New Workstation - OpenCL or CUDA + Ryzen

#1

Hello everyone! First post here. I have been a bit on and off 3D on the last few years, so I didn’t evolved much. Nowadays I use my MacBook Pro from 2009 and it’s getting a bit old. I am an architect and use mainly ARCHICAD. I also use 3DS Max sometimes, when the project is worth it (never got along or gave much effort with Cinema4D, even though I’m using a Mac). I don’t play games.

I am thinking of getting a new computer, and likely to be a desktop workstation. I was thinking of getting another Mac, probably an iMac but the new AMD Ryzen made me get another thought on my priorities, as much as I love Mac.

So, I was thinking of getting a Ryzen 1700 but I have a few questions regarding everything else.

I don’t want a pro video card, so I was thinking of getting an RX 580, so I could use for rendering, and later add another one. So, my questions are:

  1. How is the OpenCL vs. CUDA battle nowadays, and how are rendering engines like vRay RT and Octane working with OpenCL? Will it evolve and is it worth investing in it right now for the future? Has anyone tried the AMD ProRender for Architecture Viz?

  2. Thinking of getting a micro-ATX mainboard and case. Will 2x RX 580 be too much hot for such a small case or is ventilation enough for them?

  3. Is a RX 580 worth for OpenCL against a Ryzen 1700? Should I spend more on the video card and get cheaper or lower CPU like a Ryzen 5?

So, it’ll be something like this:

Corsair Carbide 88R micro-ATX
AMD Ryzen 7 1700
MSI B350M Mortar
MSI RX 580 8GB
16GB DDR4 3200Mhz
SSD Samsung 960 EVO M.2 256GB
550W PSU

Thank you all!

#2

VrayRT might be the only render engine aside from Blender Cycles to support openCL though it performs better with CUDA according to them. Most engines only support CUDA

Adobe software is all openCL. Fusion supports openCL

as far as max/c4d - viewport acceleration depends on driver and card usually

#3

Hi Fulci

Straight from my experience what I can tell you is that going radeon/opencl you´ll get more TFlops per $. On the other hand going cuda you´ll find more software availability. Slowly opencl is growing but it´s far away yet from cuda.

1- Vrayrt works decently with opencl but I have not a proper metric against cuda. Octane is not supporting opencl as far as I know. I think yes, opencl it´s continuosly evolving, but as said cuda is ahead on the software side now (it´s older and better known for programmers). I think this point higly depends on the demand and the developers community. If you can handle blender cycles (check the links) I think you could go with opencl and save you some money or invest it in more horsepower.

https://evermotion.org/tutorials/show/10702/drastically-reduce-rendertime-in-blender-cycles-new-denoising-feature-
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?414760-Apartment
https://www.blender3darchitect.com/

I have done many renders using radeon ProRender and it´s very cool, i think it lacks a bit of responsivness yet for archviz but is constantly evolving and getting better over time.

2- Microatx? I wouldn´t.

3- 580, 480, 390x anything with 8gb or more will be ok for archviz. Cpu power always help for other tasks, now… the cpu/gpu fight is a bit tricky, if you compare i.e. using vrayrt or cycles and other pathtracing derivateds renderers gpus are much faster, but… lots of render solutions are still working just for cpu and being very competitive, so… that´s something not so easy to answer I think. A thing for sure, you will need a decent gpu if you want to go the unreal/lumion/lumen/twinmotion/etc way.

I would try to get a 750w psu at least and x370 if I could.

#4

“more TFlops per $.”

Makes absolutely no sense to go that way when you can’t use those TFlops anywhere :slight_smile:

For the time being any proper GPU rendering is only CUDA.

#5

Go with the Ryzen 1700 and a GeForce 1060 or 1070. In many applications outside of gaming, the Nvidia cards just have better drivers. In Max and Maya this has been true pretty much across the board. I only use AMD CPUs but their GPUs just don’t have the oomph that Nvidia’s do, even at the same price points. The GTX 1070 is the sweet spot for CGI, bang for buck. The RX 580 is a fine card but as everyone else has said, you’ll miss out on the majority of GPU-rendering solutions. AMD is pushing hard for OpenCL of course and many other techs, they’re just not quite there yet with adoption.

I’d love to try their ProRender engine out, but the name is just disturbing - almost as bad as Redshift. Except AMD didn’t make it compatible with Maya 2015 so I just never got a real opportunity. Vray-RT is pretty useful, and constantly evolving forward as well.