Chaos Corona Forum
General Category => General CG Discussion => Hardware => Topic started by: lef on 2019-01-04, 17:39:22
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Hello guys !
I want to buy a new workstation for my archviz (3ds max + corona) without busting the bank !!!
The 2990wx is always a good option but as I can see , windows 10 and windows server can't handle right the performance of this amazing cpu !
I already have the 1950x and I am very happy with it... but I want something more (greed! :) )
Something like 6500-8000 cinebench points would be nice !
Unfortunately, at the moment I can't pay 4-5k for a dual xeon workstation (eg. xeon 2996v4 , 128+g ram ecc), so I made some silly thoughts and I want your opinions !
The obsolete HP Z600 workstation with dual X5650 (12c -24t in total) and 24g ram costs around 320 euros at the moment in eBay and score 1350 cinebench points!
What if I buy 6 of those ? with almost 2000 euros I can get 8100 points ! And it gets even better because I can buy these workstations without paying the VAT (European Union),
and the total cost would be around 1600 euros !
BUT,
is this true?
to be honest I never used distributed rendering before with vray or corona, I have zero experience ... (I don't really care about vray because I use exclusively corona at the office).
Corona could handle nicely this 6 workstations network ? I would like to get the 100% of the power if possible !
thanks in advance !
Lef
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There is overhead introduced by the network, and the more machines you add, the more that overhead will be (depending on your network - there are threads discussing setting up fast routers and things).
Even with your network performing top notch and traffic not clogging it up, there's still some overhead in sending the scene and assets to the nodes, so it will never be 100% of the power (of course, that initial move of data will be less and less of an issue the longer a render runs, since it's just a one time thing). I don't have cold, hard, numbers, but maybe expecting 90 to 95% of the performance is reasonable - it will be close to 100%, but not exactly there :)
Also remember that nodes only contribute in final renders, not in Interactive Rendering (which is where the "one machine with the same Cinebench score as the multiple machines" will be a better choice).
And also, be sure you have a FairSaaS license that supports that number of nodes. The default is just 3 render nodes (but you can upgrade to more).
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Thank you TomG for the reply !
90-95% sounds good to me (for 1.6K!)
''Also remember that nodes only contribute in final renders, not in Interactive Rendering'',
I was expecting that ... I can do all the dirty work in my 1950x and render the final hires images in the ''HP Z600'' network!
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This is pretty much what I've done, on a smaller scale - bought older, refurbished dual Xeons, to get a little network of three of them, that worked out to be quite cost efficient compared to the latest and greatest :) Sounds like your expectations and understanding are realistic, which is the main thing.
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hm.. you are right !
Intel gives a TDP of 95watt for X5650 but I guess this can change dramatically under full load ... x12 cpus :/
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Interesting :) I personally prefer to have faster IR rendering than overall speed. Just make sure you've thought about it because having like 5-10 nodes will result in higher electrical bills, more storage requirements, heat and just more stuff to mess around with.
Also, 2990WX seems to be getting some fixes for those odd single threaded applications that cause it problems. It isn't official though.
https://www.hardocp.com/news/2019/01/03/amd_ryzen_threadripper_2990wx_performance_regressions_linked_to_windows_bug
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Nkilar, hi and thanks !
I saw this video in YouTube the other day !
I am not a tech guru but I don't understand why
Microsoft can't fix such an issue ... obviously 2990wx is not the most commercial cpu. Some people said that intel is behind all this , I don't know... I don't care .
You are right about the nodes . I think I will build another 1950x pc ...
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I would suggest you to wait 2-3 more months since Ryzen 3000 series is just around the corner. From what I hear the R9 3700x will have same if not better performance then 1950x and cost half thr price. So if you are not in a hurry you can wait :).
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Hi Vuk and thanks for the reply !
Yes , I already heard the rumors about the 3700x
but it seems unreal if you consider that the 1950x
costs around 520 euros at the moment . A newer a better version of a 16c cpu with ,let's say , 300 euros? I wish! but all the other ryzen cpus will be dead ...!
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Unreal or not there will be some official info already from tomorrow on CES 2019:).
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Any official info about 3rd gen ryzen yet? I'm looking for a new budget pc sometime in 2019 and it's very likely that for the first time it won't be Intel's product.
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Any official info about 3rd gen ryzen yet? I'm looking for a new budget pc sometime in 2019 and it's very likely that for the first time it won't be Intel's product.
In an hour or so ;)
https://videocardz.com/79677/watch-amd-ceo-dr-lisa-su-ces-2019-keynote-here
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Am i reading this right - all those rumours about 12-16 core Ryzen 3, were slightly too optimistic?
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I would say "premature". I'm pretty sure they will come - the only question is when?
Lisa Su already pointed out, that we can expect them to put something into the extra space on the cpu, and somewhere AMD also said, that it won't be a GPU.
