Xeon 3.6 better than Dual AMD 265's?

[imashination]

Just had some advice on the build I am planning, and one company said they had had problems with AMD running MAX, and were therefore recommending an Intel Dual Xeon 3.6 system. Not just that the Xeon was faster than the Opteron system, but that max would be more stable on an intel system.

Now this flies in the face of all the anecdotals posted here, and from the reviews I've read. so.... what are your views on this? Is there any substance to these claims?

Also, I was planning on speccing a NVidia 1400FX gfx card.... but was told that the ATI FireGL 7100 would wipe the floor with it. I'd prefer not to go down the ATI route due to the general feeling tht ATI drivers being less stable than Nvidia's. I will be getting a Dell 24" for the system, if that makes any difference to which card would be better.

So, I am curious what the general opinion here is on these recommendations.

(hello to whoever I spoke to, if you frequent these forums.... :) )


That company is utterly talking out of their arse and is likely under intel's thumb not to sell amd systems, like so many others.

The xeon is not faster
There are no stability issues on amd
The firegl doesnt outperform anything

[reForm]

lol... that's what I thought...

Any other points of view out there?

We are talking about a Boxx reseller here in the Uk.... I was surprised by what I was being told.

[MattClary]

Yeah, I have one:

The Opteron is faster
AMD chips are extremely stable
ATI cards are inferior for 3D work

[lots]

Considering the dual core Xeon (I believe there is only one speed grade) cant even compete with AMD's slowest dual core Opteron, should be quite enough evidence that a single core Xeon cannot ammount to the performance of dual core Opterons in general :)

I dont know where that company got thier info. You should tell Boxx so they can "fix" the problem ;) I'm sure Boxx wouldn't like thier resellers giving out false information :P

[imashination]

lol... that's what I thought...

Any other points of view out there?

We are talking about a Boxx reseller here in the Uk.... I was surprised by what I was being told.

A boxx reseller told you that!? Ed might want to go crack some skulls -_-

[thethule]

To be honest, when i called up a Boxx reseller here in London, i was told the same thing. Get a dual Xeon for Max as it will be more stable. So........


Marc

[reForm]

Considering the dual core Xeon (I believe there is only one speed grade) cant even compete with AMD's slowest dual core Opteron, should be quite enough evidence that a single core Xeon cannot ammount to the performance of dual core Opterons in general :)

I dont know where that company got thier info. You should tell Boxx so they can "fix" the problem ;) I'm sure Boxx wouldn't like thier resellers giving out false information :P




Yep, that's also what I thought.

I should clarify, that the title of the thread is a little missleading... its a dual xeon 3.6 in comparison with a dual 265 opteron.

I'm not going to name the company just in case I've got my wires crossed... I don't want to get done for libel!

I should be getting a quote for both the intel and the amd options, so i'll confirm the full spec when I receive it.

Marc: maybe it was the same company?

[thethule]

Marc: maybe it was the same company?



Could beeeeee......:curious: :curious:

Either way, i couldnt afford the machine that he specced for me, lol.

[parallax]

He specced it that way, because he's a plain old liar trying to screw you over. There's dozens of companies that will go against all the facts just to make more money by selling technology that is anything but legacy.

Anybody that has even been near a webbrowser for the last year(s) knows that Intel currently has nothing on AMD but the Pentium M.

[reForm]

I think this benchmark lays this issue to rest....
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=paxville&page=7


Unfortunately, even a solid platform can’t help Intel’s performance numbers, as their new dual-core chips (while powerful in their own right) simply are bested across the board by AMD’s dual-core Opteron processors. Even worse, the Opterons typically perform much better while running at slower clock speeds and only having half the amount of on-die L2 cache to utilize. AMD’s chips also consume far less power and run quite a bit cooler, giving AMD an edge on nearly all fronts. AMD’s top of the line dual-core Opterons are quite a bit more expensive compared to the top of the line 2.8 GHz Dual Core Xeon (which will sell for ~$1,000 per CPU), putting it roughly on par with AMD’s Opteron 270 (2.0 GHz) processor. Even comparing the Opteron 270 to the Paxville Xeon 2.8 GHz, we still would opt for an AMD based solution.


Are these chips even available yet?

and here's an interesting technical appraisal of the chips. http://www.windowsserverx64.com/csk/technical_articles/hardware/49.aspx

[MadMax]

Bottom line here is that anyone telling you going Intel is more stable is a liar or a complete idiot.

In fact in stress tests AMD fares a bit better than Intel does.

Stability between the two is NOT an issue on the table.

[reForm]

Ok. I got the quote back, along with the recommendation that a Dual Opteron 252 would be "alot higher spec than the entry level 265". Now I suppose in single thread applications, the 252 would be a bit faster, but for multithread applications how a 5.2Ghz system would be considerably faster than the 7.2Ghz (effective) of the 265's, I do not know. Surely that would be about 20-30% slower when rendering for the same cost!?

So, the recommended lineup, all costing much the same, is:-


AMD Dual Opteron 265 (dual core) 1.8 Ghz
AMD Dual Opteron 252 (single core) 2.6 Ghz
Intel Dual 3.4Ghz Xeon 2mb Cache, 800Mhz FSB (is this single or dual core?)
A straight fight in terms of cost.... the question is, I suppose, whether the benefit of faster single thread operation outweighs the benefit of much faster multi-thread operations..

The machine is to be used for rendering and working in 3d max, with Vray, and for general photoshop and aftereffects work.

So, what do you think?

[daraeill]

personally i'd say talk to some other company...those guys have their head implanted firmly in their asses from the sound of it...now if you want to go with a 3rd party builder to avoid having to do all the work on the comp yourself...well...i wouldn't let these guys into the same room with my pc, much less actually attempt to fix itas for my recommendation on the hardware itself...from those choices i would definitely go with the 265's multi-threaded capability will certainly help you with the tasks you mention

[lots]

Boxx, from what i hear is a good company. This particular reseller seems to be trouble :P Anyway. What is your primary usage in Max? Keep in mind that boxx will recommend the higher clocked single core Opterons because they will help improve UI performance and other strongly single threaded calculations (physics). Remember not all forms of number crunching lend them selves to being multithreaded, thus only some things will take advantage of more than 1 thread. So you have to ask your self, when you are working do you find your self spending alot of time rendering or using the UI? Animators will most likely favor better UI performance (single threaded speed) over rendering. While someone doing lighting may prefer having fast render speeds to quickly see the results of a light change (multi threading speed).

So it depends, but from my experience, even two single core Opterons will be an amazing system. And assuming in the future you've got the cash, a pair of 280s would make a significant upgrade.

Personally I wouldnt bother with dual socket Opteron systems unless DC Opterons were the target CPU or a future upgrade, or i needed HUGE ammounts of RAM.

[reForm]

Thanks lots Lots!

Yea, I will be using the machine for mostly architectural stills and animations, so rendering is my prime concern.

The thing is, the dual single core opterons wouldn't be much cheaper than the dual core 265's.... so the upgrade path to dual 280's or higher will remain.

Out of interest... I wonder how heavy a model it takes before the 265's would struggle, and the 252's would fly ahead....

Is there a list anywhere that illustrates which apps are multithreaded and which aren't? (or which one will be in their next version or two)

I guess apart from vray and 3d studio, my other main apps will be photoshop and after effects....

[smoluck]

If you want some info and benchmark result, try my ZOOrender thread, and please , if you'll have a Dual "DualCore Xeon" system , please post your result to get compared up !

Nothing to say about Max it's a Maya Mental Ray render test.. I hope it helps you to coose AMD or Intel.

