blowback Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Thanks AJ. I am looking into a new system right now. And I think I am going for another macpro. I hope this doesn't sound silly, but will I really notice a difference between the 2.66ghz and the 2.93ghz? Or I guess, is it worth the extra 1200 bucks? BTW, your 3DATS Tech Talk is a great idea and very informative to those of us who are not in the the know, specifically when it comes to hardware setups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris McKinley Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 2nd the laptop idea! I am trying hard to convince my work to get me a laptop for doing 3d renderings with AutoCAD 2010. I am the only person in the company needing something so powerful and I want something to work at night and weekends on to meet deadlines but they are stuck on a desktop. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 Christopher: The render speed is proportional to the GHz when the CPUs are from the same line. 2.66GHz to 2.93GHz is a 10% improvement. Probably not worth $1200. Chris: Look for something with an i7 CPU if you intend to do a lot of mental ray, or a fast Core 2 Duo, a decent (ATi/AMD or nVidia, not Intel) video card with a lot of "real" memory (none of this "1024MB of video memory (32MB dedicated)" crap, because the non-"dedicated" part is coming out of your system RAM), 4GB or more and a 64-bit version of Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 9, 2010 Author Share Posted March 9, 2010 This is cool. I'm running the numbers on the Cinebench data I've collected and the mobile i7 chip threw everything out of whack by being absolutely terrible in the multi-threaded efficiency area. It didn't make sense so I investigated and found that its Turbo Boost multiplier is 1/1/6/9. Translated, that means that if it needs to use 3 or 4 cores it can add 133MHz to the **** speed, but if it's only using 2 cores it adds (6x133MHz = 798MHz) and when it's using 1 core it adds (9x133MHz = 1197MHz). So if you're doing single-threaded work, you have either a 2.4GHz CPU or 2.8GHz depending on how the OS is handling the CPU. That does make the 1.6GHz i7 less limiting than it seems at first or second glance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Erstad Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Thought I read somewhere that Hex-core chips are coming out, and to the MBP? I think I would strongly consider a laptop for the full on production machine, but the software will inevitably catchup and overheating the thing. just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandelbrotJr Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 The Core i7-980X is a 130W TDP chip, there is no way to fit a chip with that thermal profile in a mainstream notebook. We'll need to wait until Gulftown tricles down to a more manageable 50sh. For comparison the fastest mobile chip right now is the i7-920XM and it's a 55W TDP unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Sugden Posted March 20, 2010 Share Posted March 20, 2010 The suggested specs are good, and through my own research recently I have come up with similar specs for different cost machines. I'm in agreement that this data is slightly meaningless without some form of performance index. Whether it is just a percentage or benchmark number. Essentially unless you know the performance gain of a system you have no solid reason to decide why to pay more. Which is the key factor in my desicion making at the moment. It's fine to say this one budget, this one is for medium businesses but it's much more useful to say this one is 60% more $$$$ and will give 40% more power. And as others have said a server and render node spec would be interesting reading as would having it in text. Nice work though. Hey if you were entrepreneurial you could even link the spec to best price on the net for people to by them, more work though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oo7wazzy Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Thanks for the help on what type of systems to buy for what jobs... i am going to be buying a new machine soon and have added in the specs. I am using max2008 - 2010. Are these specs comparable to your midrange machine ? thanks again for the info ST3500418AS Seagate® Barracuda™ 7200.12 Series - 500GB Serial ATA II (SATA2) Plus - Serial ATA 300 (3Gbps) With 16MB Cache @ 7200RPM - NCQ DH-24AYS LITEON® 24 Speed DVD Super All-Write SATA, 24x+R/-R, 8x +R/-R DL, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x -RAM, 16x DVD, 48xCDR, 24x RW, Black BX80601930 Intel® Core™ i7 930 Processor - 2.80GHz Quad Core, Socket 1366, 8MB L3, 4.8GT/s QPI, 45nm, x64 Support, 3 Year Warranty GA-X58A-UD3R GIGABYTE® X58A-UD3R: X58 & ICH10 Chipset - Socket LGA1366, QPI Interface up to 6.4GT/s - Supports:* Core i7 LGA1366 Processors GV-N26OC-896I Gigabyte® NVIDIA® GeForce GTX260, 896MB 448Bit GDDR3, CUDA, PCI-E 2.0, D-Sub, DVI, HDMI, DX10/OpenGL, Triple SLI, Vista Premium GZ-X1B Gigabyte® X1 ATX Chassis - Black - Side Vented Panel - 4x 5.25" & 6x 3.5" Bays - Tool Free Design - 1x 120mm Fan - No PSU GE-P585A-C2 GIGABYTE® ODIN 585W 24-Pin Power Supply, 4 Molex & 5 SATA Power Connectors, Intel LGA775 Ready & Approved, Includes Power Cable DSP-WIN7-PRO64 Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional Edition - DSP Software, DVD Pack -*64Bit Desktop License ME-C2G3X16X9x3 Corsair TR3X6G1600C9 / CMX6GX3M3A1600C9 , XMS 3 , with heatsink , 3 x 2Gb/2048mb kit - support Intel XMP ( eXtreme Memory Profiles ) , ddr3-1600 ( PC3-12800 ) , CL9 , 1.65v - 240pin - lifetime warranty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oo7wazzy Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 Thanks for the help on what type of systems to buy for what jobs... i am going to be buying a new machine soon and have added in the specs. I am using max2008 - 2010. Are these specs comparable to your midrange machine ? thanks again for the info ST3500418AS Seagate® Barracuda™ 7200.12 Series - 500GB Serial ATA II (SATA2) Plus - Serial ATA 300 (3Gbps) With 16MB Cache @ 7200RPM - NCQ DH-24AYS LITEON® 24 Speed DVD Super All-Write SATA, 24x+R/-R, 8x +R/-R DL, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x -RAM, 16x DVD, 48xCDR, 24x RW, Black BX80601930 Intel® Core™ i7 930 Processor - 2.80GHz Quad Core, Socket 1366, 8MB L3, 4.8GT/s QPI, 45nm, x64 Support, 3 Year Warranty GA-X58A-UD3R GIGABYTE® X58A-UD3R: X58 & ICH10 Chipset - Socket LGA1366, QPI Interface up to 6.4GT/s - Supports:* Core i7 LGA1366 Processors GV-N26OC-896I Gigabyte® NVIDIA® GeForce GTX260, 896MB 448Bit GDDR3, CUDA, PCI-E 2.0, D-Sub, DVI, HDMI, DX10/OpenGL, Triple SLI, Vista Premium GZ-X1B Gigabyte® X1 ATX Chassis - Black - Side Vented Panel - 4x 5.25" & 6x 3.5" Bays - Tool Free Design - 1x 120mm Fan - No PSU GE-P585A-C2 GIGABYTE® ODIN 585W 24-Pin Power Supply, 4 Molex & 5 SATA Power Connectors, Intel LGA775 Ready & Approved, Includes Power Cable DSP-WIN7-PRO64 Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional Edition - DSP Software, DVD Pack -*64Bit Desktop License ME-C2G3X16X9x3 Corsair TR3X6G1600C9 / CMX6GX3M3A1600C9 , XMS 3 , with heatsink , 3 x 2Gb/2048mb kit - support Intel XMP ( eXtreme Memory Profiles ) , ddr3-1600 ( PC3-12800 ) , CL9 , 1.65v - 240pin - lifetime warranty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jccloutier Posted June 5, 2010 Share Posted June 5, 2010 andy, if i am using the following softs, which of your configs on the workstaion blog do you suggest? 3ds max 2009 64 vray 1.5 sp4 autocad 2009 i often have very large poly count max scenes, some animations. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 6, 2010 Author Share Posted June 6, 2010 Midrange or higher, depending on your budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onyx Posted June 6, 2010 Share Posted June 6, 2010 Great Info!! My employer asked me to research buying some new hardware for rendering, i think May's Midrange comp is good for what we need. We plan on ordering 3 of them this week. I have a couple questions i hope you may be able to help with. 1: If i added another one of the video cards to the order you suggested would i be able to connect them together for SLI? 2: I am currently Running 3ds max 9 and vray on windows xp 32 bit. I see the order you recommended has windows 7 and a 64 bit setup. Will i be able to open/ upgrade the old 32 bit max files i have so i can use them on this new computer with a 64 bit version of 3ds max 9?? I ask because i have 4 years worth of 3d files that i will still need to use for models or for reviseing renders, it would be a sad thing if they all became unusable. Thanks for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Changing to 64 bit will not affect the usability of your old files. But it will change your life, for the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onyx Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Changing to 64 bit will not affect the usability of your old files. But it will change your life, for the better. Haha I can only imagine. More sleep and better looking renderings. I don't even know the specs of the computer Ive been useing here but its the same one we had 4 years ago when i started, its a dell, and it was never anything special. