Hi, I'm considering getting some new power for my PC - like quick before the C drive melts again - and I have a quad core now:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU  Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

and I'm thinking about an AMD Bulldozer FX-8  8 core - will Bryce run any faster on this?

Can anybody suggest anything else?

Fran - Don't know about the relative processing powers of your current machine & the one you mentioned, but I do remember reading that Bryce 7 can handle up to 8 cpus, so I would expect you'd get a speed boost...

P.S. - Thanks for your mushroom identifications...

You're welcome, Eyeland.  I love taking photos - especially of natural things, and I really like fungi - got a few books on the subject, including - somewhere - Antonio Carlucci's book on cooking them.  Have you got any more photos of Fungi?  I found some interesting ones just outside my mother's kitchen window, and in her croquet lawn you often see tiny yellow spikes.

Good to know that Bryce 7 can handle 8 CPUs, thanks for that, I do remember someone saying something about more cores than 4 but couldn't remember if it was 6 or if it was more.  So I'm glad to have that redefined.

Oh by the way, welcome to the forum where us Bryce nuts hang out.

Thanks for the welcome, Fran. I'm going to think of you all as intrepid Brycenauts, rather than Bryce nuts (though I guess you can be both).

I do indeed have more photos of fungi & will probably post some soon, though I now post all my photography in a separate gallery, under the username photosynthesis (http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=708659). I find the many varieties of fungi endlessly fascinating, though I don't know how to identify them at all. Which is ok, since I'm not that fond of them as food anyway & so have no incentive to play the "food or poison" game...

Been thinking about going to an AMD 8 core myself for a new pc build. I would think your render times should be roughly 30% faster than a 4 core. Might be faster than that if a FX-8150 was used (3.6Ghz)

AS

Well most of that lot went right over my head. I must be getting old.

Eyeland,

I have lots of incentive to eat fungi - I'm just too cowardly.  Although I like morels - when I can get them, but I get them from the supermarket, and unfortunately only dried... sigh.

I once got sacks of mushroom kits from a frim I first saw at the Chelsea Flower show one time - I cut slits in the sack and watered them, and a while later I got masses and masses of gorgeous pink oyster mushrooms...

Unfortunately they went out of business some years ago, and the supermarkets only do grey ones with the occassional yellow - but they are tasteless in comparrison, so I hardly bother any more.

AS,

Doesn't the FX-8150 have problems with Windows 7?

(mind you it's also rather expensive, and I'm not sure yet how much I can stretch to)

Waves brightly at The Bryster sitting on ancient Mars.

I haven't read tons about the AMD Bulldozers but what I have read wasn't a problem with Windows 7 but more that expectation was that the Bulldozers would meet or beat some of the speed of the high end Intel CPU's but it didn't. So, AMD was promising performance booster patches for Windows 7, for their Bulldozer CPU's. The patches came out, they helped a little but didn't make them Intel killers like everyone hoped.

AMD Bulldozer cpu's work just fine. They are slower than Intel cpu's but not by a huge margin yet on the other hand, they are normally 2x-3x less expensive than an Intel cpu. For instance, your current cpu (Intel Core 2 Quad CPU  Q6600 @ 2.40GHz) sold for around $400 when it first came out. The AMD FX-8150, 8 core 3.36Ghz cpu is $250 right now.

And, I was wrong about those FX-8150 render speeds, they should finish twice as fast as what you currently have. (50% faster, at least).

But...on the other hand...I'll admit, I am a little wary about going with an 8 core. With my current AMD 4 core I had to buy a cpu fan that is the size of a very large grapefruit to keep it cool enough during 4 core, full blast renders, otherwise it would have overheated and fried like bacon probably the very first time I rendered. And, even with that big cpu fan, my temps still go quite close to their maximums.

My current 4 core CPU runs at 125w and I am thinking I would actually go with a 95w, 6 core cpu instead just to take the edge off my anxiety of cpu temps. (I would still use a good, large cpu fan, though! It has really helped with cooling and because its larger, it can run quieter)

Besides, my next PC build I will concentrate more money on tons more ram, a SSD for the main OS drive and then the best video card I can budget. Really after those things, I will look at the cpu. An AMD 6 core, 3.3ghz (95w) cpu is about $150. The programs I use more often these days rely more heavily on ram, drive speed and the video card than they do the cpu.

I regularly fry bacon on my cpu.................

Bryster, any chance of you making me a fryup?  I could just go a large bacon sarnie!  He, he!

Surething! How fast can you get to Mars?

I have just built a new computer using the AMD FX 8 core processor black Edition, and it does render quicker, but I don't think it's enough to go thru what I did to use it.

My 140 dollar upgrade turned into a new motherboard that can handle the processor, a new more powerful (850Watt) power supply to power both of them.

Mother board didn't come with integrated video, so new graphics card. 

My CPU widget does show that it does twice the computing power, and it does go quicker, But I was hoping for nasa fast.

Best thing to do is... Learn patience. It is still our only constant tool!

I will be posting some render speed results in a couple of weeks.

For months ago I replaced my Graphics/Audio production machine and just last week I picked up another machine to replace the one I use for gaming/websurfing etc.

So I have

1 x Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 @ 2.5G0GHZ

1 x AMD A8-3870K Quad Core 3.0GHZ

3 x Core 2 Duo's and possibly a 4th unit.

I'm going to dig up my older render test threads and see what percentage of a boost I get with this hardware vs the Pentium 3 and 4's I was using before.

I ould be interested to see those. I had planned to see the diference with mine, but forgot, with all the trying and re-trying to get things going.

Quote - I ould be interested to see those. I had planned to see the diference with mine, but forgot, with all the trying and re-trying to get things going.

Yeah I'm interested to see how things turn out this time, the Core 2 Duo machines also have 2GB of ram each better than the 512mb Hyper Threading Pentium 4's.

The thread I'm refering to here here: Its called  Redner Farm 2.0

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2791652

Scroll down to the second last post and you will see the poor results.  6 CPU's were taking Minute and a half to render the scene vs a Core i5 Mac which was doing it in 41 seconds.

Also I cant believe its been 2 years since I last posted that thread. Yikes!!