What should I upgrade for better 3D rendering speeds?

[sam690]

Got my first gaming PC for Christmas with the intention of gaming on it. Although I have always enjoyed playing around with programes like Cinema 4D and Autodesk which is now primarily what my pc is used for now. I have found I never really game much on my PC, if i do its on not very demanding games such and Modern Warfare 2 and GTA 4.
The question is what should I upgrade to help make my computer a bit faster at rendering my projects?

I was reading through the thread further down and everyone seems to mention that the speed of rendering is down to the number of threads in the processor. But I don't want to go down the route of selling bits and getting better components as everything is brand new and only got a few weeks ago. Is there anything i can get to upgrade on what i already have such as ram or anything?

Nothing is overclocked yet as I am still to get a decent cpu cooler. If i did overclock would this help to increase speeds? Or am I wasting my time with this?

Anyone with a greater knowledge in this area I would be glad of your suggestions or opinions on what I should do.

My current spec is:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Z77 Maximus V Formula Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £249.98
1 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £167.99
1 x Seasonic X-Series 650w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £114.98
1 x NZXT Phantom 410 Enthusiast Midi Tower Case - Black/White £89.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £69.98
1 x Corsair Dominator PLATINUM 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit with DHX Pro Connector (CMD8GX3M2A1600C9) £64.99
Total : £1,012.91 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 

[ZardoZ]

more ram and an overclock to 4.5 would benefit you. make sure you get a good cooler like the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-011-NC&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2346

oh and make sure you are running windows 7 64 bit and that your apps are 64 bit versions.

 

[sam690]

I am assuming faster ram would also be beneficial? So would overclocking the ram that i currently have be worth it?

 

[Gav_881]

I am assuming faster ram would also be beneficial? So would overclocking the ram that i currently have be worth it?

Faster ram is better but the difference is much smaller than CPU overclocking, as said before if your not wanting to replace the chip with a 3770k then just get a good air cooler and turn up the clocks.

 

[Zuban]

overclocking the ram will help but its only a really very very small increase in speed, most of any speed increase will come from overclocking the cpu, download the cinebench 11.5 benchmark which uses the cinema 4d render engine, this will help you judge the improvements of any overclocking you do.

 

[sam690]

Thanks for the tips. Ill maybe go down the new processor route nearer the summer time.

 

[flippant]

The big question here is what are you planning to render?

Is it a hobby or a job, and are you new to it or and old hand? The current spec you have would put to shame a workstation from five or six years ago, I still have a old QX6700 quad core with 4gb of ram that will render anything I need. just not as quickly as I'd like, so if you're just starting out you have plenty of head room to learn with.

If you want quicker rendering for little expense, get a decent cooler and overclock the CPU, in fact if you're going to be rendering, get a decent cooler anyway because you are going to get it hot, 3D rendering makes Prime 95 look like solitaire for heat generation and your machine will almost certainly be throttling on the stock cooler.

Before windows 7 pretty much all the workstations I used where 32 bit OS, so 3gb of ram was all you could use, the 4gb switch trick generally just made things crash, so 8gb should be plenty for now.

Of course more cores are better, but a decent quad core will work just fine if your starting out, in fact it will help, because you will learn to work with what you have, and your work will be more efficient.

I you're waiting hours for a render, you might want to look at how you're working, before you worry about the workstation you're working on.

However, if you've done this before, and you need to speed up or go bust, go buy two or three more cheap quad cores and network them as render slaves, that should up your productivity!

3D can be a bottomless pit and you can just keep throwing money in, without knowing what you want or need to achieve it's very hard to recommend anything, people will always tell you to spend spend spend, but with the right skills and practice you can achieve amazing results with very little outlay.

Good luck.

 

[Zuban]

I you're waiting hours for a render, you might want to look at how you're working, before you worry about the workstation you're working on.

its so easy to end up with a model or scene that is virtually unworkable, its really important to keep things efficient, and understand the software your using as altering the value of one setting incorrectly can be the difference between a scene rendering in 1 minute or never...

 

[Messiah Khan]

its so easy to end up with a model or scene that is virtually unworkable, its really important to keep things efficient, and understand the software your using as altering the value of one setting incorrectly can be the difference between a scene rendering in 1 minute or never...

I'll just set the subdivision iteration to 10 and Ray Trace bounce to 10................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................zzzzzzzzzz...........................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....................!