the superior processor at this moment.

 

So I am looking at trying to get a hold of at least one node to start out with and I'd love to get a Boxx workstation as well, but with having to purchase more software it might not happen.

[AJLynn]

The Boxx rep knows his stuff.

 

A render node doesn't need a good video card - with the right software it doesn't even need a monitor. Your main workstation that you model on gets the good video card. If you can afford that plus two render nodes each, you'll be set. The dual core Opterons do beat everything else, and they're the best way to get 4 cores in one box if that's what you want.

[tecton3d]

Since we're talking about Opterons:

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29195

 

... would be a great opportunity to snag a pair of dual cores and put the old opterons into a dedicated render slave!

 

Cheers