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is a move from a Q6600 to a Q9450 worth it for 3D rendering?

easyrider said:
I would argue that two PC's one with a 3.2ghz Q6600 in and the other with a 3.2ghz Q9450 in

The user would not notice any difference at all.

Other than the comfort blanket of looking in cpuz at the more cache and the 45nm process.:p

The two cpu's are just to similar to warrant spending more than 40 on the upgrade.
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if you read my previous post im happy with having a CPU that will be running a lot cooler than the Cooker B3 chip, and ill be happy with a 20% boost thanks

easy :because of what you say between the Q6600 and the Q9450 does not make your comments correct,only what you Believe to be correct there is a difference
 
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easyrider said:
Spending 100 on a current system has to see gains. Or there is no point
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That's a nice calm reply, lol I'm shocked! :D

So why can't sambo_joseph do the easy-shuffle like you, sell his 65nm power hungry quad and relace it with a less power hungry and faster 45nm quad, nice easy upgrade, not too much down-time, re-installing software. plug-ins etc, just *plop*

I have to say though if he does really crack on with a lot of work and he is using multi-threaded software then Core i7 does offer the biggest upgrade but then again it's the most expensive option!

Personally I'm not fussed either way but I do enjoy the chatter and hearing a good explaination of the Pro's and Con's either side! :cool:

You just need a little more patience easyrider and I think you could become an even more useful contributor, when you take your time and your in a good mood you deffo can hold your own . . . although a lot of the time you do yell down at us from your lofty perch *Knee before Zod!* kinda like! :p
 
core i7 against the same clocked quad c2d in premier CS4

Its astonishing how fast the i7 is!!!!!

HD video flies and even opening the app!


 
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Big.Wayne said:
So why can't sambo_joseph do the easy-shuffle like you, sell his 65nm power hungry quad and relace it with a less power hungry and faster 45nm quad, nice easy upgrade, not too much down-time, re-installing software. plug-ins etc, just *plop*
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If he can sell his Q6600 for 120 and get a Q9450 for 160 then yes.

But selling his Q6600 for 120 and spending another 120 again for 200mhz gain is against the easy shuffle ethic!:eek:
 
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So how much will it cost sambo_joseph to easy-shuffle his Core2 Quad into a Core i7 rig, like if he was your best mate and you was trying to help a budding 3D star get the best machine possible for as least money as possible for xmas? :)

P.S: I've watched that video already, looks good, will be looking at Core i7 more closely next year March-June)

P.P.S: Did you get the ASUS P5Q-EM yet?
 
Big.Wayne said:
Wow, we got ourselves a real life 3D-designer on the forums! :)

excellent, can I pick your brains a bit, like maybe describe what a very busy day or work would be like for you, where is the bottleneck where sometimes you are sitting waiting for stuff? i.e: What would be a big task for you where the computer will keep you waiting (and therefor less productive).

What are the main software tools you use and are they multithreaded?

It's clear you got a bit of spare cash to spend and with the extra justification of your PC being a work-horse there may well be some spending happening soon! :p
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I've only just started at this company :p I'm a 3D-lighting artist, we have a seperate department which deals with all the rendering networks and such. When I'm at home doing freelance I am in charge of the rendering but it's only really for small clients and much smaller projects.

I find the longest things to render are obviously high definition sequnces and highly detailed ray tracing passes. Usually at home when I'm waiting for a render I just carry on working on my other (less powerful) machine.

The software I use is mainly Maya (with Renderman) but for my architectural work I use 3D studio max (with Vray). I have a website if you want to have a look but the work I have there is fairly old:

http://www.samiransari.co.uk/
 
sambo_joseph said:
When I'm at home doing freelance I am in charge of the rendering but it's only really for small clients and much smaller projects

desertlargetq4.jpg
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Hey sambo_joseph,

well you may be small today but fast forward 5-10 years you may be a famous 3D-Artist, good luck to ya! :)

I like your work, it's not often we meet a real life power user in the forums, there are a few but mainly we are upgrade freaks and anally retentive geeks who will fight to the death discussing something as meaningless as a 2°C temp difference or 10FPS in a game! :o

It does sound like you generate a small income from your machine, I believe easyrider also does a bit of video editing so he can pay off his pizza bill (ha can't easyshuffle a pizza can ya! :p).

If I was ya mate you would have had shot of that of that 65nm quad long ago, I don't like them mainly because of their power consumption (anally retentive but meaningful to me).

