i9 or Threadripper?
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It's for hobbyist use but I want the best. I've read that Daz use only one or four cores for almost everything that is not rendering. In this case, Is threadripper (3990x) a good option? Threadripper will be slower but it will super fast in rendering.
Thanks
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I have a first gen Threadripper; love it.
I would chose Threadripper again; more for less cash. It's a no-brainer imo.
I think a 3990X overclocked (under water) will mitigate some of that clock speed difficiency as well, so best of both worlds really. I'm looking to upgrade myself, so let me know how you get on with it :)
From what I know any CPU is way slower than GPUs when rendering. Because of this I would never advocate for a CPU for faster render time when you actually don't want to use it when rendering, you want to use the GPU for that.
I think fastest core is what you want for better performance with Daz. (Viewport speed and anything else except rendering)
...both first and second generation Threadripper CPUs also use the same socket (TR4) so if you don't have the funds for a series 2000 you can start with a series 1000 and not have to get a new MB when you upgrade which is not always the case for Intel. Unfortunately the Series 3000 breaks with this as it uses the TRX40 socket, so to step up to that 64 core 128 thread powerhouse you will need a new MB. Then again if you can afford 3,800USD, 500$ for a new MB (that can support up to 256 GB of 4 channel memory and has up to 4 PCIe 4.0 x 16 slots) isn't much of a stretch.
Still 32 cores/64 threads for a 2990WX and 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes is nothing to sneeze at (if you have the funds for one).
Oh for that Megabucks lotto to come through TR 3990X, Quadro RTX 8000, 128 GB of memory. Now that is a rendering beast.
This question comes down to how much CPU only rendering you think you'll be doing.
If you are doing Iray, have a beefy Nvidia card with a suitably large amount of VRAM, and can keep your scene sizes to a reasonable level, there's no reason to involve the CPU, so even a lowly 4 core/8 thread CPU is fine. Multiple GPUs will give you even more 'bang' to reduce your render times, but you generally don't need to run the GPUs at 16x PCIe, 8x or even 4x is fine in a pinch. 24 PCIe lanes might be a bit tight though, and this is where the lower end Threadripper CPUs are 'good enough' as you mainly are after oodles of PCIe lanes in a multi-GPU setup, with plenty of 'breathing room' for the PCIe lanes. Or a corresponding Intel setup with a large number of PCIe lanes. I'm not up to speed on Intel these days, others can make appropriate suggestions, especially now that Intel has dropped a number of their price points to compete with AMD.
AMD is generally 'more bang for buck' these days, which can help stretch your budget when looking at grabbing that second 2080 Ti or something...
If you are planning on 3Delight, or some other CPU based rendering engine, then yeah that 3990X Threadripper is awesome for that. But for Iray based GPU rendering, yeah that 3990X will probably end up being quite underutilized unless you are planning on exceeding your GPU based memory pool regularly.
The 3990X is king of CPU based rendering these days though, unless you are looking at a Dual CPU EPYC Rome system or something...
I haven't tested a 3990X but I did test a 7742, which is the server version. It rendered, in iRay obv., at the same rate as a 1070, roughly.
While we don't do business with any VFX houses I do follow the industry pretty closely and there has been a pretty steep demand for the dual socket 7742 systems in the LA basin which certainly sounds like the VFX houses buying/leasing them. For GPU compute I would imagine that a low end Epyc would be the heavy weight king of that (that's 128 PCIE lanes to attach GPU's to).
Threadripper...
I used to only buy Intel until my friend convinced me on this last build to go AMD and I'll never go back. Cost. Performance. Cost. Heat management. Did I say cost?
Though keep in mind that GPU is really where the pudding needs to go for Iray rendering.
And don't forget the new Zen 3 processors are due soonish.. Not to forget that the Nvidia 3000 series Ampere GPU's are coming soonish, and from what rumors are floating around about them, they will have a lot more vram than the current Turing GPU's.. And if I can and I might my next system will have a Threadripper in it and a beast of a GPU as well.. One last thing you would want to factor in is what form factor the new Zen 3 CPU's would use, as no one is sure how long the current TRX4 form factor will last..
