AMD Ryzen, Intel i7 or Dual Xeon Workstation as a new rig?

[Lars Vader]

Dear all!

I've been following the forum for quite some time now, but never posted anything. Until today. :-)

The reason beeing is that I need a new PC/workstation. My background: I'm a graduated Architect who worked as a CG artist for the last two years mainly for one smaller company. So I did everything on my college PC up to this point. Now I want to continue on a freelance basis and therefor I need a new rig. I've been reading threads and articles for days now, but can't really find the right solution for me. That's why I'm asking you for help. I'm trying to give you as much information as possible. 

As I said, I'm an Architect and have zero to none expertise in computer science. I use ArchiCAD, Cinema 4D and - obviously - Corona for my renders. Render times on my current machine are brutal as is working on bigger scenes. So I thought I would buy a new PC with an awesome CPU and a decent GPU (GTX 1080) and would be ready to go. But it seems to be quite more challenging than I expected.

I'm planning on using the rig for other things as well, like video and photo editing, and a bunch of other Adobe stuff. I even consider using GPU-based renderes and maybe even Unreal Engine in the future, too. That's why I wanted to go with a gaming PC (although I'm not a big PC-gamer). But then I read a lot of posts from you guys about work stations. Up to this point I'm not even sure if I know what exactly a work station is in comparison to a normal PC. All I read is, that you can build a decent station with a lot of horse power for less money.

Speaking of money: I would spend around 2.000 - 2.500 €. I've also been advised to wait for the new Ryzen chips from AMD. One (german) shop even builds a rig with the new 1800X: https://www.alternate.de/html/product/1336397

Sorry for posting so much, but I wanted to give you guys a better understanding of what I need (or at least think I need?)

[TomG]

I still always recommend the Corona benchmark as the handiest way to see real world examples of how one type of machine will perform relative to another :)

https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark/

More data on Ryzens will appear as more folks do benchmarks. The Corona Benchmark has been adopted by a few review sites. Dual processor systems are always best for rendering, though of course no-one will know how dual Ryzens will do until those get released into the wild - but then hardware is always a moving goalpost and the decision to "wait for the next thing or go with what is there already" never goes away :)

[Lars Vader]

Thank you, Thomas.
I studied the Corona benchmark and even compared some CPUs to one another but I'm still not sure what the best solution is for me. :-/

[cecofuli]

In my opinion, with 2500 euro, if you need :

(*) a nodes, better to buy three AMD Ryzen, than a strong one dual Xeon. Ok, you have three nodes to manage, but you will have more power and flexibility. But, also, you have to think about your license scheme.
(*) If you need now, a fast workstation: better a dual Xeon
(*) If you can wait some month, better to see how will be the AMD Naples. I'm sure that also, the Xeon price will be go down.

In my opinion German WS isn't so good. Only 16GB RAM (I suggest you 64 GB), the HHD scheme isn't very intelligent, no blu-ray (blu-ray cost 70 euro only),  now you can buy the 1080Ti (with 11GB memory) and...  it's expensive!

[Jann]

The AMD Ryzen platform is interesting, but if aiming for that, I'd wait a bit. It's so new, the motherboards have mostly wonky bios, and the results I see aren't consistent.
Otherwise, note that it tops out at 64Gb ram, and 2 gpus. If that is enough, it's very nice price/performance across the board.

On Intel side similar value is only with QS Xeons from china.

If you need a system now, just get a X99 based i7-6800k. Tried and tested, but definitely not the best price/performance currently.

As for the gpu, the 1070 is best price/performance, and since it has the same 8Gb memory, would also be good to check out some gpu rendering.

[Nejc Kilar]

The AMD Ryzen platform is interesting, but if aiming for that, I'd wait a bit. It's so new, the motherboards have mostly wonky bios, and the results I see aren't consistent.
Otherwise, note that it tops out at 64Gb ram, and 2 gpus. If that is enough, it's very nice price/performance across the board.
...

Where there any tests done that tried hooking up 2+ GPUs already? That last PCH slot would be capable of running an x4 three way splitter for extra GPUs just from the sheer looks of it...?

[Lars Vader]

Thank you guys so much for your answers. Really helps me out!

@cecofuli: Yeah, I was wondering about the price, too, since the Ryzen technology is supposed to be so much cheaper.
I need it rather quick. I should've started getting into this two years ago.
Btw: What is a node?

@Jann: That's exactly why I'm hesitant to buy into this "new" technology. I'll check out some configurations with the CPU you mentioned.

Can you guys tell me what systems you're using?
 

[TomG]

A node is a machine you just use for rendering (that is, you don't work on it at all, just send it stuff to render.)

My current set up is economical, with refurb older machines - in order of decreasing render speed, they are dual Xeon E5-2690 v0 as workstation, dual Xeon 2660 node, dual Xeon 5650 node, and my old workstation, an i7 3930K.