[imashination]

AMD Dual Opteron 265 (dual core) 1.8 Ghz
AMD Dual Opteron 252 (single core) 2.6 Ghz

I would take the dual 252 @2.6ghz. This will make single threaded apps much faster, as pretty much only the rendering will benefit from multiple cores. Remember, the more cores you have, the less efficient they will become. So 2.6GHz x2 = 5.2GHz of power, subtract the efficiency loss and its about equivelent to 4.8GHz. Now the quad core 1.8 machine gives a total speed of 7.2GHz, subtract the efficiency penalty and its down to about 6ghz of relatistic power. I would certainly take the dual machine over the quad as all other work will be noticably faster.

[reForm]

Well after all this great advice, I have a big spanner in the works...

I've found another supplier that can provide the following system:-
2x AMD Opteron 280, 2.4GHz, 2way
2x Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA
4x Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB CL3 REG
Trust Slimline Keyboard, Black, UK,
Trust Ami Mouse 250S Optical
Norman IC, 1 year license Virus Control
PC box
SoftThinks Installation/Recovery
Seasonic S12 Powersupply 500W, 120mm
Point of View GeForce 7800GTX 256MB DDR3
MSI K8N Master2-FAR, nForce4 Pro2200
Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB Black
Antec Performance One P180 Miditower,
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x,

for less than a dual 265 system (from my other suppliers).
The only differences being not having a quadro gfx card (I'm sure I can get this machine without gfx card and source the quadro from somewhere else, and the top of the range 7800 is about the same price as the quadro 1400 anyway), and the motherboard is an MSI K8N (does anyone have any experience with this board?).

dang, that would be fast!

Anyone here bought a system from Komplett before? good / bad ?

[Ints99]

That certainly is a fast rig.
A few tips:
Get the 7800gtx ... it'll be a lot faster than a quadro 1400.
I have had problems with Trust's hardware before and like somebody sayd " Don't trust Trust".
I would recommend to look at Logitech's products. ( Logitech Cordless Desktop series are good )

[lots]

I'd try for the Tyan K8WE, in the states it goes for about $200 more than the MSI, but you get Tyan's reliability (Boxx uses this motherboard in thier dual socket opteron rigs) You get NUMA, and room for much more RAM. Two PCIe x16 ports (both full speed)..

Though to save some cash, you could go for the Tiger K8WE, which brings many of the benifits of the Thunder K8WE, but in a smaller form factor (ATX) and fewer features (only 1 x16 PCIe full speed slot). It is about $300 I believe..

[reForm]

Its amazing hhow many benchmarks are hidden away on the net....
here's an interesting one that highlights the benefits of the 252's (marginal) on single thread apps, and the benefits of the 275's (30% faster than the 252's) on multithread apps...

http://www.mcadonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=73

[ihavenofish]

/me wanders into the minefield

problems with amd opterons and max. yes, yes indeed there are. however they may or or may not affect you, and most, if not all can be worked arround.

most of the issues seem to be only in max 7 and 8, but one seems to affect 6. the issues affect rendering, mostly when using brazil, but are visible in others. some may be specific to the tyan k8we, or nforce, or just machines with 4gb ram. im still working all this out.

so here are 3 big ones:

problem: slow rendering
affects: max 7 and 8, and dual amd configuration from opterons to x2, and even the odd dual MP
behavior: during rendering, most notable when using brazil, the second cpu is never fully utilized. this results in anywhere from a 5 to 30% performace slow down.
work arounds and fixes: in the task manager, right click the max process, hit affinity, then hit ok on the dialogue box without altering any settings. the alternate fix is to remove these 2 files: stdplugs/dxplugins/dxdds.bmi and stdplugs/mentalray.dlz. yup, you read right, mental ray slows down other renderers. happy happy joy joy.


problem: slow rendering
affects: max 6, 7, 8 on any dual opteron with a k8we, and a few amd chipsets. i am confused on this one a bit cause i can fix it one some machines but not others. it also may be confined to xp64.
behavior: all looks well with max, but in fact only one cpu is being used to render. seems to happen in all renderers on some machines, selected renderers on others. try setting affinity to a single cpu, then to 2 and you will find the render times dont change.
workarounds and fixes: NUMA seems to be the culprit in this case. its quite frankly broken. on my dual opteron 246 (which amd documents as broken) simply disabling numa clears up the issue. on another machine also with 246's, there is no bios settings to disable numa, but there are only 2 ram cards in dual channel mode so numa is certainly off. this machine cant be fixed as yet, we are looking into a new bios. on another k8we board with dual 252's, the issue is present. numa is supposed to work with this cpu. it clearly does not (or maybe tyan broke it). disabling numa causes the machine to blue screen on boot. way to go tyan/amd. this issue in not present on another k8we board with dual dual core opterons and numa enabled. there is still a ways to go to narrow this down.

problem: max pegs both cpu's for no reason.
affects: seen it on 2 k8we boards runnign max 6 and 8. one with 252's. one with 246. both with 4gb ram. one with xp32, one with xp64.
behavior: both cpu's peg at 100% hoggin all resources even though max is doing nothing. max is perfectly responsive however.
work arounds and fixes: on the 246 the issue went away one numa was gone and the machine had 2gb ram removed. im not sure which was the cure, but im betting on the second. on the dual 252, the issue cant be cured with any bios setting. no idea why. have not tried to pull ram yet. an alternative fix is to not use openGL in max. use directx or software z buffer and the issue goes away. so it may also be an nvidia driver issue. who knows. its annoying though cause directx is useless for 3d work.

so there we have 3 big glaring amd dual cpu issues with max. all 3 can be bypassed in most cases, but can be a bitch to track down.

once youve gotton around all this though, the dual opterons and x2's absolutly decimate anything intel can push out for 3dsmax.

later :)

[Panik]

Get the new 7800GTX 512MB

[reForm]

well well well...

ihavenofish, you don't happen to be the guy I spoke to about this earlier? ;)

probably not.

Very interesting experiences you have had there. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I can only imagine you have been pretty unlucky with the systems you have had given that there appears to be no similar reported problems on google or these forums. Maybe all these crippled opteron users are too embarrased to admit to the problems you suggest. :)
But seriously, if these problems were integral to the opteron platform and max, I would expect to see more on the net about it. Maybe you were just very unlucky?

If you don't mind me asking, in what capacity have you encountered these problems (and on so many different systems)? are you a system builder, an artist/enthusiast or ... ? Were these problems recent, or a few months ago when the Tyan board was still basically a Beta board? Do you have any idea whether vray suffers from similar problems with the Opteron?

Has anyone else on this forum with a dual opteron system running 3d max encountered similar problems?

Getting back to the performance issues, another set of benchmarks that do confirm that 3d studio max is somewhat crippled with the opteron compared to the xeon. The problem is that I would be using vray, which as far as I can tell is fully multithreaded and should provide the same advantage over the xeon as shown in the maya benchmarks.

Opteron 252 / Xeon 3.6 comparison
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=x36o252

[reForm]

And yet another benchmark.... this time its really interesting...

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=opteron275&page=7

Max seems to scale predictably between the single, dual opterons and the xeons...
(unless they mixed up the benchmarks!)

Can anyone explain why the maya mental ray test fails to show any advantage from the dual core opterons over the single cores?

[boxcrash]

Can anyone explain why the maya mental ray test fails to show any advantage from the dual core opterons over the single cores?

I would suppose that Maya Mental Ray is not true SMP, or it is only developed for single core SMP, and the dual core procs through it off, maybe its looking for physical addressing, as in looking for a physical socket id and and won't take advantage of it, possibly causing a slow down trying to discard the info that it see 4 procs, but not physical so it discards the other two, who knows thats a off the top of my head explanation without even thinking or researching at all.