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Good thing that i'm not in a hurry, i won't be buying any new parts untill at least Q3-Q4.
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and it's very likely that for the first time it won't be Intel's product.
Still not sure about that. I decided not to aquire any Ryzen (for myself as workstation) for two reasons:
1. Idle power consumption (more than 40W cpu pack for a 1950x in idle mode! My box runs 24/7) and
2. Single thread performance. A scene loading 7 minutes on a 1950x loads in 5:30 on a i9-9900K (stable overclocked with no special measures to match render performance of our trusty dual E5-2670 Xeons) for example.
As I use farm nodes to render (where a ryzen combined with wake on lan and maybe some smart sleep options which I have not explored yet makes definitely sense), single thread performance (https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html) was more important for me.
As mentioned, I'm not entirely sure but I'm at least able to compare i9-9900K and 1950x directly for different tasks atm and so far I stilll would decide the same :)
Good Luck
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You're looking it from the power user perspective, but my situation is entirely different. 9900 is way too expensive for me and if ryzen will offer similar or slightly lower performance for much more attractive price, then it's no brainer for me. I don't care about absolute performance, but i do care about price to power ratio. I'm working on old 4771 now and to be honest, i still find it adequate for my needs. I probably wouldn't even consider to look for replacement yet, if not the fact that my pc has very little RAM. And i don't think that it would be wise to put new parts to 6 years old machine, that might start braking appart due to its age :]
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Its quite fun to see how all of our needs and wants can differ so much :) Looking at it from a power user perspective or not, I personally would much prefer not having to wait longer for the IR to give me a cleaner image and I'd be willing to wait a few extra minutes / seconds when opening files.
That being said, when I picked my current CPUs like two years ago, I splurged a lot more money to get to 3.6ghz on a single core. I still find it really important but luckily money wasn't a problem so I could in a way have the best of both worlds at the time :)
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have the best of both worlds
Well, yes that somehow was my intention. And I'd like to give that "it-has-to-be-a-threadripper" discussion a bit of another perspective when it is about a workstation (not render node).
Working with Corona and especially with IR is only a small part of the job. And to render a complex scene (not divided up into xrefs/parts) is a pain on all systems anyway. So I prefer to have shorter preparation time and less passes. From my feeling, the first -say- 10 passes of a complex scene are reached in the same time on both systems (i9 preparing faster | 1950x rendering faster), then the ripper zips away of course - leaving the i9 behind in a cloud of dust. But I'm still shocked by the idle power consumption. Imagine having a 1950x farm of 10 nodes: About 500W without rendering a single f*g sample!
You're looking it from the power user perspective, but my situation is entirely different.
Hmm, "power user" ... in the sense that if you earn your money with a computer, every second waiting is too much - then yes.
I'm working on old 4771 now and to be honest, i still find it adequate for my needs.
Oh, then your current WS is still about 10% faster than my old one :]
I probably wouldn't even consider to look for replacement yet, if not the fact that my pc has very little RAM.
Oh, yes. Even my old had 65GB and that was one reason to be able to keep it for such a long time. Maybe you could look for used ram fitting in your box if you have free slots?
Good Luck
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Maybe you could look for used ram fitting in your box if you have free slots?
Now you want to take away my single excuse to buy a new shiny toy, thank you very much :]
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Now you want to take away my single excuse to buy a new shiny toy, thank you very much :]
Never let mere "reasons" or "logic" stand in the way of buying something shiny and new!
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I personally would much prefer not having to wait longer for the IR to give me a cleaner image and I'd be willing to wait a few extra minutes / seconds when opening files.
Doesn't it kill you to wait for all those single threaded 3ds Max's tasks?
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I personally would much prefer not having to wait longer for the IR to give me a cleaner image and I'd be willing to wait a few extra minutes / seconds when opening files.
Doesn't it kill you to wait for all those single threaded 3ds Max's tasks?
If I'm doing cloth sims on a daily basis then yeah, I hear ya. From my experience the rendering process is fairly easily the most time consuming thing especially when using IR in interior scenes. Its like saying, would you rather wait 10 seconds each time you change a material parameter or wait 10 seconds each time I do a cloth sim.
Or...
Its like when some people shell out 500€ so that 3ds Max starts in 10 seconds instead of 15. I'd much rather have another 128gb of RAM, heh :)) Not that there is anything wrong with the above, just I think personally thats where my I want to focus in terms of upgrades.
Conversely, my SO was doing cloth sims in MD everyday (she changed careers, thats why the past tense) and she totally benefited working on a 4790k with a 4.4ghz turbo. That being said, given the IPC advancement a 4ghz Threadripper is probably very close to that single threaded performance if all the cores are parked.
Ultimately its a balancing act I guess. Believe me though, I am not too patient when it comes to panels taking 5 seconds to open.
Oh and yeah, 3ds Max is sometimes really slow but most DCC apps are single threaded still because multi threading is not always worth it / is not faster.