GPU or CPU

[aleksandarcopic]

I have a question.

I have Asus GTX 660TI OC 2GB

i7 3820

16GB DDR3 Ram

SSD 120 Samsung and another 500gb HD.

 

I am looking to improve my machine. And there are 2 things on my mind .

1st Change graphic card. I was thinking about buying ATI FirePro v5900 or Quadro K2000 but while reading posts I saw you praise the GTX 780.

2nd Change my CPU 3820 for 4930k.

I am using Vray and CPU rendering, only thing i need graphic card is for viewport performance.

I need help in choosing one of this options. Criteria is time spent on modeling scenes opposed to waiting for render to come to an end.

 

THX

[jasonstewart]

Are you having problems with viewport performance? I wouldnt upgrade your graphics card just to upgrade it, it will only be better if there is a problem with your current card.

 

An upgrade to a 4930k would be a decent speed boost (basically adding 1 core or 2 threads to your current 3820). You will have to verify that your Mobo can support the 4th generation chip though (generally a bios update but check for your specific board).

 

Depending on what you were planning on doing with the 3820 it may be more beneficial to leave your workstation as it is a build a cheap render node. For a little more than the cost of the 4930k you can build a AMD based render node, for a little more you can build a budget Xeon node. I would think dollar per dollar this would be the cheaper option as far as rendering power would be concerned. You also open yourself to work on the workstation while the node renders something out so you can keep working vs. waiting. Of course you can render on both at the same time if you need all the power you can get.

 

Good articles on budget nodes by Dimitris:

Xeon: http://pcfoo.com/2014/03/2014-the-less-than-600-render-node-early-2014/

AMD: http://pcfoo.com/2013/02/8350-rendering-node/

 

Another option would be to save the old CPU for use in a node later on but 2011 Mobos are so expensive IDK if it makes sense for a node.

[aleksandarcopic]

I am not having problems with graphic card, it's only that i find my FPS too low, i know it's cause of lots of poly (few mil).

Thx for advice:)

I 'll think about Xeon nodes. It is far better solution then buying 4930k.

 

THX.

[RyderSK]

3dsMax doesn't have a lot of problems with poly size, rather object amount. Upgrading your 660 will probably not help at all.

I would not even upgrade your CPU :- )

 

Buy node if you need additional render power. Or 770/780 if you are also gamer/looking into real-time stuff, but you will see little benefit inside Max viewport performance compared to the cost. It's always best to just optimalize the scene, since we know it is what it is.

[Zdravko Barisic]

Buy more RAM, and some good CPU-cooler, to OC your 3820, even it is not such a good OCer.

And thats it...