If one had that sort of cash I would go dual Quadro RTX 8000's with a NVLink HB bridge you would never have an issue with running out of Vram again.. And would have renders taking seconds to minutes instead of minutes to hours.. lol
+1 for Threadripper
i just wish they came in non flashy business style case. every one i seen advertised is the gauche gamer case.
Might be worth looking under 'workstations'.. sadly RGB is still a threat, but you can get a few that have it minimalised and whats left you can turn it all turned off.
...yeah, but does Daz Iray support NVLInk pooling? I know Otoy (Octane) was working on it and I think Vray does support it but there is no Daz plugin. for the latter.
However, the 3990x supports 88 PICe4.0 lanes .so you could effectively run two pairs of NVLinked RTX 8000s (total of 64 PCe2 lanes) provided the MB has enough x16 slots and have the render process finish moments after clicking on the start button (that's 18,432 Cuda cores, 2,304 Tensor cores, and 288 RTX cores, yeah, a render farm in a box)..
I dunno, but I don't think it really matters if you can afford to rock a pair of Quadro 8000's :D
..yeah I'd go for a "supertower" case.
The Studio beta claims to support NVLink pooling. I'm unsure if anyone has ever verified that it works. Also not the way TRx40 splits PCIE lanes I'mnot sure you could actually run 2 pairs of NVLinked cards, some come off the CPU and some come off the chipset.
Just a note.
Thanks to the human malware thing, the latest scuttlebutt in the rumormill indicates that the next generation of AMD processors won't be showing up until the fall of this year at the earliest. Now, the Ryzen 4000 APUs for desktop coiuld show up by the summer, around the same time as the B550 boards launch.
B550 was supposedly slated to launch around Computex at the end of May, but Computex has been pushed back to September (for now), according to their press release.
https://www.computextaipei.com.tw/en_US/news/info.html?id=E615059E0DC04F10
So the question is, will AMD and the motherboard makers wait until September to launch B550, or will they do it before then?
Myself, after seeing the laptop benches of Ryzen 4000 APUs, I'm VERY curious about the desktop version of that part. The Ryzen 4900HS 35w APU been kicking *ss and taking names, and the rest of the Ryzen 4000 apu lineup is looking quite strong as well.
The reason I'm very interested inhe APU part is because I currently use a Ryzen 2400G in my interim Daz build, and use the APU to drive my non-Iray Daz Studio viewport modes. This works awesomely, and frees up my 1080Ti to 100% dedicated rendering, minus the Windows 10 18% VRAM tax of course. So the new AMD 8 core APU part very much interests me.
...oh for at least a Titan RTX, as like the Quadro series it can be set bypass WDDM by setting it to TCC mode. This is only useful if that GPU is dedicated to rendering and not connected to the displays, which need to be either run off the graphics chipset on the MB or a separate GPU..
Yea FWIW I have a two Thermaltake cases.. a Core X9 and W100. Both massive.. but haven't yet found something suitable for a new project, so I'm going custom with some 2020 alu extrusion :D
I built my own, putting in a case that suited me.
..at least they pretty much got away form the style that looked like it would transform into a killer robot when your back was turned.
Now this is more my speed, nice and basic (not recommended for those who live with cats).
How big are you going?
Aiming for a mining rig style, but with panels (so not open air) and big enough for two WC loops.
...found a nice full tower that would work. if ai ever get to build the super workstation/render box. Crikey even a single RTX 8000 is probably more GPU than I would need.
Has top, front, and bottom filtered fan mountings easily can handle water cooling, up to a 549 mm GPU (an RTX 8000 is 275mm), capacity for up to 18 HDDs plus 6 SSDs (crikey you could have your own server), and no side window or RGB lighting.