Best Workstation for LW

[Sil3]

Forget IBM and HP, get a BOXX :bowdown:

[the3dwizard]

Are you looking for one just for yourself or several for your company. The following comments are geared more towards a single purchase.

Well I built mine myself. Just for the fun of it. A lot Really depends upon how much you want to spend. When I built mine I reused parts from my old one like DVD, Hard drives and put in a new case (with larger power supply), motherboard, cpu, memory and video card.

IMHO the most important thing is get the fastest CPU/motherboard combination, the most memory and the best video card you can afford. When looking at the video cards get the one that has the best openGL performance.

TomsHardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) is a good resource on the parts. Look over the reviews and decided what you want, (brand of cpu, motherboard, video, etc). Then look at the manufacturs and see who offers the components in their machine that you want.

Cheers!

[policarpo]

BOXX

BOXX

BOXX


i'd recommend a BOXX. I personally love my Dual 2.8 Xeon BOXX.

[st45]

Ya know, I just priced a boxx dual opteron system compared to a do-it-yerself system and I could build the same system for $1000 or so less.

The problem is in configuring the system. I'm under the impression that the Boxx is carefully configured (bios, etc.) to give optimal performance. Is this true, or could I get the same performance in a diy?

Also, does anyone know if the Xeons are outperforming the Opterons for LW?

Also, while getting a fast processor/mobo/videocard is important, you have to consider the price/performance ratio. Buying the fastest chip will cost you.

[shade]

Hmm, well if I would build one for me, I would propably try to go as cheap as possible, but still making it machine that is working. Not want to mix the soup, but after I worked with 15" monitor for few years back home, I'm now paying more attention also to monitor. So you propably should get decent monitor, or propably 2 :). And I think LW is still optimized for Intel, so I would say that Xeons are better than Opterons.

[Rei Ayanami]

LW is optimised for SSE2 architecture, which Xeon / Athlon FX / Opteron / P4 all run on. Its faster on those ones ergo.

Dual is allways better, Quad rocks over that but you need 4x as much mem (liek however much you can afford x)

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by st45

The problem is in configuring the system. I'm under the impression that the Boxx is carefully configured (bios, etc.) to give optimal performance. Is this true, or could I get the same performance in a diy?


Yes... if you use the same hardware and drivers.


Also, does anyone know if the Xeons are outperforming the Opterons for LW?


In rendering, yes. I think that's about it.


Also, while getting a fast processor/mobo/videocard is important, you have to consider the price/performance ratio. Buying the fastest chip will cost you.

Yep. Get a mid-range dual Opteron rig with lots of memory (make
sure you put some on each MPU's bus), toss in a sexy new nVidia
(or ATI if you don't can't stand the dustbuster), and then next
year toss the Operons and replace them with the dual-core
variant.

Sure, you don't get HyperThreading, which is pretty sweet, since
it's free... but I'd rather have a whole extra processor for a little
more :)

[TheAlfheim]

Hi Guys,

This may seem a bit silly to ask, but how much extra performance can you expect from a dual processor setup?

Comp Sci has taught me that a 2nd processor only really gets you around 20% extra performance (but I think that is only for running single tasks, not multi-threading applications).

I'm thinking of buying something in the next 6 - 12 months also. Is dual processor a route to travel? (especially in terms of the proce/performance ratio)

Cheers,
Andrew

[st45]

I just read an article over on eweek.com quoting the CEO of AMD as saying that next year you will be able to replace your opterons with dual core opterons--going from 2p to 4p without having to buy a new system. Now that's upgradeability!

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by TheAlfheim

This may seem a bit silly to ask, but how much extra performance can you expect from a dual processor setup?


That depends a lot on what you're running.


Comp Sci has taught me that a 2nd processor only really gets you around 20% extra performance (but I think that is only for running single tasks, not multi-threading applications).


That's a gross oversimplification. For single-threaded software,
the gain is nearly nil. Most modern software that use GUI's have
more than one thread, but in the 3D space, most of the computing
happens in one thread. Even then, 20% is very much on the high
side.


I'm thinking of buying something in the next 6 - 12 months also. Is dual processor a route to travel? (especially in terms of the proce/performance ratio)


Duals don't do much for the interactivity of the application, but
they can show huge differences in render time... and contrary to
popular myth, multi-threading does not double your memory
requirements.

[softdistortion]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comp Sci has taught me that a 2nd processor only really gets you around 20% extra performance (but I think that is only for running single tasks, not multi-threading applications).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


with multiple apps open > Like LW rendering a test frame while you have some hirez textures open in PS and are also still modelling....Oh, and you have to keep your email running to catch any important messages and keep the spam down...then you get stuck on your model and now you need to run your browser to do a search for some refs....this is where you will really notice the difference. On a single P4 you will sometimes think your system has frozen. On a dual, you don't need to think about it...just keep working! ;)

[Mwai Kasamale]

Has anyone had the op too use any of AMD's FX64 series of cpu's. just wondered what kind of rendering perfomance they exhibit if any.

