Workstation: Intel Skylake-X or AMD Threadripper

[johan belmans]

Hi,

I am planning to buy a new workstation and wondering If I would go for Intel Skylake-X or AMD Threadripper.
AFAIK MAX is multi-threaded for rendering but all other tasks are single threaded.
Does anyone know if Interactive Rendering is multi or single-threaded?
If the latter I am planning to go for Intel Skylake due to better single threaded performance.
Or will this not be noticeable?

[maru]

Hi Johan, obviously IR in Corona is multi-threaded. You can even control the number of threads used for IR in the system settings window.
So the old rule applies: faster CPU means faster rendering (both IR and regular rendering)
And the best way to compare different CPUs is still taking a look at our benchmark ranking https://corona-renderer.com/benchmark/ , or just inspecting other benchmarks online.

[johan belmans]

Hi Marcin,

yes I should have know that there is an option for choosing how many threads you can use for IR. Thanks for reminding me.
I know the Benchmark results for the CPU's I have in mind both multi and single threaded.

for example (MAXON CB15 values)
AMD 1950 threadripper: 164 single and 2989 multi
Intel I9 7900X: 193 single and 2151 multi
Intel I9 7940X: 189 single and 2879 multi

I am wondering if better if a singel threaded value will result in a more/better/quicker responsive MAX.

[Juraj]

Just finished my i9-7980XE build afternoon. Spent last few hours tweaking various overclocks and fan profiles (and wonder what other residents here are running it at).

It's rather simple if you ask me: If you're willing to delid and overclock the i9 is absolutely superior platform, you can get so much out of it (at the cost of massive power consumption increase).
If not, it's wasted money as they will perform almost the same with Threadripper on stock settings. I doubt the faster single-thread will be much noticeable in daily tasks, Max is slow because it's slow, nothing can save it and make more responsive.

[johan belmans]

Thanks Juraj!

[Dalton Watts]

That's something I consider a lot. Making 3ds max more responsive with a new faster single thread performant cpu like the 8700k or the 7980X. But as Juraj said, 3ds max is just slow and I don't think I would gain that much going from a dual Xeon 2696 v3 workstation to a 7980XE workstation.

What motherboard did you use Juraj? I've heard good thing about MSI and Asrock Taichi. What kind of speeds are you getting?

[Juraj]

The cheapest (new) I found on local bazaar ;- ) Which ended up Asus Strix Gaming-E. I am not proud of the kitschy RGB stuff and looks but it was 200 euros, a perfect bargain.

Honestly I am bit underwhelmed, even with delid, it seems sillicon lottery didn't shine on me : /. Oh well..

[Juraj]

If somebody wants to sell me a pair of 2696v3 or 2696v4 for good price hit me up :- ) I am looking for those too.

[Dalton Watts]

That's some serious deal right there! Cheapest retail I can find is the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon for 299€. Asrock X299 Taichi is about 315€.

So, is it fair to say that I won't see visible differences in 3ds max "snappiness" going from a dual Xeon 2696v3 that scores roughly 140CB in single thread benchmark (Cinebench R15) to a 8700K or 7980XE that scores about 210 and upwards when overclocked?

I was under the impression you already had some dual Xeon's 2696 v3 around the studio. You want more? I remember them selling cheap on ebay a few months ago but they seem to be back to 1200€ each (?) last time I checked, same price I bought mine mid 2016.

[Nejc Kilar]

That's some serious deal right there! Cheapest retail I can find is the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon for 299€. Asrock X299 Taichi is about 315€.

So, is it fair to say that I won't see visible differences in 3ds max "snappiness" going from a dual Xeon 2696v3 that scores roughly 140CB in single thread benchmark (Cinebench R15) to a 8700K or 7980XE that scores about 210 and upwards when overclocked?

I was under the impression you already had some dual Xeon's 2696 v3 around the studio. You want more? I remember them selling cheap on ebay a few months ago but they seem to be back to 1200€ each (?) last time I checked, same price I bought mine mid 2016.

Going from my 2x 2696v3 workstation to my lady's 4790k I find the viewport performance to be a tad faster (in terms of a couple of FPS), Photoshop / Affinity does some stuff slightly faster (like dragging stuff around I think and applying filters) but ultimately it doesn't affect me at all.

Unless you are going to OC that 7980XE to score close to 4k cinebench points I think you'll gain much more with the dual Xeons and faster interactive rendering than you'll ever gain from PS applying filters 2 seconds faster or the viewporting working at 15 FPS instead of 10 (I just made up these numbers).

That said, the biggest slowdowns I noticed happen when rendering and doing other CPU heavy but still single threaded tasks in the background. So something like Photoshop / Affinity will need slightly more time to do stuff but like I said, half of those apps are multithreaded anyway and the snappiness of applying a filter doesn't really matter to me because nothing takes more than a few seconds anyway.

As far as 3ds Max goes, I completely agree with Juraj. I think if you throw a 5ghz CPU at it you won't see as much of a performance gain as you'll see your IPR / rendering capabilities diminish. Its a balancing act but imho it strongly favors the rendering part. I think Romulus did a few tests on 3ds Max boot up times using SATA SSDs and NVME drives. If I recall correctly the difference wasn't that big :)

[danio1011]

The cheapest (new) I found on local bazaar ;- ) Which ended up Asus Strix Gaming-E. I am not proud of the kitschy RGB stuff and looks but it was 200 euros, a perfect bargain.

Honestly I am bit underwhelmed, even with delid, it seems sillicon lottery didn't shine on me : /. Oh well..

How does it compare to your threadripper setup(s)?  Particularly in IR and so forth.  What are you able to push it to?

Just built a 1950x system.  After paying a small fortune for RAM I was wondering if I should have gone i9 or multiple xeons all dollars and cents considered.  Not that I’m not happy...

[Juraj]

I don't have neither Threadripper or any 2696 v3/v4 :- ) I have 4(x2) 2698v4 as Nodes, but for workstation Veronika and I use older 2680 v2 which we bought a long time ago (5 years ? heh). There wasn't much need to upgrade those because they have high-turbos and worked just fine for everything.
But this year I decided I want that 4k+ (in CB 15 score) as workstation too, with upgraded single-threaded performance too.

Even with 190 single-thread score and 3000 Mhz ram of newest toy, I cannot tell ANY ( NONE ) difference in snappiness compared to my 2680 v2 workstation which is somewhere lowish ( 130 ? I don't remember ) and 1333 Mhz memory :- ).
3dsMax 2016, latest Photoshop CC run and feel identical. I can't tell anything at all.

So yeah, stick with Xeons if you have the money. And buy Threadripper for employees ;- ).

(Yes, it's similar to people who think running NVME PCI-E Drives make for faster PC. No. Nope. )

[danio1011]

Yeah after this most recent build I won’t be doing nvme again.  Way too expensive and no difference.

[Juraj]

Yeah after this most recent build I won’t be doing nvme again.  Way too expensive and no difference.

I used 960EVO 500GB which I bought for 100 euros at Bazaar too :- ). Brand new.

SSDs are the only articles with over-inflated prices you can buy cheaply second-hand because there seems to be a lot of regret spending money on it.
I can't explain it otherwise, it's impossible to buy cheaper memory anywhere (and well...no one actually uses 64GB kits so it makes sense) but there is plenty of SSDs to buy off someone cheaper.

[danio1011]

They’re the carbon fiber road bikes of the computer world!  Appreciate the heads up, I’ll have to keep an eye on ebay.