[Lars Vader]

A node is a machine you just use for rendering (that is, you don't work on it at all, just send it stuff to render.)

My current set up is economical, with refurb older machines - in order of decreasing render speed, they are dual Xeon E5-2690 v0 as workstation, dual Xeon 2660 node, dual Xeon 5650 node, and my old workstation, an i7 3930K.

Thanks, Tom!
Is it complicated to install a system like that at home? Is that even possible with Cinema 4D and the Corona Alpha?

[TomG]

Primarily I've used it with Max, where it is simple with Backburner - no real set up required other than ensure they are all on the same network :)

For C4D, the Team Render implementation is not fully complete, it works but with some limitations until the Beta 1 release (https://trello.com/c/vJLSzhxW/34-team-renderer-dr). Some users report crashes or other problems with TR, others report that "the only things that are not working when using teamrender are denoiser, corona proxies (unless you have a copy of the .cgeo at the exact same hdd location on every slave) and statistics at this point", so your mileage may vary until the work on TR is complete as part of Beta 1.

Setting up for TR has tutorials out there, here's one from Greyscalegorilla as an example:

(note, I haven't followed through this one myself to check the content, but a highly respected source so should be good - if anyone else has good tutorials for setting up for TR, feel free to share.)

[Jann]

Where there any tests done that tried hooking up 2+ GPUs already? That last PCH slot would be capable of running an x4 three way splitter for extra GPUs just from the sheer looks of it...?

Not that I know of. I'm just saying that natively, all Ryzen boards only have 2 PCIex slots with 16/8x speeds.
I'm not talking about using splitters etc. When you start with those, you should have a good understanding what exactly you're doing :)

Can you guys tell me what systems you're using?

Currently I have a single cpu system on Asrock X99 WS board with Xeon E5-2686 V3 QS cpu and a single Geforce 970.
I've also used a bios mod to unlock boost clocks, adding a bit of extra performance.
Currently building another similar system with Asrock X99 Taichi board and E5-2683 V3 QS cpu for a friend.
It's a bit of a gamble with these, so I can't say it's the best option.

[Fritzlachatte]

It would be interesting ( I doubt it) to find out, if 2500€ will be enough for a dual CPU Naples solution, but not impossible.
The faster RAM Usage in Naples could become (more) interesting, for your plans of using "gaming" Engines like Unreal, which is right now more or less a Archilles heel of the Desktop Ryzen.
At the moment I didn´t even understand which single banded/sided whatever RAM is the right correlate, I just realized Naples is more universal (ECC etc.)
But they are always talking about dual CPU Naples, have there ever been reportings of using (just:-) 32 Cores singe Naples CPU ?! 

[Juraj]

In my opinion, with 2500 euro, if you need :

(*) a nodes, better to buy three AMD Ryzen, than a strong one dual Xeon. Ok, you have three nodes to manage, but you will have more power and flexibility. But, also, you have to think about your license scheme.
(*) If you need now, a fast workstation: better a dual Xeon
(*) If you can wait some month, better to see how will be the AMD Naples. I'm sure that also, the Xeon price will be go down.

In my opinion German WS isn't so good. Only 16GB RAM (I suggest you 64 GB), the HHD scheme isn't very intelligent, no blu-ray (blu-ray cost 70 euro only),  now you can buy the 1080Ti (with 11GB memory) and...  it's expensive!

2500/3 = 833 euros. 3 nodes ? And even 3x1800X would still be less than dual xeon with ES for same price. (though those particular units are almost impossible to get anymore.... time to wait for v5 ES units and Naples)
Naples will be cheaper than xeons, maybe up to...twice ? That will mean workstation will still not be possible to build for less 3-4k euros unless you are able to source engineering samples. And I have been trying...
Lack of blue-ray :- ) ? This is first time in 10 years I've seen someone mention it together with PC.

Anyway, I would not really worry and go with Ryzen, any bios kinks will be ironed out in no time. The only downside is if you would plan to change it into GPU computation workstation and buy 4x1080ti for F-Storm for example :- ) That will not work.
In that case, go with X99 and i7.

[Lars Vader]

Thank you all so much for your help. I really appreciate it!

I narrowed it down to two systems:

One is a high end PC with a Ryzen 1800X, GTX 1080 Ti and 32 GB Memory for 2.400,- EUR. The other system includes an i7 6800K, GTX 1080 Ti and 32 GB of Memory for 2.600,- EUR.

Now the big question is: AMD or Intel? The Corona benchmarks are good for both. I think the 6800K lies somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00 mins. The Ryzen lies somewhere between 2:30 and 2:00 mins in boost mode. 

Take a little risk and save some money for theoretically more power, or take the safe route and spend a little more for a little less?

P.S: I'm coming from an i5 4570. :D You don't want to know the benchmarks for this old fella.

[Freakaz]

2.4 k euro for a Ryzen system sounds a bit too much. Also you might hit the ceiling with only 32 gb of RAM very fast.