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Quicker CPU Wanted

Traviance

Traviance

Traviance

Associate
Joined
5 Feb 2016
Posts
13
Hiya,

I just need some advise if there is a quicker better CPU that i can upgrade to. I work for a bespoke kitchen company who use ArtiCAD to produce images for how our products are going to end up. at the moment we are using a Overclocked Intel Core i7 5930K on a Asus X99 Deluxe with a Overclocked EVGA GTX Titan X.

Any recommendations on a faster CPU which will allow the program to work quicker and render the images quicker would be a great help. the program uses the CPU as its main power and not the graphics card so this leaves it a little difficult to do anything else on the computer with out slowing down the render.

Thanks for your help in advance

Xander.
 
i7-6900K (8 core) or i7-6950X (10 core) basically.

Upgrading to an application that uses GPU-powered rendering would be much better, I imagine.
 
Is ArtiCAD single or multi-threaded?

If it is properly multithreaded, then you could move to a Dual Xeon based system.
 
Traviance said:
Hiya,

I just need some advise if there is a quicker better CPU that i can upgrade to. I work for a bespoke kitchen company who use ArtiCAD to produce images for how our products are going to end up. at the moment we are using a Overclocked Intel Core i7 5930K on a Asus X99 Deluxe with a Overclocked EVGA GTX Titan X.

Any recommendations on a faster CPU which will allow the program to work quicker and render the images quicker would be a great help. the program uses the CPU as its main power and not the graphics card so this leaves it a little difficult to do anything else on the computer with out slowing down the render.

Thanks for your help in advance

Xander.
Click to expand...

Budget and how much improvement are you hoping for? Because you can hit diminishing returns very quickly.

First thing you might want to do is contact Articad support and ask them if they can give you any guidance on how the product scales with cores / threads as that will inform your decision. I don't know the software so if it turned out to not be very multi-threaded and you'd just bought a dual-socket Xeon solution, you might be a bit miffed. Sorry this may not be much help. Budget and desired gains first off - let us know. Are you expecting 2x performance or would 20% increase in render speed be worthwhile to you for example.
 
How much memory is installed? For that sort of work I would think the more the better.
 
As above, you want to be pretty certain that more CPU cores will help before you shell out on an 8 or 10 core CPU upgrade.

In addition to what the others have posted, try to rule out I/O (input/output) as a bottleneck. If you're reading/writing huge files to a slow HDD or network share this might be the problem. Etc.
 
Yes, you need to find out where you are getting bottlenecked. Fortunately this is as easy as bringing up Task Manager and GPU-Z on a separate monitor.

You might also look at ArtiCAD online.
 
you may find that a high speed flash storage drive (PCI-E / NVME) helps more than a new CPU unless your using a program that is very multi threaded..

something like this

ArtiCAD recommend an I7 Processor on their website 'We recommend the i7 processor.' which suggests that their software wont make much use of more than eight cores or ten at a push (otherwise they would recommend certain Xeon's). So CPU wise you could swap the 5930K out for a 5960X or a 6950X/6900K overlocked of course.

I would also imagine that ArtiCAD can eat up a lot of memory which is pretty cheap at the mo so check you have at least 32Gb of ram running at 2400Mhz+ ( don't worry about getting super fast memory as HW-E tends to top out at 3000Mhz and BW-E at 3200Mhz and memory speed doesn't make much difference over 2666Mhz in pretty much any scenario bar a memory bandwidth test!)

Something like this (you want a quad channel kit on X99)

Other than that make sure you have a nice clean install of Windows with nothing unnecessary running in the background

EDIT:

a poke about on the internet suggests ArtiCAD uses the RedSDK rendering engine. Their website suggests that the software scales well with CPU cores...

http://www.redway3d.com/home/products/redsdk/more-about-redsdk/#unified

Think you'll need to check with ArtiCAD support for advice
 
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You'll have to spend thousands on expensive Xeon processors for anything quick if the software supports as many cores it has available for rendering.

If render speed is paramount then look into a distributed rendering/render farm option if it's available. ArtiCAD doesn't seem to be widely supported but they have a ArtiCAD Online product. It doesn't clarify further than "Stunning image rendering speeds" which might imply it's rendered on a remote cluster.
 
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions - the website for the software is completely useless your right.

