Retrowave posted at 6:47PM Sun, 23 February 2020 - #4381546

I did wonder, after seeing those beasts Seachnasaigh put together, whether those Threadrippers had caught his eye

In that video posted by Nails, he does mention something that requires a bit of thought on the side of a potential purchaser, though. What I'm referring to is the part where he marvels at the screen in awe, and talks about how it looks almost like a GPU rendering away, although not quite there. So what I think people should be mindful of is that since we now have out of core GPU rendering that can access the main system RAM, and a single GPU is faster at a fraction of the price with also the ability to use up to eight GPU's, then why on earth would us 3D types need those Threadripper's that cost as much as a car?

My initial thought was that it might be a RAM thing, but like I said, we now have out of core rendering for GPU, so what is the attraction of such an expensive Threadripper for those of us who have this hobby of rendering?

I mean wow, surely if a single GPU is faster than that processor, and we can add up to eight GPUs to a single machine now, that would mean a machine that is over eight times faster than even the fastest processor, and it would still cost less!

I think there might be some circumstances where it is not so cut a dry. Having purchased a 1080 ti I would be really annoyed with the Poser performance If I had not specified a Threadipper for the CPU. When the system was new the GPU render would crash if it was complex as it was not using main system RAM. Even today when it can share the RAM GPU renders are only marginally faster than CPU renders and to get it that close I needed to load a driver that is essentially 18 months out of date. If I use the most up to date drivers the GPU, in Poser 11.2, is crippled with the CPU being faster in almost all cases.

If you can guarantee the performance you suggest and that said performance will be maintained in the future for all 3D software than I would agree with you. My experience with computers so far suggests that such matters tend to drift, one valid reason why someone would buy a threadipper, it gives you two options.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.