Help with the High-End Desktop Configuration

[InfernalDarkness]

If you're on a budget, get a Phenom X4, a Geforce 260, and as much RAM as you can afford.

If you're not on a tight budget, get an Intel quad- or octo-core, a Radeon HD5800-series card, and as much RAM as you can afford.

[meleseDESIGN]

As an Lighting artist you will do a lot preview rendering.

A Dual Socket System with Intel XEON 55XX Series processors would speed up your Workflow extremely. 12gigs of RAM should be fine.

As for Realflow, it uses the CPU for simulation and is capable to work with Multicore processors (with Hyperthreading support too). As for the RAM in Realflow, 12gigs will do as well. You should set up some pagging files just as backup. Safety first!

[cgbeige]

the thing about Realflow is that it costs more for 2, 4, 8, 16 thread licenses so make sure you can afford the CPU license before you buy a machine with 8 hyperthreaded cores. It will be good for renders but it's very hard to saturate 8 cores with Realflow. I've seen it do five but never more, even with a relatively complex scene and a license for 8 cores.

[olson]

the thing about Realflow is that it costs more for 2, 4, 8, 16 thread licenses so make sure you can afford the CPU license before you buy a machine with 8 hyperthreaded cores. It will be good for renders but it's very hard to saturate 8 cores with Realflow. I've seen it do five but never more, even with a relatively complex scene and a license for 8 cores.

Hyperthreading is irrelevant because its not actually two cores, so a dual socket Xeon 5500 series with quad cores will do just fine with an 8 core RealFlow license or a single socket Core i7 will run just fine with a 4 core RealFlow license. If its for academics then you can buy multiple academic licenses of RealFlow to use all of the available cores in a system. If you can give a price range that would be helpful to make specific hardware recommendations. Cheers!

[cgbeige]

It's not irrelevant - the system reports the hyperthreaded cores as cores and the software doesn't know the difference so you're paying more for Realflow core licenses and potentially less performance. Even if money wasn't a concern, if I had to build a strictly Realflow box, I'd pick a quad i7 3.2 GHz over a dual quad Xeon 5500 2.93GHz since Realflow probably won't even get close to saturating 16 total cores, regardless of your license, so the added clock speed will be more of a benefit than more cores unless you're doing some really massive sims. Apple's benchmark page shows how they can just get a newer hyperthreaded Nehalem Xeon with all the new bus trimmings to beat a non-hyperthreaded Penryn machine with a massive simulation:

http://grab.by/2fOA

1.6x May look good but there is a completely new architecture there and twice as many cores that have been paid for in RF licenses.

The Xeon will be a better system for rendering but I'm just saying that Realflow's core licenses are expensive and not really worth it when you get over 8.

[meleseDESIGN]

In Realflow you can limit the app to use just 8 Threads, even if it says 16 or more processors were found. So it is possible to use just the 8 physical Cores in a dual Xeon system. A dual quad Xeon 5500 system will outperform any quad i7 extremely.

The question was not about budget, it´s about High-End configuration ffor Lighting and Realflow.

[imashination]

Hyperthreading is irrelevant because its not actually two cores

Depends how the realflow accountant and marketing people see things. For the longest time, all the render engines sold per-cpu would need an extra licence per hyperthreaded virtual core.

[olson]

Depends how the realflow accountant and marketing people see things. For the longest time, all the render engines sold per-cpu would need an extra licence per hyperthreaded virtual core.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but Hyperthreading is irrelevant for RealFlow.

http://realflow.com/n_benchmarking.htm

The W5580 on the list with Luke next to it was from my testing. Tried with 8 and 16 core license with and without Hyperthreading, virtually zero difference from my testing. Best way to go is buy license to match the number of physical cores in the machine (2 cores supported for each license). Buying twice as many licenses to account for Hyperthreading is wasting your money. Cheers!

[meleseDESIGN]

The W5580 on the list with Luke next to it was from my testing. Tried with 8 and 16 core license with and without Hyperthreading, virtually zero difference from my testing. Best way to go is buy license to match the number of physical cores in the machine (2 cores supported for each license). Buying twice as many licenses to account for Hyperthreading is wasting your money. Cheers!


The 3rd placed Mac Pro with two Xeon X5570 (nxfxcom) is more than twice as fast with a 16 Core License as your W5580 with 8 Core License. So it seems Hyperthreading isn´t that irrelevant as you might think and if i look a bit closer to the results it´s definitely not a waste of money eighter.

Why have you not tested all 16 threads with your Xeons and your 16 Core License?

[olson]

The 3rd placed Mac Pro with two Xeon X5570 (nxfxcom) is more than twice as fast with a 16 Core License as your W5580 with 8 Core License. So it seems Hyperthreading isn´t that irrelevant as you might think and if i look a bit closer to the results it´s definitely not a waste of money eighter.

Why have you not tested all 16 threads with your Xeons and your 16 Core License?

