Carrara's favorite CPU?
protovu
Posts: 194
Hi All,
Thinking about a new CPU. Currently have i7-2600.
Been looking at various benchmarks, and I am wondering:
In terms of Carrara native render, what is better.........Ghz, or cores?
Also, anyone having good results with SSD?
Thank you,
Rick
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Comments
My feeling, and some of my past experience suggests more cores and more RAM.
Thanks, Evil.
This has been based mostly on render times for CPU?
RAM for file loading?
Also, which CPU are you on, and are you SSD? Seems write times
might make for faster saves, yes?
A good while back (couple of years and a prior laptop to the one I'm using currently) a friend of mine in the office brought in a SSD drive for other reasons, but we were curious about whether having an SSD would drastically improve save and load times, so since he was pretty technical we pulled my hard drive out of my laptop, put in the SSD drive, formatted it, loaded Carrara and a test scene. It definitely did save a little faster and load a little faster for the scene, but it wasn't crazy crazy fast, and I'm not sure it's worth the extra $$ for the SSD in this respect (though SSD do have other intrinsic advantages that might make it still worthwhile). That anectdotal and from some time past, so take it with a grain of salt.
I think more cores is the way to go, the more cores you have the faster your renders will go. Currently I have an i7 4900MQ and it gives me 8 happy buckets of rendering, makes life nice :)
Thank you, Jonstark.
Good information. In fact, my last SSD inquiry at the computer shop was a couple years ago. At that time, the SSDs were expensive compared to now. Also, I believe there were some stability issues, but that may have been very early in their development.
I appreciate the vote for cores. Very helpful.
My experience is that a much slower, multi-processor system kept up fairly well with a single processor system in many areas over a network. There were some areas that went faster on the single processor system, but that may have been more to do with the single processor system being more advanced, the clock speed and the types of calculations needed for certain elements in the scenes.
As to RAM, more is always better. That's pretty much a given. The more of your program and scene that can be loaded into RAM, the less pages back to the hard drive, which means better performance.
I have no idea about SSDs.
Forgive me, but how do I understand this information in terms of cores vs. Ghz?
Ghz is the clock speed of the processor.
What I was using (and sadly still use- due to financial issues) is old Power Mac PPCs. I do have access to an Intel Core 2 duo iMac, but the full version of Carrara isn't stable on it, although the render node is.
So, my G5 is a single processor 1.8 Ghz 64 bit PPC. One of my render nodes is a 32 bit 1 Ghz MDD dual processor G4. The other computer, as mentioned is the 64 bit Intel iMac, which is 2Ghz or maybe slightly faster. My version of Carrara is Carrara 7.2 Pro, which is 32 bit.
The 1 Ghz MDD G4 has two processors, each at 1 Ghz. The G4 is the generation number of the processor and it is 32 bit. If I were to run a single processor 1 Ghz G4 against my 64 bit single processor 1.8 Ghz G5, then the G5 would win easily, but the G4 has two 1 Ghz processors working on the same scene, so they can keep pace with the G5, except when they hit a complicated part of the scene, such as an area with transparencies with refraction, Fresnel effects, SSS, etc. then the more advanced capabilities of the G5 processor trump the G4. Also, the G5 is much faster at calculating lighting for scenes that use global illumination, filling the grid for replicators (which is not multi-threaded as I recall) and some other areas.
The 64 bit Intel iMac runs circles around the my older systems.
very clear, thanks.
Heya, thought I'd add in a few words in regards to the upgrade path I chose, and reasons why.
Cpu: if having to choose between faster top end clock speed or more cores: always go for more cores = more render buckets when it comes to rendering. This is also true if looking at a dual socket workstation board. You can get a pair of 4 or 8 core + hyperthreading xeon cpu that are lower in clock speed bt still faster than a high end single core cpu. AMD cpu are good too, that have large core counts.