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted June 9, 2010 Author Share Posted June 9, 2010 Keeping this short. I'm out of town this week and checking in on iPhone. Check the specs of the motherboard for support for SLI (nvidia) or Crossfire (ATI). Usually these get you a lot more performance in games but not a lot in 3D apps. If you order one of these systems, drop a note to forum user Brian.smith. I don't know if he's still doing it but he had a promo where he was giving books to people who bought the systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onyx Posted June 9, 2010 Share Posted June 9, 2010 Keeping this short. I'm out of town this week and checking in on iPhone. Check the specs of the motherboard for support for SLI (nvidia) or Crossfire (ATI). Usually these get you a lot more performance in games but not a lot in 3D apps. If you order one of these systems, drop a note to forum user Brian.smith. I don't know if he's still doing it but he had a promo where he was giving books to people who bought the systems. great thanks allot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 3, 2010 Author Share Posted July 3, 2010 New workstations for July: http://www.3datstech.com/2010/07/july-2010-workstations.html Enjoy! (Or don't. Some people just don't understand why this is all very exciting.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slawnick Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Looking for a cheap second machine that I can add to a Dell Precision 690 to render farm with. I saw this refurb: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=XW8400-XN30X2-PB-2C&cat=SYS What do you think? Good value (assuming that it works, of course)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 I'm not current on prices for Core 2 generation PCs, but this is equivalent to a Core 2 Quad 3GHz with 4GB of RAM. Which is equivalent to a 2GHz quad core i7 with 4GB RAM. (Note that there is no 2GHz quad core i7 desktop chip - all quad core i7 desktops are faster than that HP.) So you can use that info to compare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slawnick Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 I'm not current on prices for Core 2 generation PCs, but this is equivalent to a Core 2 Quad 3GHz with 4GB of RAM. Which is equivalent to a 2GHz quad core i7 with 4GB RAM. (Note that there is no 2GHz quad core i7 desktop chip - all quad core i7 desktops are faster than that HP.) So you can use that info to compare. Thanks; good to know. My Dell 690 has dual Xeon E5320's ( 1.8 GHz); how do you think that HP would compare? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Its probably a fair price for what it is. Its around the same speed as a Q6600. This was a very common chip pre-I7. I wouldnt recommend it, but if thats your budget..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted July 9, 2010 Author Share Posted July 9, 2010 Your Dell has twice as many cores, that are a bit more than half as fast. It should render a bit faster but be slower at most other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frewy Posted September 26, 2010 Share Posted September 26, 2010 Thanks this will be invaluable information for my next upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revuprender Posted November 7, 2010 Share Posted November 7, 2010 It is very interesting to see all the specs about what people are considering for hardware configurations for high end graphical workstations, but are any of you considering high end cloud workstations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bleedingboy Posted November 30, 2010 Share Posted November 30, 2010 is there a "LIKE" button somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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