i7-6700 integrated graphics and Sketchup

[F Suarez]

Hi everyone.

 

I’m a long time Sketchup user, using it mostly to make small projects, and my 6 years old PC has served me well, but I want to start rendering more, or at least try to, and my Core 2 Duo 8400 and 4GB RAM are rather slow for this purpose, so I’m thinking it may be necessary to buy a new PC. My current PC is also quite noisy, so it’d also be a good opportunity to get a much quieter configuration.

 

I’ve been reading this forum and several hardware oriented sites to get familiarized with the latest CPU and GPU developments, and the Intel i7-6700 seems a good choice regarding the CPU. But GPU wise, it seems all brands are waiting till the end of the year to finally launch their new architectures, when 14nm becomes feasible.

 

This made me think that maybe a viable option could be to buy a i7-6700 system now, using its integrated graphics for now – it’s the HD Graphics 530 - and only buy a powerful graphics card later down the road.

 

The big question is...

...would the i7-6700 CPU's integrated graphics be enough to a minimally decent Sketchup viewport performance?

My models are usually quite small, between 20 and 40MB.

 

It seems that in the next few years most if not all the main renderers will take advantage of GPU’s, but at the moment I’m still using Vray 1.49, which only uses the CPU. In the near future I want to try other renderers - maybe Thea, Corona, and others - and eventually stick with it, but they're not exactly cheap, it's an important decision, and it’d be great if I could avoid having to buy a graphics card for now, and only invest in it when the new GPU architectures arrive and I’m more proficient with rendering, to take advantage of it.

 

Thanks for reading. I'd appreciate all comments and suggestions.

[Nikolaos M]

Could you mention your total budget? For small projects the 6700's igpu could probably suffice, but lets see if there are some more options for you.

[F Suarez]

Could you mention your total budget? For small projects the 6700's igpu could probably suffice, but lets see if there are some more options for you.

Thanks you very much for your post, Nikolaos. If the 6700's integrated graphics is enough, my budget is around 900 euros.

If not, I'm leaning towards waiting till the end of the year for the Skylake successor, by then I'd be able to stretch it to 1100 or even 1200, which hopefully would be enough to buy one of the new GPU's with 14, 15, or 16nm. I think they'll be announced in 1 or 2 months.

Edited March 29, 2016 by fsuarez

[Nikolaos M]

I've tried to form two alternatives for ~900€. The first one is based on a 6700-H170 combo with a discrete gpu, and the second one on a 6700K-Z170 with only the igpu.

 

i7 6700 - H170 - gtx 750Ti build

 

1 x Western Digital WD Blue 1TB, 64MB Cache, SATA 6Gb/s (WD10EZEX)

1 x Crucial MX200 250GB, SATA (CT250MX200SSD1)

1 x Intel Core i7-6700, 4x 3.40GHz, boxed (BX80662I76700)

1 x G.Skill RipJaws V blau DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-2400, CL15-15-15-35 (F4-2400C15D-16GVB)

1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC (1059MHz), 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, 2x HDMI (GV-N75TOC2-2GI)

1 x Gigabyte GA-H170-HD3

1 x Raijintek EreBoss (0P105250)

1 x Fractal Design Define S, schallgedämmt (FD-CA-DEF-S-BK)

1 x Super Flower Leadex Gold schwarz 550W ATX 2.3 (SF-550F14MG(BK))

 

Total: 917€ (without shipping cost)

 

i7 6700K - Z170 - igpu

 

1 x Western Digital WD Blue 1TB, 64MB Cache, SATA 6Gb/s (WD10EZEX)

1 x Crucial MX200 250GB, SATA (CT250MX200SSD1)

1 x Intel Core i7-6700K, 4x 4.00GHz, boxed ohne Kühler (BX80662I76700K)

1 x G.Skill RipJaws V blau DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-2400, CL15-15-15-35 (F4-2400C15D-16GVB)

1 x ASUS Z170-E (90MB0P60-M0EAY0)

1 x be quiet! Dark Rock 3 (BK018)

1 x Fractal Design Define S, schallgedämmt (FD-CA-DEF-S-BK)

1 x Super Flower Golden Green HX 650W ATX 2.3 (SF-650P14XE (HX))

 

Total: 881€ € (without shipping cost)

 

We could do some minor changes in both rigs and shave off some €, but that's what I would probably aim at in your place. The rendering software you're mostly interested in is cpu based, so the second build would be slightly faster than the 1st one, and it's overclockable too, so you could improve your rendering times a bit more with a couple of clicks inside the BIOS.

 

I've never tried Sektchup, but I guess that for small projects like yours the 6700's igpu would be decent enough to work with.

 

And one last thing. I tried to configure both systems keeping in mind your need for silent operation. Case, psu and cpu cooler are those parts that affect noise levels the most, so I picked them accordingly.

Edited March 29, 2016 by nikolaosm

[F Suarez]

Wow, thank you very much for the comprehensive reply.

Both configs seem great.

 

I'm surprised with the prices on that site, around here they're a bit higher, but need to buy locally in a shop that also makes the maintenance - I'm tetraplegic, and I have very reduced hand dexterity and due to that I can't assemble the parts.

 

One question that came to my mind related to optimum performance is 16 vs 32GB of RAM. I know 32GB wouldn't fit the budget, and I'm guessing that with smaller scenes 32GB is overkill, but always wondered how much faster can rendering be with a bigger amount of RAM, and never saw a performance chart comparison.

 

Than you again for your post, it was very helpful.

[Nikolaos M]

You're welcome. I'll be happy to help anytime.

 

Could you give a link for a local site you could buy your rig from? I'll try to make things easy for you, as much as I can, and put together a balanced configuration for your needs.

 

As for the RAM question, you projects seem small and not too demanding, so 16gb would be perfectly fine for now. You can easily upgrade with another 16gb in the future, if you expand your activity.

 

(Honestly, I'm touched by your effort and power of will. Keep up my friend!!)

Edited March 31, 2016 by nikolaosm

[numerobis]

...would the i7-6700 CPU's integrated graphics be enough to a minimally decent Sketchup viewport performance?

My models are usually quite small, between 20 and 40MB.

20-40MB mostly based on geometry or textures? But anyway I think it should be clearly enough - i have no experience with iGPU and SU but if i compare the performance to the video cards a few years ago i think it should be ok. I think SU is mostly CPU dependent (single core). But you could simply try it and add a GPU later if it isn't enough.

If overclocking is an option, i would say get the 6700K and overclock it. The K-version also has slightly higher stock frequencies: 4.0/4.0/4.2GHz vs 3.4/3.7/4.0GHz (base/all-core-turbo/single-core-turbo).

[robertjames]

[F Suarez]

Thanks again guys.

I think I’ll go ahead with this.

 

ATM I’m in the middle of a project but as soon as it is finished I’ll make the jump. I’ll report back here, it may be useful to others with the same doubt.