I would take the AMD's over the Xeons personaly though, if it was only for 3d authoring purposes and will not touch any games or anything else.

Just my thoughts, and AMD's chips at least in the recent past seem like they have higher quality control and stability in my opinion, they may have changed in the last year or so though.

[lots]

Can anyone explain why the maya mental ray test fails to show any advantage from the dual core opterons over the single cores?
Alot of benchmark sites dont explain that the Mental Ray license that they have are only good for 2 CPUs (cores) :P They'd have to purchase more licenses to render on all 4cores that the DC dual Opterons provide.

On the subject of MAX: eesh. Sounds like someone isn't coding thier software very well... I wonder if the NUMA woes are because of Windows' implimentation of NUMA or the fact that MAX just doesnt play well with it. I also find it odd about the pegging both CPUs at 100%. I'm not a max user, but i'd have to say this is software related, since I have not experienced this on Lightwave. Maybe I'll boot up XSI and take a look and see how it behaves..

3D packages are big complex creatures, its pretty hard to get it right on every hardware configuration out there I suppose. Hopefully Max will get better :)

[reForm]

On the subject of MAX: eesh. Sounds like someone isn't coding thier software very well... I wonder if the NUMA woes are because of Windows' implimentation of NUMA or the fact that MAX just doesnt play well with it. I also find it odd about the pegging both CPUs at 100%.

Yea, but its interesting that these problems have never surfaced before. Surely if its a structural problem with the software, then there would be lots of users complaining on these boards, and all the benchmark sites would be complaining of not getting good performance from these systems.

I am curious as to whether it might not be issues of badly chosen or configured memory.... but it sounds like mr fish knows what he is talking about, so that's unlikely to be the cause.

[ihavenofish]

" can only imagine you have been pretty unlucky with the systems you have had given that there appears to be no similar reported problems on google or these forums"

um, that'd be nice if it was just me. the first issue involves nearly EVERY dual amd 64 machine ive gotton my hands on. and thats HUNDREDS of machines. if you want to find more info, hop on over to the discreet forum. weve been discussing it for the better part of the year.

that first issue is seemingly bad coding on discreets part, but it also is hinged only to amd machines, so it may be a combination.

the numa issue is pure amd/microsoft. they hosed it but good. on this one it isnt my own personal bad luck either unfortunately. i can confirm it on dozens of machines.

the third i have no idea. maybe numa, maybe nvidia, maybe tyan. maybe something on these systems dont like 4gb of ram. again, this is not isolated, but ive only seen it on k8we boards so far.

the reason not alot of people report these i figure is most people may not realize they even have an issue. many people might just be sitting there thinking "wow, amd machines arent much faster then my old xeons..." not every thinking that, well, their machine is broken. :)

anyway, i am totally happy with my machine... now. heck, even when it was messed up it was faster than most xeons :) now it crushes them. people just need to be aware that there are issues. amd may be the top end, but they arent some magical bug free company, there are always quirks.

later

[reForm]

ah, good to hear you're happy now. :)


um, that'd be nice if it was just me. the first issue involves nearly EVERY dual amd 64 machine ive gotton my hands on. and thats HUNDREDS of machines.


wow... that's pretty serious. Who are you building for?

I'm just checking out the discreet forums just now..... is this the thread you are talking about ? http://support.discreet.com/webboard/wbpx.dll/read?241150,234e#241150

Do you still need to change the affinity on each render node every time you send a network render?

[MadMax]

well I don;t know, I have used numerous AMD boards with various softwares. Lightwave and Maya mostly, AvidHD, Digital Fusion etc. and have never seen any such problems with them.

Sounds a bit irresponsible to just blame AMD for it when it doesn't seem to be happening with other apps. Sounds more like issues with M$ and Discreet. Also the third item you mention, pegging both processors at 100% is a known bug in Windows and M$ released a hot fix for it.

It has been posted here before with a link to the download.

[mistafreeze]

I was wondering, what OS can you use besides linux to run a quad core amd system. Doesnt windows XP Pro only support 2 cpus? im sure it will count the cores as seperate CPU's would it not? i know you can use linux but still

also how would a system such as 2 dual core Opteron 265 (dual core 1.8 ghz), compare to using a mac quad. (I know the mac has higher clock ratings but the 280s are like 1300 a piece so if you must compare those (2.4) then go at it)

wondering because i was looking at getting a quad from apple (their 2.5 ghz) as far as the pricing goes it seems pretty much like it will cost the same. I know the mac OSX will support all 4 cpus (2 procs with dual core) and up to 16 gigs of ram which i cannot say the same for windows, especially the 32 bit version.

also is their a motherboard that will support 2 amd x2 4800's?

how does the opteron dual cores work, i mean is it equal to running 2 procs (such as a test done comparing running dual core vs dual processor using the same speed processor)
i know the mac based off bench marks is pretty much the same.

the main thing im concerned about is the windows OS, I currently have 4 gigs of ram, and 32bit windows will only recongize 3 gigs, when i used the 64 bit version (downloaded the trail when i rebuilt my machine) it detected it all, but their wasnt drivers for some of the hardware that i bought so i have to use the 32 bit version. And i dont think their would be much use to run a quad amd system if windows will only read 3 gigs of ram, thats less than a gig of ram per processor, but seeing as i think XP only supports 2 processors in the first place, it turns into a waste of 2 processors (I could be entirely wrong as i do not know if it will support more) I know you could just run linux, but i have many apps that i need windows for.

i use mac and windows daily for my artistic work so moving software is no big deal, i plan on buying a new version of maya when 7.5 comes out, so im also impartial either way, if i go mac atleast i can use shake.

also how do apps such as maya and zbrush perform when using a quad machine? (such as are they more single threaded or multi threaded) im entirely new to building or using machines with more than 1 physical processor.

[MadMax]

I was wondering, what OS can you use besides linux to run a quad core amd system. Doesnt windows XP Pro only support 2 cpus? im sure it will count the cores as seperate CPU's would it not? i know you can use linux but still


actually it is by socket. windows XP Pro will support a pair of dual cores just fine. It's only when you go past that number do you require XP server 2003/64/


also how would a system such as 2 dual core Opteron 265 (dual core 1.8 ghz), compare to using a mac quad. (I know the mac has higher clock ratings but the 280s are like 1300 a piece so if you must compare those (2.4) then go at it)


It's the same. 2 sockets, 2 dual core processors. Big difference is that there is a full 64 bit windows, there isn't a 64 bit Mac OS.


I know the mac OSX will support all 4 cpus (2 procs with dual core) and up to 16 gigs of ram which i cannot say the same for windows, especially the 32 bit version.



so does windows. 4gb + does require /PAE though.


also is their a motherboard that will support 2 amd x2 4800's?



no.


how does the opteron dual cores work, i mean is it equal to running 2 procs (such as a test done comparing running dual core vs dual processor using the same speed processor)
i know the mac based off bench marks is pretty much the same.

so is dual Opteron.

the main thing im concerned about is the windows OS, I currently have 4 gigs of ram, and 32bit windows will only recongize 3 gigs, when i used the 64 bit version (downloaded the trail when i rebuilt my machine) it detected it all, but their wasnt drivers for some of the hardware that i bought so i have to use the 32 bit version.


such as?

[mistafreeze]

mainly my sound card which i plan on replacing anyway as its giving me problems (creative x-fi)

thats nice then, can you recommend a good motherboard? for the amd opterons? id like to not buy another case and use the one i have "Lian Li PC-65B", pci-express is a must

and i thought tiger was 64bit

also are you running 64bit windows now with no problems or issues? the only main software i use is maya and photoshop, though plan on buying zbrush at the start of next year.