Before Core i7 came out then nearly everyone would have urged you to pickup a Yorkfield, easyrider would have stated it was worth it for the extra cache and SSE4.1 instruction set alone however now there is a new INTEL platform the upgrade stratgey has changed somewhat!

I think a partitial upgrade to Yorkfield could be a good thing, I'd do it for the power saving alone, it's also very easy.

But then again Core i7 does offer you an even better quad core machine but it's a fair whack.

I think I will persist until you do something, I want to get rid of that 65nm quad you have lol! :D
 
Given that you're looking to increase your rendering horsepower, have you considered building a second machine? I don't know the specifics but doesn't most 3D rendering software support distributed rendering?

Make sure it can distribute a single frame over multiple machines if you're doing stills though, no point having a second machine if it's just gonna sit there idle :) Not sure what way distributed rendering works on the software licencing front.

Admitedly it'll be a bit pricier than just an upgrade but I figure you'd roughly double your rendering speed.
 
DigitalReaper said:
Given that you're looking to increase your rendering horsepower, have you considered building a second machine? I don't know the specifics but doesn't most 3D rendering software support distributed rendering?

Make sure it can distribute a single frame over multiple machines if you're doing stills though, no point having a second machine if it's just gonna sit there idle :) Not sure what way distributed rendering works on the software licencing front.

Admitedly it'll be a bit pricier than just an upgrade but I figure you'd roughly double your rendering speed.
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This is something I have considered but like you said its a very expensive option. The second machine I have is the one that I use for internet browsing and very lightweight 3D work whereas my other machine is the worky one. I was looking for an upgrade that would not cost me more than about £280 in total - but I think I'm just going to have to be patient with this one. My overclocked Q6600 is serving me well for now but I know that overclocking and rendering is not a very good combo in the long run at all - I would like a processor that wouldn't need much of an overclock out of the box for very good results.
 
If anyone is still interested I thought I would chip in with some real numbers for 4 machines that are used in rendering applications.

I ran the 64 bit version of Cinebench on each which gives a decent indication of realtive CPU performance.

Here are my results:

Q6600 2.4GHz 9500
Q6600 2.8GHz 11100
Q9550 2.83GHz 11700
Q9550 3.4GHz 14400
Xeon 8 Core 3.0GHz 21900
i7 920 3.57GHz 20100

In my opinion you really need to be looking at an i7 system to get a dramatic increase in rendering power and sadly that costs money. And even then you probably need to be prepared to overclock it.

At the same clock speed there isn't much to choose between a Q6600 and Q9550.

I'm not sure why you say that rendering and overclocking are not a good combo - As long as the machine is 100% stable and you are not over volting then I don't see an issue. All my overclocks are at stock volts.

Network rendering can be very useful. The problem with this is when making small test renders and the overhead of network transfer time cancels out the contribution of the 2nd PC.

Anyway, for what its worth those are my findings. I think you are right to be patient - If you are clocking your Q6600 over 3GHz then you have a pretty decent machine !
 
f your not gonna overclock id keep you Q6600 at 3.4ghz ;) if your gonna overclock get the i7 and see a massive difference :)
 
philhoole said:
If anyone is still interested I thought I would chip in with some real numbers for 4 machines that are used in rendering applications.

I ran the 64 bit version of Cinebench on each which gives a decent indication of realtive CPU performance.

Here are my results:

Q6600 2.4GHz 9500
Q6600 2.8GHz 11100
Q9550 2.83GHz 11700
Q9550 3.4GHz 14400
Xeon 8 Core 3.0GHz 21900
i7 920 3.57GHz 20100

In my opinion you really need to be looking at an i7 system to get a dramatic increase in rendering power and sadly that costs money. And even then you probably need to be prepared to overclock it.

At the same clock speed there isn't much to choose between a Q6600 and Q9550.

I'm not sure why you say that rendering and overclocking are not a good combo - As long as the machine is 100% stable and you are not over volting then I don't see an issue. All my overclocks are at stock volts.

Network rendering can be very useful. The problem with this is when making small test renders and the overhead of network transfer time cancels out the contribution of the 2nd PC.

Anyway, for what its worth those are my findings. I think you are right to be patient - If you are clocking your Q6600 over 3GHz then you have a pretty decent machine !
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Hey mate thanks very much for those numbers - that really makes it crystal clear as to how useless an upgrade to a q9550 would be for render speeds :p

It's going to be a long and treatorous road to an i7, but my god I will have to get there somehow!
 
Is a move from an athlon X2 4600 to a Q9450 worth it then?

Considering I sold the athlon for £100 and picked up the Q9450 for £105 :D
 
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