[TheAlfheim]

Hi guys,

That discussion I had in comp sci was quite a while ago, and with a few restrictions: At the time, the only OS which was really capable of multi-threading was NT4.0, and the discussion had more to do with linear algorithmics (we werent doing multi-thread/multi-process algorithms at that stage).

Since then, I havent really looked at the technology. But thanks for the info. I wasnt sure if paying all that money for the extra processor was really worth it. But I'm beginning to think a dual-processor is the way to go....

Cheers

[PTG]

Originally posted by TheAlfheim
This may seem a bit silly to ask, but how much extra performance can you expect from a dual processor setup?

I picked up Tim Albee's CGI Filmmaking book and he addressed that. His old computer was an AMD 1000 (Thunderbird?) machine. He upgraded to a dual processor 2Ghz Xeon machine. With just one processor active, he said the render times were about twice as fast as expected. However, when he activated the other processor, it was 7 times faster I believe he said.

The thing with Xeon's (and probably Itanium, Opteron and Athon MP processors) is that they are designed to run in multiples and get their best performance boost with a second processor. Also, Xeon processors of 2.4Ghz or faster are Hyperthreaded, so that's one thing to consider too. A dual 3.06Ghz workstation is, for all intensive purposes, a quad processor machine!

I'm in the market now for a workstation myself, but I'm not buying until PCI-Express is mainstream, processors get a little faster, and the nVidia 6800 card comes down in price.

Brian

[NeptuneImaging]

As many have said in this thread, I definitely agree with getting a BOXX workstation. The one I am saving up for will cost me about $5000...with everything maxed out

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by PTG

The thing with Xeon's (and probably Itanium, Opteron and Athon MP processors) is that they are designed to run in multiples and get their best performance boost with a second processor.


Sort of...

The Xeon and Itanium use large caches to support scaling in SMP
configurations. The Opteron actually gains system memory
bandwidth in SMP configurations (up to 4, after which the cache
coherency protocol kills it due to ccHT network saturation).

Of course, whenever Intel gets around to launching Tukwila, the
gloves are coming off for real.


Also, Xeon processors of 2.4Ghz or faster are Hyperthreaded, so that's one thing to consider too. A dual 3.06Ghz workstation is, for all intensive purposes, a quad processor machine!


No, not even close; not even Intel's marketeers have been
making that claim. It's good for an extra 20%, not anywhere near
what you could potentially get from a 2nd CPU.

[Bytehawk]

I just bought and installed my new system. It's a dual xeon 3.06 with 2 GB memory and 2 fast 15000 rpm drives. With everything installed I need (Virusscanner, firewall, etc) the system starts up in about 5 seconds. launching a program is almost instantaneous. That's what helps you workflow. Not having to wait. I come from a single pentium 733mhz processor so the step up is enormous. I can reccomend dual processor setups for their responsiveness switching applications or doing work while another task is completing. Also dual screens are not to be missed out on in a productivity point of view. I payed 5000 euros for my machine. That's probably the budget you will need to get a really decent system (including flat screen displays.)

[MadMax]

Originally posted by Mwai Kasamale
Has anyone had the op too use any of AMD's FX64 series of cpu's. just wondered what kind of rendering perfomance they exhibit if any.

the top 2 spots over at Blanos.com are held by Athlon64 and an FX.

Not a lot of Opteron users posting there yet. I'll get around to posting dual 248's scores eventually. when I have time.

However they were certainly worth having purchased over Xeons.

[PTG]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
No, not even close; not even Intel's marketeers have been
making that claim. It's good for an extra 20%, not anywhere near
what you could potentially get from a 2nd CPU.

My mistake Thalaxis. I thought the gains were higher then that. Is that based on single threaded apps or multi-threaded apps? Admittedly I haven't done a whole lot of research on Hyperthreading, but I thought there was a bigger improvement the 20%.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by PTG
My mistake Thalaxis. I thought the gains were higher then that. Is that based on single threaded apps or multi-threaded apps? Admittedly I haven't done a whole lot of research on Hyperthreading, but I thought there was a bigger improvement the 20%.

All that HyperThreading does is allow the processor to schedule
instructions from two threads. In other words, it's just there to
increase the average instruction issue rate per clock cycle.

It doesn't add any new resources; the P4's design is based on
fast transistors (i.e. clock speed) with a comparatively simple
design, and assloads of stuff to feed it. So the best case gains
through HT come from being able to have one thread fetching
data while another is crunching numbers, because they can't
both be crunching numbers at the same time.

It reports itself to the OS as two processors though, which if you
don't know what's going on, can easily lead to the mistake you
made.

So while it's hardly a miracle, I like it because it's a free speed
boost.

I'd rather have dual cores, but I'd also prefer to have a single
core with HT rather than without, even so.

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