[ihavenofish]

"Sounds a bit irresponsible to just blame AMD for it when it doesn't seem to be happening with other apps"

oh, im more than happy to blame discreet for anything that they screw up :)

im just relaying "issues with 3ds max and dual amd systems" as the origional poster mentioned. who in fact is to blame for the second and third(the first is 99% discreet), i dont know, and really isnt the point. for the third, you mention a hotfix... is that for xp64? i couldnt find any mention on ms's site of it. ill look again later.

anyway, the point is that there are issues with max and dual amd systems. they seem to be controllable to some extent, but they are there. blaming them on other people so your processor posterchild's reputation isnt soiled doesnt make them any less of an issue.

later

[MadMax]

anyway, the point is that there are issues with max and dual amd systems. they seem to be controllable to some extent, but they are there. blaming them on other people so your processor posterchild's reputation isnt soiled doesnt make them any less of an issue.

later


starting to sound more and more like operator error..............

[ihavenofish]

*sigh*

i guess i should expect nothing less from you.

[MadMax]

*sigh*

i guess i should expect nothing less from you.

I point out it is irresponsible to arbitrarily blame AMD without knowing all the facts and you respond with a personal attack.

Are you really that insecure?

Your first issue, and the facts you give are questionable, and it is NOT just an AMD problem. Even after searching on the subject, there are very few hits related to a problem you claim to have seen hundreds of times. Odd that only you seem to be able to find it......

that first issue is seemingly bad coding on discreets part, but it also is hinged only to amd machines, so it may be a combination.

Unfortuantely, this supposition on your part is incorrect.

Your second issue you claims:

the numa issue is pure amd/microsoft. they hosed it but good. on this one it isnt my own personal bad luck either unfortunately. i can confirm it on dozens of machines.

Sorry, wrong again. NUMA works just fine. In fact, it sure looks like you edited this post because I was pretty sure you had more to say on the subject than that. Regardles, you have made 2 errors here.

Then your third issue...... again you can't even be certain what the problem is and admit you don't know, but again try to make it an AMD issue. Or tyan, Or maybe nVidia......

the third i have no idea. maybe numa, maybe nvidia, maybe tyan. maybe something on these systems dont like 4gb of ram. again, this is not isolated, but ive only seen it on k8we boards so far.

and in fact, mention has been made regarding isues with Windows itself causing 100% processor utilization in apps, not AMD, not AMD specifc, not nVidia, not K8WE's.

[DaForce]

FYI for those of you having problems with 50-100% cpu usage when in 3d apps, this can also be caused by the latest release of the Nvidia graphics card drivers, they are now multithreaded.
And seem to cause lots of problem with the cpu's going full tilt while using 3d appz even with no files opened.

Down grade to 78.05 and that will fix the problem.

And another thing, the dual core AMD's are very efficient, to the point where an X2 will render basically twice as fast on 2 cores that it will on 1 core... therefore nearing 100% efficience of the 2nd core :thumbsup:

[Gunnah]

actuallly, I can confirm everything he's said on a farm with over 150 dual AMD opteron rackmounts

and I can also confirm it's ONLY the dual amd opterons, as the 50-60 older dual MP's and intels are just fine. it does NOT affect them in max 6, only 7 or 8.


You may want to check out the discreet/ame support board thread that was posted earlier here too, and you'll see that obviously ihavenofish *isnt* the only one having the issues, so he's not off the mark at all.


g



I point out it is irresponsible to arbitrarily blame AMD without knowing all the facts and you respond with a personal attack.

Are you really that insecure?

Your first issue, and the facts you give are questionable, and it is NOT just an AMD problem. Even after searching on the subject, there are very few hits related to a problem you claim to have seen hundreds of times. Odd that only you seem to be able to find it......

[Kjack]

All these points are only confusing us further.

If you are using Mental Ray with max then will there be a big performance boost for using AMD's cos from what I can see from this benchmark (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=x36o252) AMD performs much better than the xeons on Maya (which uses mental ray).

Could someone clarify?

[deathman20]

Intresting read but a bit confusing in some spots.

I run Max 7 and had the trial of Max 8. Now I only got a Opteron 170 and 2gigs of ram but I've had ZERO issues of it pegging the cpu to 100% or seeming to run slow. Some people that had issues of it pegging in games and such or becoming choppy said they installed the AMD drivers for the dual core, otherwise do not install them if theres no issues.

Now if someone wants to run some tests with my system compared to theres I'd be happy to.

[MadMax]

Since the last post in this thead a couple of weeks ago, I've run across the same situation on Intel based systems that is being claimed as being AMD specific and only.

And for something that is being claimed as being a fault on ALL AMD based systems, I find it odd that there is virtually no mention of it anywhere. I spent a few hours on Google trying to track don some real substance to find out what the problems are and there is just nothing out there. Other than this thread, and a thead over at Discret which I can't look at unless I want to sign up there, there is no chatter regarding this anywhere.

I have a substantial collection of Opteron systems, and have no problems with them. Mental Ray is just fine. You are quite safe buying AMD hardware for Max or Maya or for use with Mental Ray.

[Kjack]

Since the last post in this thead a couple of weeks ago, I've run across the same situation on Intel based systems that is being claimed as being AMD specific and only.

And for something that is being claimed as being a fault on ALL AMD based systems, I find it odd that there is virtually no mention of it anywhere. I spent a few hours on Google trying to track don some real substance to find out what the problems are and there is just nothing out there. Other than this thread, and a thead over at Discret which I can't look at unless I want to sign up there, there is no chatter regarding this anywhere.

I have a substantial collection of Opteron systems, and have no problems with them. Mental Ray is just fine. You are quite safe buying AMD hardware for Max or Maya or for use with Mental Ray.

Thanks max, Just what I wanted to hear. The amount of smoke people create drives me nutes.

Ive decided to go with an AMD duel opteron 252's.

Now my question is , in this benchmark (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=x36o252) AMD is doing far better than Xeons when using Maya, but this is under a mental ray renderder. Can I expect the same kind of perfomance when using Mental Ray under 3d Max?

[lots]

I would assume since its the same rendering engine, its going to work pretty much like it does on Maya, or XSI, or whatever else is out there compatable with MR. Then again, Max does not have as tight an integration with MR as XSI has, so performance may suffer there.

All in all, I'd expect similar performance.

Oh one other thing: Its dual not duel :) Unless you're challanging someone to a fight :P

Just beeing picky :P

[Kjack]

i challenge you to a fight. :argh:

[ihavenofish]

*yawn*

so anyway, as mentioned, the first issue is a confirmed discreet issue (actually, more deeply an intel code/compiler issue). nowhere did i or anyone else blame this on amd, only was it said that the issue was only seen with amd dual machines, and nearly all dual opterons and dual cores and some athlon mp's. if you claim to have seen THIS exact issue on an intel box, IN MAX, id like to see a screen shot of your task manager so we can narrow this further (its only partially resolved so far). if not, shut it and stop confusing the issue. we are working on an automated maxscript hack/fix for this and hope to have one shortly while we wait for a proper patch from discreet.

the second issue has been confirmed as an amd issue, relating specifically to numa. amd's revision guide tech doc clearly state the issue, but it was thought to only affect sh-cg stepping parts (246 and older). we now know it also impacts also the opteron 252 (and probably others). it does not seem to affect the 270 dual cores.

the third issue is somehow tied to the second, but it more random and may have relation to nvidia drivers and/or xp64.

its funny that this is exactly what i mentioned before. aparently noone here is concerned with potential issues on their systems here and would rather wish them away. bugs get fixed by people finding them and reporting them, not by pretending they arent there. i threw these in because one person here asked about potential issue in max on amd systems. these are potential important issues. if you dont use max/know nothing about it, keep your comments on this to yourself, because its rather unconstructive and borders on childish sometimes.

have fun, and remember... all products are perfect, do not question you marketing gods.
*sigh*

[Maneswar]

Madmax, If you are not using Max, what is the point in refuting what people are saying? It is mostly specific to Max on AMD. You keep talking about MentalRay. So what does that have to do with anything? This is a Max problem which I'm pretty sure has been confirmed as a problem with various renderers but not necessarily all. I'm not trying to suggest there are bigger problems, I'm just not sure yet how far it goes.

