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3D rendering benchmarks?

Steve.m

Steve.m

Steve.m

Associate
Joined
15 Jul 2010
Posts
72
Hello everyone

Some time ago I was going to upgrade/purchase an i5 build, but due to health problems did not get around to it.
I am now trying to decide which direction to take.

First, to be clear. I do not do much gaming, the games I do play occasionally, well, I can play them OK on my trusty old q6600.

What I want is a good setup for my main hobby, which is 3d modeling/rendering/animation.
From the benchmarks I have found, it looks like I would be better to go with an i7 rather than an i5, however, I wanted to check/confirm that an i7 would be better than going down the AMD route with a Bulldozer FX-8150.
Are there any benchmarks for 3D rendering comparison of an i7 v FX-8150?
I have seen post concerning (possible) heat problems with an FX-8150, is that of major concern?

Thanks for your time if you can give me any info, and no, I am not trolling or looking to make any argument of AMD v Intel, I am just looking for solid info to help me decide.

Regards,

Stem
 
Hi there,

May I ask what rendering programs you mainly use? as there may be direct comparisons available.

For example here are some reviews comparing the i5 2500K, i7 2600K and FX-8150 in some rendering benchmarks:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/the-bulldozer-review-amd-fx8150-tested/7
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-15.html
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21813/14

As you can see, in most of these heavily multithreaded tasks the Bulldozer performs better than the i5 2500K, however the i7 tends to win over the bulldozer.

Also, please bear in mind that the next generation of intel quad core CPUs which replaces the sandy bridge CPUs is being released at the end of this month. They are called "Ivy Bridge" and will cost roughly the same as the sandy bridge CPUs and offer around 5-15% more performance per clock depending on the application.
 
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Hello,

Many thanks for the reply.

I do use various renderer's (depends on project), but usually still drop back to the open source renderer's, mainly Pov-ray / Luxrender, so the links you gave do give me good info, thanks.

"Ivy-Bridge"
I do lurk around the forum quite a bit, so have seen some info, but had not seen the part about the "performance per clock" boost.
Would you recommend my waiting for that processor? I am in no big rush to upgrade, as I would certainly prefer to get a new build a little later, rather than get one now, and then be kicking myself in a few weeks.

Thanks again for your time,

Regards,

- Stem
 
Happy to help :)

As for Ivy bridge, here is some early performance information on it - it seems to offer a bit more performance than sandy bridge for the same clockspeed and uses a bit less power. It is also expected to overclock rather well - but we will have to wait a couple of weeks for proper reviews of that.

If you don't desperately need a new PC then yes, I would wait. For the sake of waiting a few weeks (29th April seems to be the launch date) you will get a slightly more powerful, slightly more efficient system for the same money.
 
I do 3D animation for a living.
One thing to consider is that although the final render & test renders will generally use all cores 100%. a lot of the other processes will be single or lightly theaded.
When you have lots of deformers in the viewport, when you are previewing many particles in the viewport, when you have a lot of skinning in the viewport, the single/ few core performance is what counts.
For this reason (low single core performance), I think the Bulldozers don't make a good choice for a workstation chip, though perhaps ok for a dedicated low cost rendernode.
With rendering, the 2600k's hyperthreading shows a good performance boost over the 2500k, so worth getting but if money is tight the 2500k is pretty capable too.
For GPU, I beleve an mid-upper mid gaming card is fine. I would lean toward an NVidia just in case you end up using any cuda-accelerated applications like Octane or IRay. Say 560 to 580 sort of range.
RAM is so cheap right now, I would just grab 16gb form the start in 4x4 configuration, two of these should do nicely :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-307-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

My home machine is the one in my sig, at work I use a 2600k.
 
For a GPU, the GTX 570 has recently tumbled in price and can be had now for £200 (see here). I believe for GPGPU work like this it is a rather good value option (so long as the applications you use can make use of it).
 
Quixote said:
I do 3D animation for a living.
One thing to consider is that although the final render & test renders will generally use all cores 100%. a lot of the other processes will be single or lightly theaded.
When you have lots of deformers in the viewport, when you are previewing many particles in the viewport, when you have a lot of skinning in the viewport, the single/ few core performance is what counts.
For this reason (low single core performance), I think the Bulldozers don't make a good choice for a workstation chip, though perhaps ok for a dedicated low cost rendernode.
Click to expand...

i second this and its something i've brought up before in this kind of thread because often bulldozer is put forward for these kind of things because rendering is usually properly multithreaded, but so much of non rendering 3d work still uses single threaded processes that bulldozer is a bad choice because of its poor single threaded performance and i'd instantly discount it because of this unless as said its a dedicated render node.
 
Hi cmndr_andi,

Many thanks again for the info. Although I would like to upgrade now, I can wait for a couple of weeks.

"GTX 570"
Nice price.
I will be considering a new Graphics card. I just need to see what the new build will cost and what cash I will have spare for a new GPU. (as, due to my not making a full upgrade for quite a long time, I will need just about everything apart from a monitor/keyboard/mouse)

Best Regards.

- Stem
 
Hi Quixote,

Many thanks for your reply.

For single core, yes, I had already decided on the i5/i7 route, but needed to consider multi-threading, and to see comparison. Mainly just to see as to what time is lost compared to any possible gain. I am now convinced to go with at least an i7.

"Luxrender GPU"
I currently use Blender for front-end to Luxrender 0.9, which unfortunately is having some issues with GPU on nVidia (does not work).
Using Blender 2.49 and luxrender 0.8, I only see my current GPU (GTX 460) using approx 30%, although, that may very well be a problem with bottleneck of my aging q6600.

