I’ve got a laptop with an i5-2450M 2.5 GHz in it. Compared to my old laptop, it is very fast, actually twice as fast, but it’s slow in rendering on certain scenes. What kills the i5 speed are transparencies in Poser/DS and volumetric skies with cloud layers in Vue.

I did run Cinebench 11.5 on my laptop and got a score of 2.07…. very low.

I was thinking of buying a desktop just for rendering. Don’t want to spent lot’s of money on it, but it needs to be a lot faster then my laptop, but a simple system will do, no fancy graphics card and so on. I intend to sent the final versions of scenes created in 3D software that need to be rendered there, while working on the laptop on new scenes.

Started to look around and the 8 core AMD FX-8150 seems pretty good, get’s a bit more then 6 on Cinebench 11.5. The FX-8120 seems close as well, could be an ok choice. The i5 2500 is close, but I’m afraid it has the same transparency / skies issues as mine. The i7 2600 is an option, but I do find that a bit too expensive and I’m not sure how much gain there will be. Not sure how the newer i5’s & i7’s will prerform, but they’re pricey. The new AMD’s A10 seem to be a no-go, since they’re much slower then the old ones according to the tests.

After some more looking around I found out that AMD also has the FX-8350 and FX-8320 cpu’s, which are better then the 81xx series and even get better ratings. The FX-8350 gets a 6.93 in CineBench 11.5 and the FX-8320 a 6.41. The FX-8350 is rated above the i7-2600k when it comes to rendering.

Does anyone use the FX-8350 or 8320 with and how does it perform? Does it choke on transparancies or skies as the i5 does? Perhaps someone with a machine like that can render a test scene I’ve set up in Vue and post the time? Anyone who does have a FX-8350 or 30. FX-8150 or 30 or i5 and even i7 could you perhaps participate, post your cpu and the rendering time and even Vue version (preferably 10), that would be a great help!

I’ve choosen Vue for the test since it’s most demanding of all the 3D software I do use (Poser Pro 2012, DS4.5 Pro. Hexagon 2.5, vue 10 Studio and Bryce 7)

Scene: Seychelles, found in samples 1 (don’t change anything, except for the render settings), see image. Render to screen, final quality, 640x427. My time: 15 mins 40 secs.

Cinebench scores can be decieving, especially considering a Phenom II scored higher than the fx chips you mentioned.

A two hundred dollar CPU is not going to give that much improvement when it comes to transparencies and volumetrics.

For twice that, you can get a Opteron 6234 12 core that should score about 30 or so....

While you are at it, put it on a dual cpu mobo so you can add another cpu later.

I have an FX-8150 and rendered a broadcast quality image of the scene in 6 minutes and a final qaulity in 5 minutes, I've tried to post the images for verification, but they don't show up in my reply :(

Quote - I have an FX-8150 and rendered a broadcast quality image of the scene in 6 minutes and a final qaulity in 5 minutes, I've tried to post the images for verification, but they don't show up in my reply :(

Awesome, thank you for rendering the scenes, even on a higher quality. I beleive you without the images..... may be the file size is too large for them to be posted? Wow, 6 minutes and 5 minutes, that's already a huge gain.

Quote - Cinebench scores can be decieving, especially considering a Phenom II scored higher than the fx chips you mentioned.

A two hundred dollar CPU is not going to give that much improvement when it comes to transparencies and volumetrics.

For twice that, you can get a Opteron 6234 12 core that should score about 30 or so....

While you are at it, put it on a dual cpu mobo so you can add another cpu later.

Vue 10 Studio only supports 8 cores, so going overboard on cpu's will not have any extra effect when it comes to rendering. Of course a 200 dollar CPU is going to give me much improvement. We're talking 8 desktop cores running at 3-4Ghz vs 2 laptop cores/4 threads running at 2.5Ghz. Going from laptop to desktop is a gain and anyone can figure out that the speed alone is going to give an improvement, not even mentioning doubling the cores. As you can see from the post after yours (the above one quoted) the less then 200 dollar 'inferior' version of the cpu is already giving a huge improvement when rendering tranparencies and skies..... 15 mins vs 5 mins and I haven't even tried rendering on broadcast I will do that later on. 

Attached Link: Benchmark thread on LIghtwave forum

Thanks for the link and sure does give a good impression of how pc's compare. Impressive to see some of the specs, but those pc's don't come cheap. Also interesting to see that a $180 AMD can keep up with a good number of the $300-$1000 priced Intel's. Very informative thread. The AMD I'm looking at is even better then the one used in the tests.