It is a fact that Max exhibits a performance anomaly with AMD systems that reduces performance. It has been reported for over 1.5 years, by various individuals, numerous enough and respected enough that it is and has been taken seriously. It has been confirmed and the threads on this also indicate that it is confirmed by various companies involved. Various, not numerous or all or many, just various.

If you are not involved, why are you denouncing the facts? You'd think you'd actually acknowledge the possiblity. Of course you have every reasonable right to doubt the veracity of what you hear / counter it with your own experience, but even you know your experience is limited to only your experience. Don't be so arrogant, please. If you have no idea whether it is confirmed or not, how can you say it is not true? If you haven't read the confirmations, how can you know? If you aren't privy to the information, does that make it not accurate? Google does not contain many bits of factual info so that point is a ridiculous.

Just so you understand, apparently you are not in the know about everything, and you don't need to be. Neither am I by the way. Trust that there are informed people other than yourself and accept that some people are in the know on things you aren't aware of. In this case the issue is acknowledged. That doesn't mean the same organizations who acknowledged it won't come back and say they never did, but if anyone kept records / copies of the responses, as I did in some cases, they'd know it was actually acknowledged, confirmed and was / is supposedly being worked on.

Noone is saying don't get an AMD system. What is true is that the performance anomaly requires a workaround if it can be worked around when you use Max on AMD. Use some means to set the affinity and hope that is the fix to the problem. Otherwise, the systems generally work fine. Sometimes, the performance hit is significant. This problem or similar may or may not be exhibited in other software / hardware configs, but as far as is recorded, Intel systems are not involved. As far as is known thus far.

Also, realiaze / acknowledge there are things about which some people can say only so much because entities are involved that they may wish to not involve in idle speculation. If the posts are edited, it's not necessarily to remove relevant information. It's probably because some of it was out of reach for the general public, or because it was unneeded, or perhaps even a correction to an erroneous comment that was caught by the original author. It does not mean that what they are leaving posted is inaccurate.

And before you even bother to ask for me to provide the confirmation I kept, I will not, also to protect the parties involved, because speculation and innuendo and rumors are not needed, and I will not start them or facilitate them. As I said, AMD is not the cause likely of at least 1 of the problems. They may be involved in the other 2 problems... but that isn't clear yet with any certainty. So their systems are quite fine as far as is known at this time. It is a glitch, most likely a software conflict, but it could lie deeper in a software / hardware interference. It hasn't been resolved yet, so it cannot be specified as this or that, yet. But, it is known and confirmed. They are working to try to pin down what is causing the anomalous CPU utilization. The fact is, at this point, what you will experience with AMD systems and Max cannot be guaranteed, but that doesn't mean not to get the AMD system. Who knows, it could be a bad batch of code, or a bad batch of hardware. Or bad combo of various system components that are common enough that it is exhibited on various AMD configurations. One could just as readily argue not to get Max as they could not to get AMD. Depends on your requirements / prioritiies I suppose. But, if the problem is not just Max, then the latter choice may still bite you.

If you can't bother to log on to the relevant boards / do not have the privelege to log on to those relevant boards, to find the confirmation, just stop speculating or offering opinions on something you have no real information on. What you are doing is a disservice to users and consumers to an extent. The others here, reporting the problem, are stating a verified fact. Not all of what they said may be verified fact, but some of it certainly is. That's all you can really know without going to the right forums / websites. And again, noone said all software has this problem. Read the posts again. That does not mean that the hardware is not causing the problem. You posted your opinion and your disbelief, and they posted theirs. At this point, so far, you are definately wrong on one point, but you may very well be right on all of the other points, or not.

Who the hell are you going to believe? The system integrators and some power users or only your own opinion? I find it weird that you have to be so defensive / dismissive about hardware. What? Did you invent AMD systems? Do you make their processors or chipsets? Do you work for someone involved with AMD? Own stock? Why is it so hard for you to allow the possibility that others are having serious problems with their AMD systems that is not the result of something they did? That is exactly what errata and bug are. They document all the problems in software and hardware that oftentimes go unfixed. To suggest it's user error is the insult. You started. Get a grip. Back away from the AMD logo on your forehead and feel the love. It's not Intel and not AMD. It's a tool remember? Respect other's opinions and things will become clearer, and more honest information will be passed around.

I'm sorry to the OP but I cannot make a hardware recommendation about AMD vs Intel because I think it is also an acknowledged fact that currently, AMD does generally surpass Intel on most configs, and in some cases, does quite well against Intel. But, in some cases / types of renderings, Intel also puts in a great showing. You have to determine whether the outlay of cash is worth the investment to save the time in the various instances where 1 system or the other is faster.

Maneswar

[MadMax]

sounds like a couple of people forgot their prozac this morning.

[Kjack]

dont worry.. be happy.. doo dooo do doo do doo doo do doo do doo do doo.

[deathman20]

Ok man I got so confused with that novel up there.

[Gunnah]

not that much to be confused about really :) there's a very specific Max issue, that's been confirmed on numerous AMD systems. It has nothing to do with how the AMD boards/chip, etc are made, it's more of a Max 7/8 issue with said boards. All other apps using the amd machines are smokin' fast (hence madmax's mental ray comments, that have nothing to do with this issue at all) but this isnt about mental ray at all (except for it's own issue *within* max, in this case), so people were getting crossed signals ;)

AMD's are fine systems, I have 3 at home, but there *is* an issue with max 7/8 and varying AMD boards that DOES show up, moreso with dual opteron boards. I've just made it a habit to set affinity by hand, however, like I mentioned before, I have 150 dual opterons at work that *arent* easy to set affinity on during netrenders ;)


G

Ok man I got so confused with that novel up there.

[Kjack]

Is there anyone here who is using either a duel opteron 250 or 252 with max? If so, how is it? Does max choke up on it?

I need to either go for a duel opteron or a duel xeon this week and this thread has just made the choice a lot more difficult. I was leaning towards AMD since it seemed to beat Xeons in a lot of the benchmarks, but if there are actual issues with max then it might not be the best choice. If someone could help me make a decision it would be much appreciated since I dont have enough experience with high end processors to know what is myth and truth.

[ihavenofish]

if you are using max 7 and 8, the affinity issue is there. its easy to get arround though, and isnt super noticable in scanline, and mental ray is fine (mental ray actually causes the issue). to fix, once per session just set the affinity to both cpus manually in the task manager.

the second issue is only a problem on boards with 8 ram slots (or so it seems thus far). the fix is to simply turn off numa in the bios (turn ON node interleaving). winxp 32 bit has numa off by default, so unless you turn it on on purpose, you "should" be fine.

the third issue i cant say if youll see or not... its very random and is at least partly opengl video driver related only on specific mobos / os combos. if you do see it, and cant make it go away with new drivers, turning off numa, etc, it seems to go away if you use direct x most of the time.

later

[Kjack]

Thanks Fish. That helps. I think everyone kind of jumps up and defends the underdogs. Decided to go for the AMD after reading your post, im going to be using mentalray and itll be on a windows small business server. If anyone has any tips or advice before I buy the dual opteron 250's then please share them with me, this is the first time im getting something like this.

