A new PC for Corona

[sebastian___]

Very useful information.
So on Amazon uk the i7-5820K is £328 while E5-2687WV2 CPU (3.4GHz, 8 Core, 16 Threads, 25MB Cache) is £1,568.37. Many times more expensive then the 5820K. I wonder if the increase in rendering time is 4 times faster ? Because I'm guessing in single threaded programs that would definitely not be the case.

And another strange thing, this computer on ebay - Dell Precision T5600 Dual (2x) Xeon E5-2687W 64GB 256GB SSD FirePro V7800 , 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W (3.1/3.8 GHz) Octa-Core CPUs 
is £1,775
Almost the same as just the CPU alone from Amazon. Is this the same CPU ?
 If I get it right, the ebay ad says there 2 cpus inside. The one from Amazon is the same ? 2 CPU ?
 And if I can convince the seller to take out the graphics card, it would be even cheaper.

A possible drawback with the xeons would be - you can't use regular mainboards. As far as I know.
I like for example to buy the latest Asus mainboards with all the bells and whistles. But as I remember the mainboards for Xeons don't have so many features like the regular mainboards. I don't need wifi in a mainboard, but maybe yes to USB 3.1, NVMe U.2 support, M.2 x 4 Support and others. Also easy or automatic overclock interface (for i7) with stress testing and auto setting the ideal overclocking settings - at least that's what they say.

[Shawn Astrom]

For Corona I would buy as many cores as you can afford. Wait another couple weeks for the new 14nn Broadwell-EP.

Here's my build I'm doing next week.
Fractal Design Define XL R2  $139.99
ASUS Z10PE-D16 Motherboard  $551.30
2X XEON 20 core CPUs Broadwell-EP  $2400 EBAY!
2X Noctua NH-U12DX i4  $127.58
Kingston Technology 64GB RAM Kit ECC  $395.19
EVGA 220-PS-1000-V1 80 PLUS Platinum 1000  $209.99
SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB  $322.57
2x  SAMSUNG 850 PRO 2.5" 512GB SATA III 3-D  $435.94
EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB SC GAMING  $668.89

These are US pricing but pretty cheap for a 40core computer!

If you don't want to build your own here's a great Builder in the US.
https://www.pugetsystems.com

- Shawn

[Nejc Kilar]

Very useful information.
So on Amazon uk the i7-5820K is £328 while E5-2687WV2 CPU (3.4GHz, 8 Core, 16 Threads, 25MB Cache) is £1,568.37. Many times more expensive then the 5820K. I wonder if the increase in rendering time is 4 times faster ? Because I'm guessing in single threaded programs that would definitely not be the case.

And another strange thing, this computer on ebay - Dell Precision T5600 Dual (2x) Xeon E5-2687W 64GB 256GB SSD FirePro V7800 , 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W (3.1/3.8 GHz) Octa-Core CPUs 
is £1,775
Almost the same as just the CPU alone from Amazon. Is this the same CPU ?
 If I get it right, the ebay ad says there 2 cpus inside. The one from Amazon is the same ? 2 CPU ?
 And if I can convince the seller to take out the graphics card, it would be even cheaper.

A possible drawback with the xeons would be - you can't use regular mainboards. As far as I know.
I like for example to buy the latest Asus mainboards with all the bells and whistles. But as I remember the mainboards for Xeons don't have so many features like the regular mainboards. I don't need wifi in a mainboard, but maybe yes to USB 3.1, NVMe U.2 support, M.2 x 4 Support and others. Also easy or automatic overclock interface (for i7) with stress testing and auto setting the ideal overclocking settings - at least that's what they say.

Actually, no, those two Xeons are two different CPUs. You can tell that by the base frequency and more importantly by that v1, v2 or v3 marking at the end of its name. What that marking at the end basically means (as far as I know) is the version of the CPU - for example, you'll notice that v1 usually has lower overall performance than a v2 (and probably a few less features, higher power consumption etc...). Higher the version, the newer the CPU.

Pay close attention to when a configuration says it has Dual CPUs (sometimes marked as x2). That means you actually have two physical CPUs in a dual socketed motherboard working together as one. One of the reasons why Xeons are so popular for rendering is the ability to have a workstation with say 16+ cores, a configuration you cannot have with an i7 CPU. Why is that? There isn't a chipset out there to support that kind of a configuration.

Like Juraj said, for a workstation you often see people opt for i7s because for example, the 4790k is one of the fastest performing chips per core out there. That might help you out, depending on your projects, with viewport speed and cloth sim and all the stuff that requires single core performance (there is a number of stuff that benefit from a fast single core cpu). If you take a little speed away and add more core count for rendering, you get into the range of those 5820k and those types of CPUs. Mind you though, for rendering it really is preferred to have more core counts as that will speed everything up quite significantly. Just make sure you don't have 12-cores running at 1ghz because like Juraj said, the math is "Frequency x Core amount (x family generation). So Quad-core at 4 Ghz, would provide same performance as Octa-core at 2 Ghz."

Generally, if you are running an i7 workstation, people supplement those with on-site render nodes so that when they hit render they have more cores running the calculations.

So yeah, if you are judging by single threaded performance then an i7 can be significantly faster than a Xeon. Rendering wise the table turns... One of my colleagues has a single 3ghz Xeon (16 cores I think) and I have a 4ghz 4790k. Yeah, doing some stuff my CPU is noticeably faster but since we mostly render with our machines, his Xeon is like half faster than my CPU. Now, if we weren't in arch viz and we were doing cloth sims all the time... You get the idea :)

Hope that was helpful, Juraj and other people can fill in the blanks here better than me so... Drops the mic!

