Hi all,

For tax purposes I want to upgrade my system before the end of the year. Can anyone recommend the "best" PC (not Mac) hardware config for PP2014 that is currently available? The fastest render time we can squeeze out of a PC without creating a render farm? I don't do animation so a multi-cpu network is a bit of overkill just to accommodate my impatience. Is it possible to get more than a minor speed increase with the current generation of hardware?

Firefly does a pretty good job for my needs, but it is still slow compared to my brain!  I know a GPU based renderer would speed things up and I'm sure that the software will evolve to take advantage of that in time. I have played with Octane and it is certainly snappy, but still a lot of work to create/re-create all the materials in a complex image and relight everything. It's just not as efficient as staying in Poser.

For now my Intel i7 960 at 3.2 GHz quad with 12 GB RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX660 is chugging along okay, but is there any performance benefit to be had from a new system -- or should I simply wait another year? 

Appreciate any feedback,

~R 

high end for now: i7-5960X (16 threads), 64Gb ram, a GTX 970/4Gb (or GTX 980), and some SSD drives .

My (dutch) workstation supplier does the job for €4.000 to give you a clue.

have fun!

replace 12 GB (6x2)w 24GB(6x4) and replace 960 with Xeon X5680 or X5690 and an aftermarket cooler solution

Hi there

I've i7-920 currently overclock'd at 4.4GHz still on air and i'm pretty happy with render performance,I've used few times Octane,but my GPU is slow for this and I will need to upgarde if I would want to use 

Seems best GPU for Octane is GTX780,GTX970 or GTX980 are slower than 780Ti,but in LuxRender GTX780 is poor and on other hand 970/980 are fast as AMD R9290X

Is yours CPU overclock'd,if not,then I would overclock,you will gain a lot with overclocking,I've lowered my render times to very nice,but this really depends on more factors 

Agree i7-5960x is awesome,but price is out of reach for me and looking like i7-4770k or 5930k is CPU which I'm looking to get,but those CPU are not so overclockable such as older 2600k or 920

I would wait one more year,DDR4 RAM are still very expensive and new motherboards are too very expensive,as I said I would overclock yours CPU,what cooling are you using ?

Thanks,Jura

A daul CPU Xeon system will be the best as far as the number of cores and final render speed.

Westmeres are still the best bang for the buck, but not the fastest CPU's. Stepping up to a dual E5-2670 system (2.5 ghtz 40 threads) is a huge increase in core count and will stomp any I7 system available in multi thread operations due to the TRL, ram bandwidth, and core count differences.

If you want to play with custom options and see some of what is available, visit velocitymicro    They build systems to your specifications and on their site see what each option adds to the cost.

For you, the best advice I've seen so far is the i7-5960X and added RAM, provided your motherboard can take it. For $1000 to double your core count is pretty good, and will make a real difference to your render times for single frames. While the Xeon E5-2670 is cool, at $1500 each that's a $3000 proposition for 32 cores (they're 8 core, 16 thread just like the i7, but they play nicer in pairs... meaning you need a new motherboard as well if you go that route).

If you are looking at an incremantal improvement/upgrade, go the i7. If you want a whole new system, then design for purpose.

I built my system from components, nothing survived of the old box except a single hard drive. Currently I have an i7 hex core 3930k 3.2ghz (12 cores), 64Gb RAM, Windows 7 Pro, ATI 7950 GPU with 3Gb memory. It's 2 years old, almost, and to step up I'd need to start over with a workstation and spend about $6000.

Quote - While the Xeon E5-2670 is cool, at $1500 each that's a $3000 proposition for 32 cores (they're 8 core, 16 thread just like the i7, but they play nicer in pairs... meaning you need a new motherboard as well if you go that route).

I was refering to the E5-2670 V2, which is a 10 core processor.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116971

They are not cheap as you pointed out.

These are all very good suggestions, however the one thing no one has mentioned yet is your Power Supply Unit.  Your PSU should be higher than recommended for the processor you decide to buy.  I have an 800 Watt PSU and the core runs much faster because it can pull more power.  I have an I-Core 7 rig & tried the minimum, but immediately moved up to a higher watt PSU.