Many Thanks.

[reForm]

Ok, its been a long time I started this thread, and I am finally in a position where I can let you know how I got on.

I decided to get a pair of 265's.

At stock speed, they clocked in at 3mins 45secs on the Vray benchmark on the chaos forums.

Thought I'd try a 'little' overclock.

That clocked in at ... 3mins 3 seconds. :)

System appears stable, and temps are sitting nicely at 43 degrees max under full load.

lets see that on a xeon system!

No sign of any of the problems mentioned on this thread. Guess I've just been lucky. :D

[opus13]

No sign of any of the problems mentioned on this thread. Guess I've just been lucky. :D

no luck about it. the max+opteron issues are rare as hell to begin with, and affects a ridiculously miniscule number of users. a dual 265 system is a good choice :)

[Maneswar]

Which version of Max are you two using?

Maneswar

[spikomatix]

i ve read all the posts in here but still iam confused which System would be better.

AMD or Intel?

i dont know much about actual hardware.but need a new maschine.

is a good grafikcard really that important?what enhancements can i fell during working with 3D Studio max?i mean what exactly do those expensive cards better than cheap cards?
all iam interessted is fast Viewport workflow and short rendertimes.

I mean for exampple my viewport navigation stucks sometimes cause of complicated scenes.Is this a CPU or a GPU or RAM case?

what is best for maximum performance on MAX8 ?

2*AMD Opterons? 2*Intel Xeons?

my system now is a

-Intel P 4 HT 2,8 Ghz
-mainboard is gigabyte GA-8KNXP Intel 875P chipset
-grafik: nvidia fx 5700 Ultra 128mb
-ram: 2* 512 MB pc2100 (266) in dualchannelmode

[MadMax]

i ve read all the posts in here but still iam confused which System would be better.

AMD or Intel?

i dont know much about actual hardware.but need a new maschine.


AMD is by far the better choice. Faster speeds, lower power consumption, substantially cooler running, greater memory bandwidth.

[ExKArt]

Google review searchs would confuse you less. There is a lot of truth and a lot of opinion and misunderstanding in forums. Many people don't have the time to spend looking for reviews (by this I mean benchmarks also), but in the long run you'll feel alot better with the decision you make. Personally I think cost and performance is a main factor. But if it were up to me (between Opteron vs. Xeon only) I would go Opteron.

[parallax]

If there is one board where user posted reviews do matter, it's cgtalk. Especially in content creation.

I'll take the opinion of the regulars over some cnet asshole every day of the week.

[spikomatix]

so i do right with an dual opteron system?

i mean 2 opteron processors?if yes which are the strongest?

which graficcard do i need for best performance.

can u list 2-3?

no talk about money yet.thats not really interessting in this case ;-)

greetings

[Kjack]

so i do right with an dual opteron system?

i mean 2 opteron processors?if yes which are the strongest?

which graficcard do i need for best performance.

can u list 2-3?

no talk about money yet.thats not really interessting in this case ;-)

greetings

Spiko, I was in the same boat as you a week back. I did a few posts here to find out weather to go for an opteron or a Xeon. After the feedback and studying various benchmarks (I posted one or two in this thread if my memory serves me right) I decided to go for the opteron. Couldnt be happier. I was working a budget so I couldnt splash out on it, but I did get a decent machine.

One thing I did notice which I'm sure would help some, opterons work magic with mental ray. I did a scene with a few trees (about 600,000 poly with one light source with ray trace shadows) and using the scanline render it took about 1:20sec. I was kinda dissapointed but when I turned on mental ray it did it in 19seconds. This reflected many benchmarks I saw online, which showed that opterons did great with maya (using mental ray) and didnt do so good against max (using the scanline renderer). So if you are planning on using mental ray, and are aware of the bugs with AMD (which has easy work arounds and non of which I have experinced yet) then go for the opterons.

Another note. If you are planning on rendering memory intensive scenes (ie. over 30 trees with 60,000 polygons, custom bitmap with bump and opacity for each of the leaves etc) then get lots of ram (maby over 2gb) and make sure you get a 64bit OS so it can handle the ram.

Hope this helps. :thumbsup:

[spikomatix]

so it sounds like the Opterons do have the power i need :-) thanks for ur Infos

can u tell me which opterons i need? (mhz + exact type) which cores are the best?

what is actually a very good and fast RAM?

which graficcard do i need?some Quadro?

hope for some names.thank you very much!

[habernir]

Don't buy now wait for the new Xeon in q1 2006

[spikomatix]

Man janim? ;-) (@habir)



funny everyone tells me something else here ;-)

give me a reson why i should by new Xeon.

[ExKArt]

If there is one board where user posted reviews do matter, it's cgtalk. Especially in content creation.
I'll take the opinion of the regulars over some cnet asshole every day of the week.

that's good,
I guess reviews is the wrong word. I'm mainly talking about benchmarks, comparing processors directly to each other. Some people say this processor does better at this application, other people say the other processor is better. It's good to go to forums, however "personally" I think deciding first by looking at benchmarks, then going to forums with that knowledge and see how the professionals think is much better. Cgtalk is great, all I'm saying is with people going back and forth, as seen in the previous pages, it's good to know exactly what's up first.

[habernir]

two reasons you should wait
1. the prices will go down
2. the new xeon will be 100%-150% faster then the last opteron

[MadMax]

two reasons you should wait
1. the prices will go down
2. the new xeon will be 100%-150% faster then the last opteron



Prices always go down. Wait till Q1 to buy, then when Q1 gets here, wait until Q2, there is something better coming. But wait, now you want to REALLY wait for that new CPU coming in Q4, 2006, it's only as few extra months to wait.

There is a new CPU coming in 2007, might as wait for that................

Waiting for something new or prices to go down is the absolute stupidest advice in the computer industry. There is always something new coming soon. Now if it was a matter of you need to buy, but the releas date for something new is in the next month for example, and it was a big a jump as say dual cores were, then yeah, wait the little extra time.

As for the overzealous comments about 100-150% faster............. heh heh. Uh huh, sure they are.

[spikomatix]

hey madmax you talk what i think :-)
guess thats the experience u make when u bought some maschines in your life.there is no waiting anymore on my side.i ll take the Dual Opterons if noone got a better suggestion?

can u tell me what are the best opterons?speed and core? i need some details.

still my questions bout graficcard and ram + mainboard are open.What should i take there?

You guys make my workstation :-)

greetings

[deathman20]

two reasons you should wait
1. the prices will go down
2. the new xeon will be 100%-150% faster then the last opteron

1) Ya prices will go down

2) And from what I've seen at least with the newer desktop versions of the CPU's that are coming out 1Q, is that they preform equally if not slightly slower then the Opterons that have been out for ages.


Intel is starting to get power back under there belt with decent heat output/work loads but the AMD cpu's are still winning the field right now. I mean why else would Dell even start taking AMD cpu's and selling them if they new there was a considerable amount of money to be made out of it, and pissing off Intel at the same time.

Yes I have an AMD cpu right now you might consider me biased because of that but not more then 2 months ago I wouldn't touch an AMD system I've been an Intel man and have always pushed for Intel since back in the 486 days. Recently I saw at least with the newer CPU's Intel did stupid things which hurt them, and thats why I made the switch to something that is actually worth the cost of an upgrade.