[Juraj]

I wonder if the increase in rendering time is 4 times faster ?

No, it isn't. But it also doesn't make much sense to compare price of CPUs alone for workstation, but complete budget for workstation. With E5 Xeons, you can stack two of them on motherboard, and only buy 64GB ram, 512GB SSD, GPU, PSU, Case once. That alone is considerable amount of money. i7 would still yield better margin for value per performance, but dual-xeon build will let you use single box with much higher performance output. People buy them for multi-threaded performance primarily, it's niche product for particular use.

There really isn't concept as 'regular' board anymore, just mainstream oriented if you mean that but they don't have any differences that you might think, they're very much the same thing today, because of emergent "pro-consumer" market. For each CPU, you need exact chipset platform. i7 5820 and E5 2687 v3 are both Haswell-E/ LGA 2011 v3.  If you want to use single CPU (i7 5xxx or E3 1xxx v3 / E5 2xxx v3 ) you will use board for only such platform from Asus (any X99 only ). If you want to use 2 CPUs (only E5 2xxx v3), you will use WS version of same chipset, again from Asus (x99 WS dual-socket).

Both boards have nearly identical features and are meant for same user. Dual-socket Xeon oriented X99 ASUS Z10PE-D8 (/16) is warship that blends server oriented capacity with consumer grade features such as SLI, tons of PCI-E, Sound card,gazzilion USB3 ports,etc..

There is still "enthusiast" level in between these two worlds :- ). Currently it's i7 5960X, high-clockable octa-core for 1000 euros. Around the corner is 10 core Skylake-E i7. Much pricier than rest of i7 world, but still cheaper than going full-scale Xeon route. Perfect for somebody who does a mix of GPU and CPU oriented stuff. Lot of test-renderings that you send to farm/cloud, but powerful single-threaded performance coupled with high-end GPU for real-time oriented stuff (Unreal4, VR,etc..). It took Intel a lot of years to put these out, but now they're the perfect middle 'golden' path.

2X XEON 20 core CPUs Broadwell-EP  $2400 EBAY!

Ah...I wish I was more adventurous in past and got myself some ES parts too :- ).

If I didn't use so much Rebus today, I would melt. Have fun ! Make sure to post your Benchmark score and make us all feel terrible.

[Ondra]

Make sure to post your Benchmark score and make us all feel terrible.

We also need to de-throne the current record holder with name "gpu computer" :D

[sebastian___]

Thanks for answers.
So the ebay   2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W (3.1/3.8 GHz) Octa-Core CPUs   is a lower performance CPU compared to the amazon one E5-2687WV2 CPU (3.4GHz, 8 Core, 16 Threads, 25MB Cache)
But the price difference is so high!
I understand the ebay one is a used computer, but in the past I had only good results with ebay shopping. Does anyone know the difference (approx in %) between those two Xeon CPU ?

Because again the amazon one E5-2687WV2 CPU 3.4GHz - £1,568  - single CPU I'm guessing
and ebay one - 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W (3.1/3.8 GHz) - £1,775  for an entire computer with 64 GB RAM

I'm not gonna buy that particular ebay ad, but I'm asking so I can know for the future.

But probably for my use an I7 would be better. I use my computer for maybe 20% rendering, 40% for single or dual core performance and the rest for other multi-threaded apps like Photoshop, After effects, modeling, scene building, cloth simulation(for plants) and so on, which again, I'm not sure how better are those apps for many cores as well.
 So I'm guessing I need first a very good CPU for single or dual thread performance, and also having as many as possible cores but still with a good value per performance.

[Juraj]

Sometimes you can score a perfect bargain on Ebay. As long as you make sure the seller made correct description.

The difference between CPUs you can find roughly on cpubenchmark.com ,it works well for comparison.

[Lnt]

Hi Juraj, sorry for bringing this up, but im planning in buying all the part this Monday ( most of them are those that you recommended )
However, i got an offer from a friend with this PC:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5846/hp-z420-workstation-review-competition-heats-up
It comes with 32 gb ram

As a newby i cant figure it out which one if better, i did some comparison between parts, but afaik this work stations are optimized better so i dont know if taking them part by part will help.
Do you think that this HP station is worth it over the components you suggested? its around 200euro cheaper

Thanks

[Juraj]

You didn't write what configuration. HP Z420 is just customizeable model. What CPU does your friend have in it ?

These workstations are optimized better

That is a marketing nonsense :- ) They're made from the same parts (but the case and cooling is rather shit). Simply by using Xeon/Quadro doesn't make anything 'professional' or 'optimized'.

Dell/HP/IBM doesn't do anything further to these workstations, outside of offering perfect service when you buy large quantity of them.

so i dont know if taking them part by part will help

That is exactly how you compare any kind of hardware. There is no further magic that can be done by supplier to magically enhance the overall performance (outside of those a user can do, like over-clocking).

HP/IBM/Dell are simply put together with most common reliable parts, often with proprietary OEM that don't exactly rival those available after-market, but can be sourced cheaper. Large Enterprises buy them with wholesale or auctioned pricing (often for 50perc. of list-price), and then get the added benefit of on-site service. They need pre-made standardized solution.
Regular freelancer doesn't get any benefit out of this.