Best of luck. :)

Thanks everybody for all the great suggestions. It will help a lot as I investigate my options and I really appreciate it.

~R 

A couple of caveats.

1. SSD's have a limited function span. Each read/write to a specific address does atomic level damage to the semiconductor. Know how high use USB sticks suddenly die? SSD's will do exactly the same thing. All the claims of functional equivalence with traditional hard drives are based on -common use benchmarks- (ie: Office work and average online use). Not the kind of intense use that something like CGI or cluster based number crunching will inflict. Yes, they will ease the choke point that HDD access is, but if you plan to use them I would suggest installing a couple of old fashioned HDD's and backing up your runtime(s) and any other mission critical data to them regularly. When an SSD begins to fail, if you have something like S.M.A.R.T. enabled, then the OS keeps track of the bad bytes...at least until you lose too many or an entire row of addresses. But if that bad byte is in the wrong place, it can render whatever resource its involved with useless, broken, or simply gone so far as your system is  concerned.

2. Heat. When you start talking upgrading an existing system, you have to consider just how many more watts the new parts pull, and how much of that gets released in the case as waste heat. After creating a scream machine, you do not want to unintentionally fry it. 

Just how much extra work is there with Octane?  There was a thread resurrected not too long back (or I found it in a search) about the plug-in with Poser.  It's been out for a few years now so I'd think it would be more mature.   Are you using that, and the latest version?

I only ask because it sounded very interesting, it would be cheaper for a 2, 3 or 4 SLI computer rig vs. a server rig for the rendering power.  As a bonus, you have a monster gaming rig, or if you don't use it for that, can sell it secondhand without as much loss.

     The new H/T octal core i7 would be pretty nice, with at least 24GB (triple channel) or 32GB (dual or quad channel) memory.

     For $144 (USD), you can get a pair of Xeon X5650 processors (HyperThreaded hex-core, 2.66GHz with 3.06GHz turbo), clean pull production units.   Get a mobo with dual 1366 sockets, and you've got 24 rendering threads without breaking the piggy bank.

Quote - For $144 (USD), you can get a pair of Xeon X5650 processors (HyperThreaded hex-core, 2.66GHz with 3.06GHz turbo), clean pull production units.   Get a mobo with dual 1366 sockets, and you've got 24 rendering threads without breaking the piggy bank.

Yep, the Westmeres are dirt cheap now. They were about 1k a piece when first released.

Quote - Just how much extra work is there with Octane? 

Well, that's a pretty subjective thing. Some will say not much, some will say too much!

I tried the Poser plug-in about 6 months ago. It was fast with my Nvidia card dedicated to Octane and a Radeon for the main screen (or was it the other way around? can't recall) The speed was there but I was put off by the need to duplicate or re-create textures. And re-do the lighting. And basically just learn the ins and outs of a new program. In general it was more fiddling with Octane thanI wanted to do to recreate what I already had in Poser -- just to speed up rendering.

I do a lot of progress renders so I think a GPU approach would be great, but I am not usually willing to do the extra work to "re-invent" a complex image in Octane. 

~R 

Quote - > Quote - Just how much extra work is there with Octane? 

Well, that's a pretty subjective thing. Some will say not much, some will say too much!

I tried the Poser plug-in about 6 months ago. It was fast with my Nvidia card dedicated to Octane and a Radeon for the main screen (or was it the other way around? can't recall) The speed was there but I was put off by the need to duplicate or re-create textures. And re-do the lighting. And basically just learn the ins and outs of a new program. In general it was more fiddling with Octane thanI wanted to do to recreate what I already had in Poser -- just to speed up rendering.

I do a lot of progress renders so I think a GPU approach would be great, but I am not usually willing to do the extra work to "re-invent" a complex image in Octane. 

~R 

Bummer.  Rendering speeds have been getting to me, and with the processing power of the newer graphics cards looked like a good solution. 