[deathman20]

hey madmax you talk what i think :-)
guess thats the experience u make when u bought some maschines in your life.there is no waiting anymore on my side.i ll take the Dual Opterons if noone got a better suggestion?

can u tell me what are the best opterons?speed and core? i need some details.

still my questions bout graficcard and ram + mainboard are open.What should i take there?

You guys make my workstation :-)

greetings

Well opterons depends what ones you want acutally. 2 actual chips are one of the cheaper yet very powerful routes to go. Getting even just 2 single core chips you'd have to look in the 200 Sieres Opterons (think it goes up to 250), or going for 2 dual core chips (265-280). With the singles you'll have lower cost and can get higher speeds for cheaper compared to the duals, but the duals you'll have a decent boost in processing power.

Basically looking at it as 2 Cores (on 2 cpu's) or 4 Cores (on 2 cpu's), which sounds better ;) You won't exactly double preformance with 4 Cores but you'll get around 70-80% more power out of it then a 2 Core (2 cpu) setup. Hopfully thats not too confusing...


Graphics card, well the professional cards do have its benifits it does come at a big cost. High end desktop cards can keep pace well to the professional ones, but only thing thats holding them back is drivers. Guess it depends on budget but high end desktop card like a 7800GT, 7800GTX or the 7800GTX512 will do more then nicely unless your using a program that utilizes the professional card for rendering.

[MadMax]

Unfortunately the "wait for xxxx" is one of the stupidest pieces of advice in this industry. Bioo matter when you guy something, there is always something new coming in a matter of weeks/months/Quarter etc. When you do buy it, you can almost place money on the fact that your 300.00 GFX card will go down in price to 225.00 2 weeks after you buy it :)

Bottom line is that is just the way it works. Hell I have had stuff drop in price between the time I order it and before it even arrives at my location.

I learned a very long time ago that if you sit around and wait for the next big thing, you will NEVER buy anything.

You asked about dual Opterons, but do you intend to be satisifed with that, or is your intent to get dual core opterons to upgrade later? If so, I would suggest you go with a single CPU motherboard and an X2 dual core system. a dual core will easily compare in performance to a dual CPU system, for a fraction of the cost. regular ram instead of registered ram (registered ram is only SLIGHTLY more expensive, although some people will try to make it sound like registered is double or triple the cost)

The motherboard will easily be half the cost of something like the dual CPU Tyan K8WE.

Why go lower end if you plan to upgrade later? because AMD has 2 new socket designs coming next year. Buy what works in the here and now, and if you need more power later, look at what is available then.

I'd suggest that for buying now, go with the following or similar:

Asus A8N SLI Premium
X2 dual core, 3800's are pretty cheap, 4400's are a good median bargain.
Antec Truepower 2 480 or 550w power supply
2gb OCZ PC3200 Platinum ram
nVidia 7800GT video card

quite a few people here have this setup or very similar to it and absolutely love it. I have 4 exactly like it, although with 4gb ram.


hey madmax you talk what i think :-)
guess thats the experience u make when u bought some maschines in your life.there is no waiting anymore on my side.i ll take the Dual Opterons if noone got a better suggestion?

can u tell me what are the best opterons?speed and core? i need some details.

still my questions bout graficcard and ram + mainboard are open.What should i take there?

You guys make my workstation :-)

greetings

[spikomatix]

hey thanks so far for your help.now i know nearly what i must look for.
i found some maschines on ebay.maybe u can tell me what i must be aware of.I mean things like slow mainboards.i think its best to get some maschine with minimum 2GB Ram in dualchannel mode.Is the Nvidia 7800GTX video card.better then the GT Version?what must i be aware of here?some ebay sellers are talkin bout fake X2 dual core, 3800+ Processors?
can you tell me what my mainboard must have?(i mean chipset ect)

will my old PCI cards work on PCIE?
i have a Gforce fx7500 Ultra now.Istn that enough for 3D max?what would be better with the 7800GTX?i mean can i feel performance?is this fasten things up in viewports?or renders?i guess not?i dont want to waste things.(maybe i can keep some parts from my maschnine?for example my PCI cards (7.1 creative labs soundcard ;-) ect ect)?

sorry but i have no clue about PCIE.i guess it will be compatible to PCI...

here some ebay stuff i found--so u can see what i would have been interested in.Maybe you can tell me to look after something special (mainboard configuration or something) those sellers often keep some things in their maschines cheap..like ram or mainboard..

http://cgi.ebay.de/A64-X2-4400-Spezial-7800-GT-2GB-Inf-NEC-4550-200GB-SATA_W0QQitemZ8739971842QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

i guess the mainboard is crap?

i found a few interesting items on ebay :

http://cgi.ebay.de/PC-Videoschnitt-Videobearbeitung-AMD-X2-4400-Dual-Core_W0QQitemZ8742007463QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/Gaming-PC-AGANDO-fuego-4200x2-dvdr-Sli-Athlon64-X2-4200_W0QQitemZ8740796123QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/AMD-64-X2-4400-2048MB-200GB-Geforce-7800GTX_W0QQitemZ8742251384QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/Dual-Core-Videoschnitt-Grafik-PC-AMD-X2-3800-Geforce_W0QQitemZ8741953271QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[MadMax]

7800GT is jsut fine. The GTX is far more expensive and will not provide such a huge leap in performance to justify the additionasl cost. We are talking the difference between 299.00 for a GT, vs. 450.00 for a GTX.

Board chipset. nVidia nForce4. Absolutely a must have item for AMD processors. VIA sucks.

No, your PCI graphics card or AGP will not work in a PCI-E motherboard. Make the switch, all the future machines are going to be PCI-E.


Abit AX8 is VIA = Crap.



hey thanks so far for your help.now i know nearly what i must look for.
i found some maschines on ebay.maybe u can tell me what i must be aware of.I mean things like slow mainboards.i think its best to get some maschine with minimum 2GB Ram in dualchannel mode.Is the Nvidia 7800GTX video card.better then the GT Version?what must i be aware of here?some ebay sellers are talkin bout fake X2 dual core, 3800+ Processors?
can you tell me what my mainboard must have?(i mean chipset ect)

will my old PCI cards work on PCIE?
i have a Gforce fx7500 Ultra now.Istn that enough for 3D max?what would be better with the 7800GTX?i mean can i feel performance?is this fasten things up in viewports?or renders?i guess not?i dont want to waste things.(maybe i can keep some parts from my maschnine?for example my PCI cards (7.1 creative labs soundcard ;-) ect ect)?

sorry but i have no clue about PCIE.i guess it will be compatible to PCI...

here some ebay stuff i found--so u can see what i would have been interested in.Maybe you can tell me to look after something special (mainboard configuration or something) those sellers often keep some things in their maschines cheap..like ram or mainboard..

http://cgi.ebay.de/A64-X2-4400-Spezial-7800-GT-2GB-Inf-NEC-4550-200GB-SATA_W0QQitemZ8739971842QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

i guess the mainboard is crap?

i found a few interesting items on ebay :

http://cgi.ebay.de/PC-Videoschnitt-Videobearbeitung-AMD-X2-4400-Dual-Core_W0QQitemZ8742007463QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/Gaming-PC-AGANDO-fuego-4200x2-dvdr-Sli-Athlon64-X2-4200_W0QQitemZ8740796123QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/AMD-64-X2-4400-2048MB-200GB-Geforce-7800GTX_W0QQitemZ8742251384QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.de/Dual-Core-Videoschnitt-Grafik-PC-AMD-X2-3800-Geforce_W0QQitemZ8741953271QQcategoryZ47832QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[spikomatix]

thank you so far.now i think i know what to take.

what is with the X2 cores?which are best?

what is with my soundcard(PCI)?can i use it with PCIE?

i dont want to give my baby away ;.-(

:-p

[MadMax]

thank you so far.now i think i know what to take.

what is with the X2 cores?which are best?

what is with my soundcard(PCI)?can i use it with PCIE?

i dont want to give my baby away ;.-(

:-p


These board still have PCI slots, don;t worry about your sound card.

