New CPU for rendering

[richie_C]

So I'm currently looking into upgrading my dated PC (i5 2500k, HD 6830, 16GB DDR2) and I'm trying to figure out if I should go the AMD route or the Intel route.

Mainly I want my new machine to be faster at rendering and have better viewport performance. The main software I will be using is 3DSMax and Vray. I know Xeon CPUs are meant to be the best of this sort of stuff but its not in my budget.

Ideally I'd like a CPU for about £350 that will out perform my current i2500k.

I've heard the new Ryzen CPU's may be better due to having more cores?

 

[Martini1991]

It's got to be an AMD 1700 as far as CPU goes at 290.

 

[gavinh87]

Ryzen 1700 is perfect for this.

 

[bloodiedathame]

Do 3DSMax or Vray have an option to render using GPU?

 

[Doobedoo]

+1 Ryzen 1700 all the way. Plenty of cores and power for what you need and well in your budget, plus you have an upgrade path in the future with the AM4 platform being supported for 3-5 years.

Intel is too overpriced for what it is so AMD deserve more sales as they have a better product at a sensible price.

 

[richie_C]

Great! It looks like its the 1700 for sure then. I believe Vray has GPU rendering, I think they also use CUDA cores so I may be best getting an Nvidia card to go with the 1700? Maybe a 1060 as anything will outperform my old HD6850

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Another recommendation for the Ryzen 7 1700,although there are some offers I have seen on the Ryzen 7 1700X if you don't want to overclock. Regarding the card,3ds Max does have AMD ProRender support,but I suspect asking in the GPU section might be useful(or even some of the dedicated forums for the software you want to use).

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Great! It looks like its the 1700 for sure then. I believe Vray has GPU rendering, I think they also use CUDA cores so I may be best getting an Nvidia card to go with the 1700? Maybe a 1060 as anything will outperform my old HD6850

Definitely go for a Ryzen CPU, for viewport performace it depends on what backend (is that the proper name) that the viewport runs. There was an issue in Blender (which uses openGL) where Nvidia gaming cards had poor performance in the viewport because it was lacking hardware features that where present in the quadro cards that helped with rendering the backface of polygons. Not sure if you would see this same problem in 3DS max though.

Vray RT works in cuda and openCL for rendering (https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAX/Set+Up+V-Ray+RT+GPU). GPU rendering does have less features compared to CPU (https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAX/V-Ray+RT+Supported+Features), so check if there is anytthing that you want that will be missing.