alfienoakes Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 I know there have been many discussions on this, but I refuse to believe what I am seeing.. I have a 6 month old Dell Workstation, with Dual Xeon 3.2's.. rendering with 8 buckets.. pretty fast eh..? Well not really. We also have a 3 month old Dell Dimension.. (I think) with an Intel Core 2, 6600 @ 2.4.. renders 2 buckets. Now I have a scene that takes 77 secs to render on the super duper Xeon ... And 56 secs on the Core 2.. I know that the way the core 2 works within the same core on the chip makes it very efficient.. but 2 buckets against 8.. and pretty up to date Xeons..?? Does this sound right..? I just cant believe that that should work like that..? Could there be a problem within my workstation..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 wont dual xeons have 4 buckets? and yea core 2 duo is newer technology , so they are faster... and gotta move on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt that Dual 3.2 Xeon much older than 6 months - in the industry I mean. I've had mine for 2 yrs and it wasn't new then. Do you have the new multi core version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 The fastest Core-based Xeons are 3.0GHz, so a 3.2 is a Netburst core. If you have 8 buckets, these are, what, dual core, dual CPU with Hyperthreading? Or are you just forcing the 8 buckets where there are 2 or 4 logical CPUs? Anyway, the Core2 chip's GHz are worth twice as much as a Netburst chip's GHz, so the dual 2.4 is a dual 4.8, in translation. Add in any other factors - e.g., the 8 bucket system will need a ton of RAM and anybody who's Cinebenched an 8-core machine can tell you that you lose efficiency with that many render threads, so it might actually be slower for you to render with Hyperthreading than without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 18, 2007 Author Share Posted May 18, 2007 Just checked out on Dell website.. its older than I thought, but still less than a year. Shipped 27th July last year. I have queried the processor on the dual Xeon.. the attached is the exact data from that query. Does this make things clearer..? This data is the the actual model from the dual Xeon, not the Dual CORE chip. The data here is for the chip that renders with 8 buckets... the slower of the two..!!! As far as I know, I am not forcing any extra buckets etc.. this is virtually straight "out of the box" machine, with the addition of Win XP Prof SP2... Cheers Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 So what you have is 2 CPUs, 2 cores total, which are hyperthreaded Netburst cores at 3.2GHz. Total of 4 logical CPUs, for an optimal configuration of 4 buckets, not 8. Versus a Core2 Duo, 2 cores total, 2.4GHz of Core microarchitecture, 2 buckets optimal. Of course the Core2 beats the crap out of the Xeon. It's a much faster system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 18, 2007 Author Share Posted May 18, 2007 Cheers Andrew.. What I dont get then, is when I am rendering, I am getting 8 buckets..? This is one reason why I posted.. as I too thought I should get 4..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 Do you have a manual setting for renderers.current.system_numThreads e.g., renderers.current.system_numThreads=8 would force 8 buckets, renderers.current.system_numThreads=4 would force 4, and no setting would make it guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 18, 2007 Author Share Posted May 18, 2007 where abouts would I find that setting.. looks like a registry setting.. but I cant seem to find it ..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
base2studios Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 sounds like you and I have the same machine...and same "problem" - a Dell Precision 690 with Dual Xeons (but I only have 3.0ghz chips). Recently bought Dimension 9200s with E6600's and sho nuff, my almost $3000 badarse is slightly slower than the $1200 Core2Duo. Annoyed me as well....but since it's not TOO far off from the others, I don't mind as much. and yes, we DO get 8 buckets straight outta tha box. ME Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 19, 2007 Share Posted May 19, 2007 It's a Maxscript thing. Try running it in the Maxscript listener then doing a render and seeing how it affects render time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 21, 2007 Author Share Posted May 21, 2007 Interesting... I ran a little test on that settings Andrew.. cheers for that. Changed it between 0 - 32.. this is what I got: Threads 8 = 1 min 21 secs Threads 4 = 1 min 28 secs Threads 0 = 1 min 29 secs (threads null so system decides) Threads 16 = 1 min 19 secs Threads 32 = 1 min 19 secs I have left it at 8 threads.. seems going too high could be asking for trouble.. So.. in summary.. it seems Andrews description of the Core 2Duo kicking the dual xeons butt is spot on.. Shame, as the dual xeon cost about the same as 3 of the cheap Core 2's....! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted May 21, 2007 Share Posted May 21, 2007 and thats on stock speeds ,, overclock them and they go buzz buzz ...the c2d's and july theres a price cut happening on them quad cores Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 22, 2007 Author Share Posted May 22, 2007 Well.. Looks like Im stuck with this one at my main job... But.. my side venture could be just about to upgrade its PC's.. Money permitting.. Cheers for the input people.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 22, 2007 Share Posted May 22, 2007 This would need some more research, but I've read that Intel is going to drop Core2 Quad pricing a lot this summer - by maybe 50%. I don't know how to confirm that, but if they did, I'd upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted May 22, 2007 Author Share Posted May 22, 2007 Damn.... My dual xeon has just become even more obsolete... At least I can demote the dual xeon at home to the start of my own render farm now though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted May 22, 2007 Share Posted May 22, 2007 i think i read the date as july 22nd for the price drop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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