Personally I think the 4400 is the best bang for the buck.

[habernir]

1) Ya prices will go down

2) And from what I've seen at least with the newer desktop versions of the CPU's that are coming out 1Q, is that they preform equally if not slightly slower then the Opterons that have been out for ages.


Intel is starting to get power back under there belt with decent heat output/work loads but the AMD cpu's are still winning the field right now. I mean why else would Dell even start taking AMD cpu's and selling them if they new there was a considerable amount of money to be made out of it, and pissing off Intel at the same time.

Yes I have an AMD cpu right now you might consider me biased because of that but not more then 2 months ago I wouldn't touch an AMD system I've been an Intel man and have always pushed for Intel since back in the 486 days. Recently I saw at least with the newer CPU's Intel did stupid things which hurt them, and thats why I made the switch to something that is actually worth the cost of an upgrade.


what you were talk about is the yona in that case you right
about Pentium D 900 Presler it dosn't out yet and it doesn't have a benchmark
but i dont mean to the presler or the yona i mean to the new zeon 7000(or 5000 i forgot the name sorry)
and madmax it worth waiting!

[Maneswar]

Xbitlabs just posted one today.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/presler.html

[deathman20]

Xbitlabs just posted one today.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/presler.html

Yup theres a few of those out there mainly user reviews of the product of how well it Overclocks. Xeons, still look just like they use too though, just enabled to use more then 1 CPU per machine, and have more cache thats it that I've seen.

[habernir]

very nice benchmark of the presler when it gets out??

[MadMax]

and deathman2 i suggest you to click on the benchmark link


well, I looked at the benchmarks and a few trhings jump out at me. First off the EE are Extremely Expensive, and only BARELY edge over the X2 4800's. And in some cases, it had to be the opverclocked Presler to win the benchmark. In some instances, even the overclocked presler got beat by the X2 4800.

A couple of problems I have with a review like this is they compare this Presler which is not available, with currently available CPU's and yet they fail to include AMD samples like the FX 60, and X2 5000. It would provide more accurate buying information if the comparison were less one sided.

And secondly they use overclocked results for the Presler, but provide no overclocking results with the X2's. For the end user who isn't very computer literate (and we certainly get a lot of them here) these results would leave a very inaccurate impression.

Best as I can tell from these results, when presler is released, we will still be looking at basically an unchanged status quo. AMD also has new CPU's coming so Opteron and X2's are still going to be the best choice for the time being and in the near future even if you do decide to wait.

[spikomatix]

hmm i am not sure..i dont need the maschine before my actual project is finished (i dont have time for this) but do u think the x2 488 is a good choice in february 2006?i mean it will be a little cheaper thats fine..but are there some X2 killers coming out soon?
i know how fast this things develop..but this is only 3 months...

[parallax]

Unfortunately the "wait for xxxx" is one of the stupidest pieces of advice in this industry. Bioo matter when you guy something, there is always something new coming in a matter of weeks/months/Quarter etc. When you do buy it, you can almost place money on the fact that your 300.00 GFX card will go down in price to 225.00 2 weeks after you buy it :)

Bottom line is that is just the way it works. Hell I have had stuff drop in price between the time I order it and before it even arrives at my location.



Except for Western Digital Raptors :P

I should've bought a shitload of those..

[spikomatix]

sorry dont understand what you mean :-p damn i got to work on my english skills :-)

still ..my question is open :-)

[deathman20]

hmm i am not sure..i dont need the maschine before my actual project is finished (i dont have time for this) but do u think the x2 488 is a good choice in february 2006?i mean it will be a little cheaper thats fine..but are there some X2 killers coming out soon?
i know how fast this things develop..but this is only 3 months...

Really the only X2 killers will be itself with the M2 socket that will be coming out sometime next year adding the DDR2 ram to the mix, but yet it won't be much faster at first.

Maybe when Intel gets its act into gear it will start winning stuff back but it doesn't look like that when they are still using the netburst architecture so I think your pretty safe to say that your good.

[nicktg]

I think a dual athlon/opteron is a solid choice and I doubt anything significantly better will come anytime soon. Not a good time to wait for better hardware.
I have a question though: has any of you compared an athlon to an equivalent p4 in vray?
I know the athlon is usually faster in renderers such as mentalray, but what about vray? I havn`t seen any sites online that include it in their benchmarks. However, I once borrowed a pentium4 @3ghz to help me finish a project in time, and to my surprise, it outperformed an also borrowed athlon64 3000+ (or minus in this case) and did so by a fair margin. I didn`t write down the time it took to render on the different machines, but the difference in performance was easily perceptible. Both machines were setup by me in the same way, from hd partitioning to software installed. Of course they had to render the same 3d scene with identical settings. By the way, hyper threading was disabled on the intel machine
I`d like to upgrade in the near future and while I would rather get an efficient cpu like the athlon, it`s possibly inferior performance in vray concerns me, as this where I need the extra performance in the first place. I need to do some proper benchmarks before I can say this is a fact, but I have a strong feeling that vray strongly favors intel cpus.

[Maneswar]

I agree that the X2 or Opterons look like a sure bet within the next year or so. I'm not yet convinced Presler or Yonah or whatever Intel is working on will take the performance crown in the next 12 months. Not sure that they will or not in 2007 either. At the moment, it appears safe to say AMD has the faster processors / systems.

If you overclock, you might be able to overclock an AMD system a bit, but with teh Presler overclock, I think the point is it's capable of a lot whereas the X2 is nearing the high limit, no?

Anyway, I agree comparing overclocked to stock is somewhat unfair and misleading.

[MadMax]

hmm i am not sure..i dont need the maschine before my actual project is finished (i dont have time for this) but do u think the x2 488 is a good choice in february 2006?i mean it will be a little cheaper thats fine..but are there some X2 killers coming out soon?
i know how fast this things develop..but this is only 3 months...


This is not intended as an insult at you but you are exactly the type of user I was talking about. You don't know the hardware, and so you do the logical thing and ask. Unfortunately, there are times when an answer in a thread either makes a statement about a problem, or tells you something new and killer is coming and the reaction is to do as you said, think an X2 killer is coming soon or like this thread, a couple of people then get the idea that AMD isn't a good processor for Max.

Neither of those points of view portray an accurate assesment of the situation.

To answer your question, no, there is not an X2 killer coming out anytime soon. If you follow the link previously provided, the P4EE mentioned DOES win pretty big in those benchmarks at least in finishing first. However, most of those wins are by an overclocked CPU, and run at stock, the P4EE won but only barely over the X2 4800 and in a few of those the stock 4800 beat the P4EE.

That alone does not make it an X2 killer.

You also fail to realize that AMD has new CPU's coming out in the same time frame as well. Wouldn't it be great if they had compared their "real soon now" sample P4EE with a sample "real soon now" X2 5000 or equivalent Opteron 1xx series?

AMD is also coming out with the M2 socket design and DDR2 in around that time frame as well.


So there you go. Buy what you need now, or wait, both manufacturers will ALWAYS have something new coming.

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