Also keep in mind extra computers, with quad core processors being cheap and you have Pro for Queue Manager.  You may be able to pick up used ones cheap.

I would get a bunch of Raspberry Pi's, overclock each to 1GHz and create a supercomputer!!!

4x RPi = 4GHz = £100 (Approx $160)
10x RPi = 10GHz = £250 (Approx $400)
100x RPi = 100GHz = £2500 (Approx $4000)

Don't know if it works though!!!

Later,
Roxie - Girl With Blade

Quote -
I would get a bunch of Raspberry Pi's, overclock each to 1GHz and create a supercomputer!!!

4x RPi = 4GHz = £100 (Approx $160)
10x RPi = 10GHz = £250 (Approx $400)
100x RPi = 100GHz = £2500 (Approx $4000)

Don't know if it works though!!!

Later,
Roxie - Girl With Blade

Already been done.... http://hackaday.com/2014/10/07/120-node-rasperry-pi-cluster-for-website-testing/

Quote -
I would get a bunch of Raspberry Pi's, overclock each to 1GHz and create a supercomputer!!!

4x RPi = 4GHz = £100 (Approx $160)
10x RPi = 10GHz = £250 (Approx $400)
100x RPi = 100GHz = £2500 (Approx $4000)

Don't know if it works though!!!

Later,
Roxie - Girl With Blade

Just build a Power 8 system and run Windows in VMWare.

The Power 8 has 12 cores that can run 8 threads at once.

That is 96 threads running at close to 4ghtz

If you want to build a supercomputer, just build one and be done with it.

Quote - replace 12 GB (6x2)w 24GB(6x4) and replace 960 with Xeon X5680 or X5690 and an aftermarket cooler solution

and replace the 660 VC with a Quadro K2200

sell yer wife .... and kids ;-)

buy microstuff and TELL them what YOU want

Hi

Just check out...

http://www.falcon-nw.com/desktops

I've been using their computers for years, so have several of my friends.

Probably fastest computers and highest quality you are going to get anyplace.

Check out the Talon line, and do the configuration.

If you have money to burn look at the Mach V.

I can output a 1 minute video (1,800 frames) clip at full HD in 15 minutes.

I have a Talon with an i7 processor 4 GHz, 32 Gigs of ram, Liquid Cooling, and a Nvidia 680 GTX video card and two internal 1 TB hard dives for storage.

Mike 

Configure it yourself.

You'd want an i7 (fastest)
Graphic: Nvidia Titan (or Radeon R9 295X2)
HD: 256 SSD (minimum, the best is two of them) and probably 2x 1TB drives in RAID 0.
Fast RAM to go with it.
1000W and probably some water-cooling for your CPU and a desent (say big) box to place everything in.

A Titan is a good waste of money with Poser,

Poser wont show much improvement at all versus a lesser card since it is a cpu bound application.

Fastest in a cpu os not always the best either. Core count comes into play, so does the TRL. TRL is how much the cpu slows down when certain numbers of cores are active.

In multi core apps (real world apps that actually do something), the Xeons are faster then I7's even at slightly slower clock speeds. If you use 2 Xeons, the difference is even more substantial.

If you want single core perfomance, go for an I7. If you want fast multi core, go Xeon.

A 2.6 ghtz Xeon Westmere system (24 thread) that can be built for less than the cost of a new unlocked 12 thread I7' CPU, will run circles around that I7 when rendering with Firefly.

Recommending a 1000 watt supply without knowing what they plan on adding to the system could cause issues as well. One of my workstations can top a 1500 watt draw thru the backup supply if fully loaded down. Power supplies need to be selected by actual max draw with everything active, not a guess.

Water cooling is a waste of time unless you plan on overclocking the crap out of it. A water cooling system can cause more trouble than good if water starts to condense and drip on things. You can make a very expensive paper weight, rather quickly that way.

You can build an I7 system that is water cooled, overclocked to death, etc. And a dual Xeon system will still be faster at certain things. Like rendering in Poser.