Is anyone using one of the new AMD 6 core machines for Vue yet and if so, good points and bad, what graphics card ect. Thanks for your help.

I have an AMD 6 core and plan to use Vue9 Esprit quite soon. Let you know about the results.

Any update on this thread? I'm contemplating upgrading my system from an AMD X3 710 to a newer socket 1155 mobo & I7 2600K or going the AMD X6 1100T route...

Yes, Kenmo, I am using an AMD 6-core 1100T on an ASUS Crossfire Extreme III motherboard with 16 GB of RAM. And an nVidia 570 video card. (Win 7 -64 bits)

This is my main model-building box, but I also have Vue 6, Vue 7xstream, Vue 8 Infinite and Vue 9.5Xstream installed on it.

What can I say ? This build is really very stable, deep and fast enough for my needs. I did need to upgrade the BIOS immediately after putting it all together, but the AMD BIOS Upgrade is via web these days, and automatic.

In my case, since this BOX also supports MAYA and Mudbox, I needed stability, deep gulps of RAM at each CPU process step and high performance, and this setup delivers those qualities. I have a set of nVidia system monitors for CPU, RAM and GPU usage going at all times, and I've not been able to do anything in Vue 9.5 that pushes anything to the outer limits. One of my model-building buddies has an intel cpu on an ASUS Crossfire Extreme III with 16 GB of RAM also. He renders Vue scenes out faster than my box, maybe by as much as 20 % faster, but that seems to be the only significant difference.

Actually, I have two of these boxes, but the second one is using the slowest, oldest of the AMD 6 core cpu, and it has nothing special for a  video card. This box is dedicated to the Realflow program, which is basically a computer simulation and doesn't want anything fancy for a video card. It just needs a deep CPU setup. I'll probably upgrade its CPU to the AMD 1100T next month.

One of my model-building buddies has an intel cpu on an intell version of ASUS Crossfire Extreme III with 16 GB of RAM also. He renders Vue scenes out faster than my box, maybe by as much as 15 - 20 % faster, but that seems to be the only significant difference.

In both cases, our boxes are built for reliability/stability and model-building using a wide variety of high-end expensive applications, Photoshop, and often multi-tasking, rather than rendering. I'm not over-clocking, and I don't think Clark's box is overclocked either.

If all you plan to do is use your box for Vue and some misc apps, such as web browsing, you probably want a machine aimed more at rendering than anything else. This might take you more in the Intel direction than in the AMD direction. However, I keep an eye on the AMD mobo-builders' forums all the time, and those that do overclock to get fantastic rendering speeds are using the 6-core chips and either the ASUS or MSI motherboards.

For my money (meaning my personal opinion), ASUS motherboards are the best overclockers for a novice, and extremely stable. You could safely purchase an AMD 6-core, and ASUS gamer's board, such as the Crossfire Extreme V, 4 to 16GB of RAM, and overclock this thing, even if you have never done such a thing. You could keep up with anybody on the planet, in terms of rendering speeds, and not have outlayed even half of what an intel rig would cost you.

Lots of fanboys around for intel boxes, but they might not all be working on their boxes for a living like I do. Me, I'm a hardware geek, I admit it, but an AMD 6-core fan for sure.

What forester said.

I have a similar build, only mine's on a Gigabyte 890XA-UD3 motherboard, with an Nvidia 240 video card as a placeholder until I decide exactly what card I want there. I also run a E-MU 1616m audio card and breakout box on my CG box, as it also does video editing and post effects.

Vue is stable and fast.

Premiere Pro CS4 also steady, and quick with the hex core to draw on.

Modo rocks.

Messiah ditto.

Poserpro 2010 likewise (and that is with a 56gig external runtime feeding through the last iteration of Hogwarden's P Booost program).

Audition 3 practically inhales input.

Haven't tried out Encore yet, but it should have more than enough resources to play with.

I have an x6 1035t system with 16 gb ram and have very long render times in Vue with fairly simple scenes. The task manager shows all cpus at 100% during renders. Render times are long (over 24 hours) with 3200 X 2400 high res renders. I think my video card may be a problem just using the program as it is a radeon 5750, and I understand that you are better off with nvidia.

The video card has nothing to do with render times; so long as it properly supports OpenGL and has sufficient memory to handle display ports, there should be no problem. Nvidia -is- a little more stable (more due to driver than hardware work), but about the only thing you =might= need to do is disable the background drawing thread, if you are having issues with what Vue does with the work panels. If they aren't glitching, you have no problems there.

The long render times will be found in your settings. Spectral atmospheres add time. AO adds time. A couple of reflective surfaces facing each other while raytracing can bring any renderer to its knees. The overall size of the image can be a real killer, if your system lacks the physical resources to actually do it, and has to render a bucket, move it to the swapfile, do another, wash rinse repeat.... Hard drive access times are the biggest remaining bottleneck, as they are in milliseconds, and you memory is moving in fractions of microseconds (and some of the highest end stuff in nanoseconds). About the only thing you can do is to go into your render settings, turn off all the time eating features (do a preview render), check that time, then turn the fun features on one at a time and see what happens. Likely it is a combination of 2 or more advanced features that is causing the effect.

If it is a preview render that is taking 24 hours, there is something wrong with the scene setup. Or you've overclocked your system for gaming, and either the OS or Vue does not like your settings.

Thanks for the info. The long render times are when I render 3200 X 2400 pixels. the preview renders are a few seconds. So, I guess it is the other factors you outlined.