PC upgrade - Vray for SketchUp

[wiselywai]

Hello,

 

I'm looking to upgrade my CPU for faster rendering times in Vray for SketchUp, i have a rough budget of £500 for CPU only, can someone kindly recommend me a CPU please.

 

This is a MATX build and i understand that i'll have to upgrade the motherboard too...

 

 

Current build:

 

MATX

Processor: Intel - Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor

Graphics card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Dual Video Card

Motherboard: Asus - H110M-A/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Ram: HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Power supply: Corsair - RMx 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

[Dimitris Tolios]

I don't think you can do a s2011 build with your budget. But you probably can do a i7-7700K build which is the fastest 4C CPU atm, and as fast if not faster than many hex-cores if the latter is not overclocked. The 7700K's stock clock that turboboosts all the way to 4.5GHz will give you notable speed boost in Sketchup that is heavily CPU limited and only works on one thread.

 

More threads will kick in only after SU has prepped the scene for Vray and then the Vray Engine takes over using all cores + render nodes if available.

 

And this is your best bang for your buck: buy a 7700K, a compatible s1151 mobo, RAM (16 GB DDR4 2133 will do fine, 32GB won't be faster but might be needed for more complex scenes), a cheap but decent quality PSU (no need for more than 300W really) and a basic case. Or a fancy case if you want to move your workstation in it and keep the current machine in the old one.

 

Now, your "current" i7-6700 with its built-in GPU can be configured to run as a render node along with your 7700K, and the speed of the two machines combined will be more than double of what you have now. The 7700K by itself will be faster, but won't be THAT MUCH faster, not nearly as fast as both the machines will be.

 

If you have a internet router with more than one ethernet port, you don't need anything more than a LAN cable to have the 2 machines "see" each-other for Vray node purposes.

 

You can install windows on an old HDD or small SSD for the node, the speed of the media won't matter. You could even make a bootable USB stick for it and run the VRay Spawner (could use https://rufus.akeo.ie/ ) for that.

[joelmcwilliam]

a cheap but decent quality PSU (no need for more than 300W really) and a basic case. Or a fancy case if you want to move your workstation in it and keep the current machine in the old one.

 

 

a good powersupply:

 

EVGA SuperNOVA 550 G2

Seasonic M12II Evo 520W (or 620w)

 

a decent case:

 

MasterBox Lite 5

NZXT S340