Upgrade from 5960x suggestions

#1

Hi,

I currently have a system based around the
Intel 5960x cpu (currently overclocked to 4.2ghz)
32bit RAM
SSD OS drive / 2tb data drive
GTX 980 GPU

I work mostly in Maya with Vray CPU rendering

I also have secondary system, a workstation specialist rs-d 2850 (dual xeon 2670v2) as rendering unit.

I’m think of upgrading / building a new system around the Intel 7960x cpu as looking the benchmarks its alot quicker than my current 5960x (the 9960 and 9980 seem a bit pricey given the performance benefit over the 7060)

My only concern is the reports of it not overclocking very well, running very hot and being very power hungry (wattage).

Just wondering if anyone has done a similar upgrade / update recently and got any thoughts if it was worth it or not ?

The second query I have is, if I should switch to GPU rendering with Vay NEXT and get a couple of gtx 1080 ti or gtx 2070s…this would make the rs-d redundant as it doesn’t have any GPU capacity.
Switching to GPU rendering, would it be worth building two systems, in main “workstation” with the 7960x and secondary workstation / render unit with a lower spec CPU but several GPUs to off load the rendering too.

Does anyone have a unit purely setup for GPU rendering with Vray ?
If so does it get loud / noisy and very hot when rendering ?

#2

What’s your current motherboard?
The easiest way to switch to gpu rendering is to get a X99 motherboard that has the capability to host up to 4 gpus, if you don’t have one already.
Good choices are the Rampage V, and the Asus X99-E WS
The 2nd step is to get a high-wattage psu like this one in order to have enough power to feed 3 or 4 gpus

You can sell your render node and get 2 or 3 2080’s and try Vray hybrid rendering (cpu+gpu) for starters. The 5960X still has some juice to give in rendering tasks (I have a 5960X based system and I used Cycles hybrid rendering with a gtx 1070).
Chaos group has already anounced that the new Nvidia technologies are going to be soon integrated in Vray, so getting RTX gpus is the way to go imo.

This solution would be much less expensive than getting a brand new set of a X299 motherboard and the 7960X.
If you decide to stay at Vray cpu, then the best vfm is AMD’s TR 2950X. It’s almost on par with 7980XE in rendering performance but it costs less than 1/2 of the money.

#3

I currently have an Asus x99 - A (v1) which can have upto 3 GPUs with a 40 lane PCIe CPU.

One concern with GPU rendering is the sound levels from 2 or 3 gpus running on full. Is it not quite noisy ?

#4

It depends on the gpu model. Some gpu implementations have excellent performance with low noise levels, and furthermore, you can adjust the gpu fan curves through software like MSI Afterburner (I use it personally to adjust my gpu fan’s rpm curves). But either way, with 3 gpus you can’t escape from some minimum noise levels, except if you decide to cool them with a custom cooling loop which is going to be quite expensive for 3 gpus.

If you decide to proceed, then choose a dual slot gpu with a custom cooler (=non reference) from Asus, MSI, EVGA or Gigabyte. MSI is known to produce great implementations when it has to do with cooling and noise levels.
For 3 gpus you’ll need a 1000-1200W psu too, don’t forget that.

#5

Thanks for your input.

I’m tempted to get some 1080 ti second hand after Christmas. The 2080 are double the price with only a small % gain at the moment.