1. Memory currently in. Vengeance LPX 64GB (8x8GB), DDR4, 2400MHz

2. Also have a. Samsung 512 950 M.2 PCIe NVMe instead of the intel version - intel one was out of stock when the pc was made originally.

- Budget wise up-to £1000 to speed it up.

- I Will contact ArtiCAD to try and get some more information on thread use and system use.

- Looking in Task Manager - when its rendering its only using under 8% of the memory, threads is ranging from 2148 - 2158 Pushing at 100% Utilisation at 4.10Ghz Speed.
 
I would go for an Intel 10 Core Xeon E5-2640 v4 £880(2.4->3.4Ghz). The Xeon E5-2630 v4 is 200Mhz slower but it’s around £620(2.2->3.1Ghz). The Intel 12 Core Xeon E5-2650 v4 might also be an option but it’s around £1100(2.2->2.9Ghz) but has 12 cores.
 
FredFlint said:
I would go for an Intel 10 Core Xeon E5-2640 v4 £880(2.4->3.4Ghz). The Xeon E5-2630 v4 is 200Mhz slower but it’s around £620(2.2->3.1Ghz). The Intel 12 Core Xeon E5-2650 v4 might also be an option but it’s around £1100(2.2->2.9Ghz) but has 12 cores.
Click to expand...

The 2640v4 isn't on the CPU support list for some reason, but the 2630v4 and 2650v4 are. This is unfortunate because the 2640v4 is probably the best CPU under the £1k budget. Possibly an oversight but could be an expensive gamble. Though if we're talking ex VAT the 2650v4 works (about £900 ex VAT).

OP, you're facing a bit of a conundrum since your 5930K is overclocked. What is it at?

The reason being, all the £500-1400 Xeons are locked to much lower speeds, typically 2.2-2.4 GHz. A 2.2 GHz 12-core CPU isn't going to be much faster than your 4 GHz+ 6-core one.

Something like an E5-2680 v4 (2.4G,120W,L3:35M,14C,HT) would be a step up, but it's over budget (£1350 ex VAT).

P.S. you should be using ECC memory if you need to trust your calculations.

Edit: best option for now might be a 5960X. Appropriate for your board, overclockable, 33% more cores, and under £1000. Could sell the 5930K to recoup some cash.
 
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joeyjojo said:
The reason being, all the £500-1400 Xeons are locked to much lower speeds, typically 2.2-2.4 GHz. A 2.2 GHz 12-core CPU isn't going to be much faster than your 4 GHz+ 6-core one.
Click to expand...

That's not necessarily correct. Much can depend on memory throughput, cache hit rate, etc. Cache hit rate is the big one, most likely.

If you're anywhere near OCUK I suggest you arrange a visit with your box and give the various CPUs a test. Put your budgetary restriction aside for the moment and remember that this is a business decision and that time is money. If you can demonstrate - and document - that a £4K CPU is better value than a £1K CPU then your boss should go for the former.
 
Without wanting to totally miss the point, have you though about simply building another PC and dedicating that one to rendering?

I think cost wise you could build a pretty decent mini ATX rig for normal use and then just happily render things off on the old. Of course it sounds like updating can improve render speed but it also sounds a bit like you dont have a problem with speed more the fact it prohibits you from doing anything else for the duration of the render.

Or i'm missing the point?
 
Thanks again for the help guys, Yes it is a possibility that i could spend over the amount specified i just liked to put a figure to it if needed to help with locating something fee-sable and not something which is over the top.

having a second mini ATX rig could work in the instance but it would mean having to get another license for the software, upgrading the screen for dual input and the build of the Mini Pc to still maintain a good standard of speed / work ratio. but then this could be a extra pc for the future when extra staff members are introduced.

will look at it as a option but will look into the ones mentioned. if anyone has any that are between 1000 - 2000 then let me know and i will mark this is a possible.

Thanks again for everyones help in this.

Xander Theodore-King.
 
Quartz said:
That's not necessarily correct. Much can depend on memory throughput, cache hit rate, etc. Cache hit rate is the big one, most likely.

If you're anywhere near OCUK I suggest you arrange a visit with your box and give the various CPUs a test. Put your budgetary restriction aside for the moment and remember that this is a business decision and that time is money. If you can demonstrate - and document - that a £4K CPU is better value than a £1K CPU then your boss should go for the former.
Click to expand...

We have a winner
 
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