By the way, my boradcast render took 18 minutes, so the AMD FX-8150 is in both renders 3 times faster, the FX-8350 should be more then that, because of the new architecture and clockspeed. So this $200 CPU will gain me over 3 times the speed I've got now, that's a good deal.

Quote - Cinebench scores can be decieving, especially considering a Phenom II scored higher than the fx chips you mentioned.

That's actually not that surpising, as an 8-core FX actually only has 4 floating-point cores, whilst a six-core Phenom II has six...

Quote - Vue 10 Studio only supports 8 cores, so going overboard on cpu's will not have any extra effect when it comes to rendering.

This is not correct.

Do you put every other running thread on hold while rendering using all the CPU cores?

There is an operating system, background threads, etc, hogging cores when you click render as well, a single 12 core Opteron will leave 4 free for that when you click render.

Quote - Of course a 200 dollar CPU is going to give me much improvement. We're talking 8 desktop cores running at 3-4Ghz vs 2 laptop cores/4 threads running at 2.5Ghz. Going from laptop to desktop is a gain and anyone can figure out that the speed alone is going to give an improvement, not even mentioning doubling the cores.

An I5 is no slouch. It has 4 true cores, not hyperthreading ones that share things. It also has more math units than most desktop AMD chips.

More math units shows more gains than clock speed, when doing all that math. So apparently, not everyone can figure that out.

Quote - As you can see from the post after yours (the above one quoted) the less then 200 dollar 'inferior' version of the cpu is already giving a huge improvement when rendering tranparencies and skies..... 15 mins vs 5 mins and I haven't even tried rendering on broadcast I will do that later on. 

If you are comparing your render times to another scene, the comparison is useless.

You don't have to step up to an Opteron if you don't want to, but the difference in math units and CPU structure between the Opteron and the FX chips makes all of the difference when it comes to CPU rendering. Having a second CPU is not a waste either, even if you have a program that can only use 8 cores. If Vue supports network rendering, you could run a VM to use more than 8 cores on a 2 CPU setup.

Since you seem to think clock speed is all that, show me an FX chip that will overclock to the speeds an Opteron will. You can overclock an Opteron to death, but I assume you probably know more about that than I do as well.

I was just offering suggestions based on actual experience in building servers, workstations, and desktops. Do what you want to, and buy what you want to.

Twice the price for a cpu to render 5 times faster is trivial, and more then worth it.

The FX chip scores 6, the Opteron scores 30, buy all means buy the "inferior" FX chip.

The only thing the machine will do is rendering, so all the extra cores aren't really needed.

Quote - An I5 is no slouch. It has 4 true cores, not hyperthreading ones that share things. It also has more math units than most desktop AMD chips.

Don't want argue, but the i5 doesn't have 4 true cores, only 2, according to Intel . It has 2 cores, 4 threads. The newest i7 3770, has 4 cores, 8 threads, again according to Intel. Who am I to tell Intel they're wrong? I never said the i5 is a slouch, but the i5 in a laptop is slow compared to the i5's in a desktop.

By now I've gathered enough data from the various threads I posted on different sites. When it comes to rendering, the FX-8150 is as faster then i5's, even then the new ones. The FX-8350 is as fast as or faster then most 4 core i7's, with a few exceptions. So, while the i5 certainly isn't a slouch, it just cannot keep up with these AMD's when rendering, but you sure pay more for it.

Your right, the newer I5's are core duo style. I don't use them anymore and for some reason thought they were 4 cores. I must be thinking of another version.

My whole point was that for the just over the cost of a cheap processor increase in your build, the system would be 5 tiimes faster than any FX one.

If you are not willing to add a few hundred to a build to make it way faster, you might as well stick with your I5.

A few seconds a scene is a huge difference if you are making videos, its a moot point is your just making a pictures. It doesn't sound like you are building a render farm or doing videos.

It's your money, spend it as you see fit.

Most people would want a system, that is 5 times faster.

Afterall, people replace systems to get faster ones...

Not ones that are snails and slightly faster than some other guys snail...

Five times faster? I replaced my laptop last year and the new one is only twice as fast, five times faster is impossible on a laptop :-) I know it's different on with a desktop, but I haven't had a desktop in 5 years. The new system I'm going to build will be at least 3 times faster then my current laptop. To get it 5 times faster the cpu alone would cost well over €550, while the whole system I'm looking at will costs around me €380. Five times faster is more then double the price, much more then I intend to spend.