Cinema 4d - Re-Spec, or Separate Render....

nobbie

nobbie

nobbie

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30 Aug 2012
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4
Hi All,

I'm a long term lurker, but only now need to contribute/ask questions/etc.

I've spec'd all my digital PC's to be somewhat future proofed for their use.
Some machines will just be using PS/DW/AI, some will also be using AE/FL, and some Visual Studio.

Our current specs are;

Intel i7 930 2.80GHz some over-clocked to nearly 4.00GHz
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (1366)
Megahalems Cooler
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 1Gb GDDR5
Corsair GS 600W PSU
Barracuda 7200 1TB SATA 2

Recently we've started dabbling in C4d, and for the one machine, i've now changed the memory for 12Gb (3x4Gb) DDR3 PC3 1600MHz, and swapped the HDD for a Barracuda 7200 1TB SATA 3 (6Gb/s)

AE and FL are working beautifully fast, but C4d is still taking a while, and maxing out all cores on render. It's also generating a fair amount of heat. So-much-so, i'm thinking of ditching the over-clock to mitigate risk.

Do I;

A. Change the CPU? - i7-990X Extreme 3.46 GHz?
B. Change the CPU and BOARD? - i7-3820 3.60GHz & Asus X79 Rampage?
C. Change the 6Gb/s SATA for SSD? Crucial 512GB SSD SATA 6Gb/s
D. Spec a NW Renderererer? -????

Ideas?
 
I'd say option A, but then its an expensive chip now and leaves no upgrade path, so I might say option B instead and try and get an SSD too. Or maybe more RAM and a RAMDisk. With SB-E you can have up to 64GB of RAM on some boards I think.
 
I'd go for option b, but go with a cheaper board, and a 3930k, the rampage is the best board, but it isnt required to spend that much.
 
Hi Nobbie.

I work on C4D 90% of my day (rest is photshop), its the main 3D package in my company. I hope I can help.

When rendering with a 3D package (and I mean just rendering, not previews, not animating in the viewport, not baking particles but just rendering final frames), be it Cinema 4d, Maya, 3DS max etc you will always see 100% use on all cores except if the render engine is doing a single threaded preperation phase for the render.

This is as it should be, it is because 3D rendering can use all that power and benefits from doing so. No upgrade you will do will reduce CPU usage & nor would you want it to, instead, you will render proportionally more quickly.

So the only issue is: is the system cooling insufficient for all cores to run 100% for extended periods (16 hrs at least if you're like us and render on the workstations overnight) ?

Here is the page for the Intel you currently have :

http://ark.intel.com/products/41447...ocessor-(8M-Cache-2_80-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI)

Bottom line is if your CPU runs hotter than it should then you have insufficient cooling. If your overclock is a big contributor to this, then you will have to reduce it. Or you could consider upgrading the cooling.
Simple fact is, none of those other programs are loading all the cores as hard at the same time for such sustained periods. This is just a fact of 3d rendering, not specific to Cinema 4d.

So, you wont upgrade the CPU to reduce temperatures or to stop it loading 100% as it won't do those things.
If you want to reduce temps you must reduce overclock or increase cooling.
You will upgrade it if the renders are not as fast as you want & you want to make them faster.

If you do, then you should be looking at the 3930k really, with the cheapest socket 2011 board you can find (prob around £150 ish).
I don't see the point of going to socket 2011 for 4 cores, or of paying the high price of the i7-990X.

In answer to your questions :

A) See above
B) See Above
C) HDD speeds make no difference to 3d packages speed, the files themselves are very small & only have to be loaded once when you open the file. No point spending money here for Cinema 4D.
D) Sure, if you want. The main advantage is just to have a dedicated render machine during the day, so you don't have to bog the workstations down when you're trying to use them. We're building a 3930k based box for just this purpose.

Hope that helps.
 
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Thanks guys.

So basically, c4d is actually built properly, and is using all the cores, as it's mean to do. If I up the processor, it's still gonna max it out, but for less time.

I'll do some proper temp checks, and think about a NW box. I have an old spare server that might do it.

Thanks all.
 
if your not getting full cpu usage in after effects you can turn on rendering of frames simultainiously.
 
I have run into a similar situation although I don't do much rendering. From what I can tell the 990x is really bad value for money, its probably worth about £150 for what you can get from it, but no one is going to sell it for whats its worth :P

Depending on how much money you have to throw at this, some second hand 1366 systems running on the network might actually work out best. Although not as fast as a sandy/ivy system, they are probably about half the price now. The major downside of this is the electrical cost in running less efficient 1366 systems while overclocked.
 
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