My only other current front-end to Luxrender would be through C4D which I recently got through a side-grade, but I only currently see an exporter for 32 bit, which I am not totally convinced on using.

Regards,

- Stem
 
Hey Steve, I'm a C4D user too.
Obviously the built in renderer/s are CPU only, I think the i7 is worth it if you have the cash.
Seeing as your current GPU is pretty good, I would stick with that for the time being.
You're obviously more up on Lux render GPU benefits than I am, I occasionly use Octane render.
If you're buying now off OCUK, you may as well get the 2700k, the price is so close to the 2600k.
Only other option is the 3930k with an LGA 2011 motherboard but thats a BIG jump in price.
I just upgraded my work machine from a Q9400 to the 2600k, very nice speed boost.
I used this motherboard :
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-GI
 
Hi Quixote,

"Octane render"
It is a nice renderer, (will it ever get out of beta?). The main problem for me with that, is that it uses the GPU memory for geometry/textures, so large scenes/textures can quickly consume resources.

"Lux render GPU benefits"
With it using openCL, and only using the GPU for ray calculations, it does add a good performance boosts. There is also the added benefit of it being able to work across a LAN using the CPU/GPU of other nodes.

There is also Yafaray, which is currently being further developed using openCL, where the GPU will be used for Photon Mapping. But have not looked at those experimental builds much yet.

"3930k with an LGA 2011 motherboard"
Now that would be nice. I think it may be out of my current price range, well, if I want to also get a new HD(probably an SSD) and the other bits'n'pieces for this build.

"Gigabyte Z68AP-D3"
Yes, I have seen a number of post recommending that board. I was a little dubious of it due to its price, thinking poor components etc, but I have been re-thinking.

Thanks for your help,

Regards,

- Stem
 
The gigabyte Z68 D3 is a good board (here is a review), however with the arrival of the Z77 boards (which also support Sandy Bridge CPUs like the i7 2600K/2700K, as well as ivy bridge CPUs) then you would be better of going for something like this.

That said, if you want a board that allows both main PCIE slots to run at x8/x8 speed (the z68 D3 and the above z77 board have the second slot at only x4 speed) then this is a good board.
 
I mainly use Lightwave for my renders.
I have just bought the ..

Gigabyte X79-UD5 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard

and

Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor

Where PC's are concerned Rendering is all I care about so whilst expensive, with 6 cores it fits my requirements. Most people here will recommend a 2500K/i7 2600K, or to wait for Ivybridge, but their requirements will be games or budget.

As previously mentioned a mid-upper mid gaming card is fine, anything more will be money wasted especial where Lightwave is concerned.
 
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embalse said:
I mainly use Lightwave for my renders.
I have just bought the ..

Gigabyte X79-UD5 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard

and

Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor

Where PC's are concerned Rendering is all I care about so whilst expensive, with 6 cores it fits my requirements. Most people here will recommend a 2500K/i7 2600K, or to wait for Ivybridge, but their requirements will be games or budget.

As previously mentioned a mid-upper mid gaming card is fine, anything more will be money wasted especial where Lightwave is concerned.
Click to expand...

This is all correct except I'd add that going for a 3GB graphics card for CUDA work can be a wise choice. GPU RAM is a massive problem with GPU-accelerated rendering. As you say I don't think Lightwave has this but many other packages exist that do (think 3ds max with iray, vray, octane etc.). The current 580 line-up with 3GB is a good bet. And it will also allow you to stuff massive texture maps into your viewports too. But obviously if you're not doing any CUDA rendering then graphics cards aren't really important at all in the low to mid-end DCC world.
 
mothermachine said:
This is all correct except I'd add that going for a 3GB graphics card for CUDA work can be a wise choice. GPU RAM is a massive problem with GPU-accelerated rendering. As you say I don't think Lightwave has this but many other packages exist that do (think 3ds max with iray, vray, octane etc.). The current 580 line-up with 3GB is a good bet. And it will also allow you to stuff massive texture maps into your viewports too. But obviously if you're not doing any CUDA rendering then graphics cards aren't really important at all in the low to mid-end DCC world.
Click to expand...

I sort of agree agree, I use a 3GB 580 for 3d Studio MAX, and the viewport performance is much better than a 1.5gb 480 on my secondary machine.

For rendering it's all cpu but trying to work on a big scene without a hefty ammount of vram can be a pain, I'd reccomend as much as you can afford, you can go and drink tea while it's rendering, but you'll be cursing when you can't rotate your camera and see the scene at the same time.
 
Hi embalse,

embalse said:
Gigabyte X79-UD5 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard and Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor
Where PC's are concerned Rendering is all I care about so whilst expensive, with 6 cores it fits my requirements.
Click to expand...

It is something I have thought about, and although it is not something I have completely dismissed, I really have to think if it would be the best direction for me.
If I look at the cost of that CPU+motherboard = £680, that, with the other parts I will need, would take to around the £1100 mark, which is over what I was initially thinking (I was wanting to keep it under 1K). That would give me approx 40% more rendering power. (than current i7)
Now if I was going to spend over the budget, then I could also start thinking, rather than spend £680 on that CPU+motherboard, I could get 2 x i7 + 2 x gigabyte boards which would actually cost a little less, then I could purchase the other parts for the new build and strip down my old system for its parts. I would only have to purchase an extra DVD player / memory. That would give me a slave i7 rendering node, which would increase the rendering speed beyond that of the 3930K (or so I would think) for similar outlay.

I am still thinking about what to do. Nothing is set in stone in my mind, well, apart from the minimal CPU I want, which is the i7.

Regards,

- Stem
 
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