I did test with Hyperthreading and 16 core license, my results were almost identical. Take the results with a grain of salt because there are many exaggerated or false benchmarks on that page since its a manually entered user form with no way to verify any results. Only ones I can vouch for accuracy are mine. Cheers!

[meleseDESIGN]

I did test with Hyperthreading and 16 core license, my results were almost identical. Take the results with a grain of salt because there are many exaggerated or false benchmarks on that page since its a manually entered user form with no way to verify any results. Only ones I can vouch for accuracy are mine. Cheers!

OK, in that case Hyperthreading is really irrelevant and 8 more Core Licenses just for HT will be worthless.

Actually the 16 core Xeon X5570/E5520 and the 12 core Opteron 8431 Istanbul benchmark results should be erased from that list immediately.

Trust your Results!

[dmeyer]

RealFlow 5 is going to a per-host license, so none of this is going to matter...

[olson]

RealFlow 5 is going to a per-host license, so none of this is going to matter...

This is true, but RealFlow 5 is not available yet. Cheers!

[trgTyson]

On the topic of a system, with a fast dual socket config you are looking at spending a good amount of money.

In terms of a single socket, you should consider the upcoming Intel i7-980x (Gulftown)...the cpu will be about $1200 (estimated with markup), but with 6 cores (12 threads...yeah. I know you guys have a discussion on hyperthreading) at 3.3ghz...but it's built on 32nm and is unlocked, so with a nice air cooler you could safely take it to 3.6-3.8ghz on air (others have taken it to 4+ ghz with air) without much or any overvolting.

This will also do better for the odd chance you do things that don't take advantage of multithreading.

Just an idea, I know I am building one ;)

[The4thAggie]

I would wait a few more months. The Intel i9 6-core processor will be coming out (as well as an equivalent Xeon if I am guessing right). Then you can get more bang for your buck.

[cgbeige]

ya, it frightens me to think that this:

http://grab.by/2hAw

will become this:

http://grab.by/2hAI

It's hard enough keeping 16 threads busy. I feel bad for the guy using After Effects who buys a 12 core Xeon only to have it use one of twenty four threads.

[meleseDESIGN]

Then you can get more bang for your buck.

You get most bang with 6 Core´s, but not for an attractive price.
;)

6 Core Processors and upcoming Multicores wont sale this good anymore, because for most peoples there is no need to buy 6 or more Core processors.
Demand determines the price and demand determines supply.

The Xeon W5590 still isn´t available for an attractive price and probably next Gulftown generation wont change the situation till 8 or 12 Core CPUs will be available.

2 more cores isn´t that much.
There should be at least double as much cores coming with every new Generation.
Like in the past, from Dual Core to Quad Core.
Technical progress is a little bit sluggish at Intel.

[cgbeige]

lol - it's been 6 months. Putting two more cores on the die and reducing the size/power consumption isn't trivial stuff.

[meleseDESIGN]

lol - it's been 6 months. Putting two more cores on the die and reducing the size/power consumption isn't trivial stuff.

Anyways, I guess the 6 core pocessors brings disappointing sales for Intel.

[andronikos916]

I have created a similar post here: .. the new EVGA mobo + 2 x Xeon 56xx @4.2Ghz+ (24 Cpus HT ON)

http://www.realflowforum.com/view_topic.php?pid=34715#p34715

thanx - Andronikos,

[JohnPetrucci]

I apologize for the noobish question but..

what is the difference between desktop processors ( i7,i9 series) and server processors (Xeon series)

[andronikos916]

i7 & Xeons are the same - BUT with Xeons you can have 2+ CPUs on the same motherboard... i7, i9 etc only 1 actual CPU... (Intel marketing :-))

maybe there are some minor differneces but as far as the tests, benchmarks showing there is no speed increase by using 1 Xeon vs 1 i7.


thanx - Andronikos,

[sentry66]

i7 & Xeons are the same - BUT with Xeons you can have 2+ CPUs on the same motherboard... i7, i9 etc only 1 actual CPU... (Intel marketing :-))

maybe there are some minor differneces but as far as the tests, benchmarks showing there is no speed increase by using 1 Xeon vs 1 i7.


thanx - Andronikos,


don't forget certain xeon models consume less power


...otherwise, yeah that's the only differences other than $$$$

[olson]

I apologize for the noobish question but..

what is the difference between desktop processors ( i7,i9 series) and server processors (Xeon series)

Basically what they said but with a little extra detail. The technical differences are the Core series are made for a single socket system, and the Xeon processors are made for multiple socket systems. Why does it matter how many sockets it has you might ask? Ten years ago there was no difference because the system chipset controlled the memory which took requests from processors for memory. Modern processors have a memory controller on the processor itself which complicates things when there are more than one processor. In order for one processor to use memory from another processor they need to talk to each other, this is called ccNUMA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Uniform_Memory_Access) which requires more logic and circuitry on each processor. All of the other differences are just marketing and revenue.

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