Ram: I started with 8gb and eventually needed more. when I was able to have enough cash to max out the board capacity, I went for it. On very rare occasions I've used the full 64gb of ddr3 1866mhz ram especially when trying out the Lux core render engine. On average even using carrara's native render engine carrara can easily use 4 to 8gb in the scenes I render. Not to mention windows 8.1 taking its share as well as any extra apps you have going in the background. A decent amount of ram to strive for would be 16gb and most of the time that's more than enough for both a heavily loaded carrara scene, windows, and other apps.
Hd / ssd :
Personally I went with a 500gb ssd for just the runtime installs including genesis content. it's pretty much write once and just data reading / loading. It does help with load times even for carrara's native content format if you save a lot to the carrara objects browser - my files (you have to make and point to your own custom my files folder if you do since thedefault one at the top defaults to the windows drive and can't be changed)
I also have a 1tb ssd for my saved projects. It does help on both load and save times. It still bottlenecks to a certain point due to carrara compressing and loading it's own native save files but it's still faster than having both save and runtime files on ye same hd let alone same mechanical drive. A 2tb larger mechanical drive is also a decent option if u need the higher capacity storage.
This is excellent information, Mohandai. Thank you. Cores it is.
So I mentioned earlier that I have an i7-2600. It has 4 cores, 8 threads.
I have 16 GB ram. I think that may be the max for my Motherboard.
So the new set up might have :
i7-5930k which has 6 cores and 12 threads.
Do you think this would be a bump worth doing?
Here is a comparison link:
http://www.cpu-world.com/info/Intel/Intel_Core_i7.html
Currently, I have a single large partitioned drive --C: for programs, D: for data.
But I am thinking that a partitioned drive is not really the way to go. Maybe I would get a bigger
bang out of switching to SSD? And you seem to suggest 2 SSDs, at that.
Twelve logical cores (6 x Hyperthreading) would certainly make a beautifully wonderful array of twelve buckets working away for each render!
Remember that, when working with multiple core cpu, you should scroll to the bottom of the first tab in the render room, and lower your tile size (same as pixel bucket size) down to 16 (smallest), which has the effect of never leaving a single core having massive calculations all on its own to calculate - thereby removing much of the multi-core benefit for that particular render.
Anyways, I bought an 8 core AMD with modest-priced (inexpensive) parts to give it what it needs to survive. Instead of the top-dog motherboard, I got one that had high ratings, low price, and offered enough RAM and the proper hardware support and chipset that I was looking for. I did go with good name company stuff, but just kept my overhead down and built my Carrara workstation, complete with Windows and Sony Movie HD Platinum for about $1,000.00 (US) and I could not believe the difference! Eight tiny buckets fly by so fast that sometimes I can hardly even see them! That has a lot to do with the idea that I do animations, and try to keep my render times light as possible - even though I still shoot for a good looking clip. No doubt, the eight core cpu with 16GB of RAM is still pleasing the heck out of me!
Either way you go, Carrara cares much less about which graphics card you use. Most anything can handle the OpenGL needed for the working view, and it has Nothing to do with rendering. But it can still make a big difference for just about everything else you might use your computer for - so I always suggest going with at least a decent video card. After all... we do want to watch the results of our progress, right?
I've been very impressed seeing screenshot videos of Philip Staiger (Project Dogwaffle) rendering in Carrara on his i7 with 4 physical cores hyperthreaded to eight logical cores - so I'd be willing to bet that the Six to Twelve i7 is a Carrara render screamer!!!
Ok, the i7-5930K has both the most cores + hyperthreads and fastest regular and turbo speeds...
At one of the canadian online sites i shop at I see it listed for $729.99 cdn ...
However - if you look at the i7-5820k on the same page link you gave me - 200mhz slower regular speed and 100mhz slower turbo speed. The price however on the cdn site for it is $505.99
i7-5930k
3.5ghz (3500mhz) regular / 3.7ghz (3700mhz) turbo
L2 cache 1.5mb
L3 cache 15mb
6 core / 12 threads
i7-5820k
3.3ghz (3300mhz) regular / 3.6ghz (3600mhz) turbo
L2 cache 1.5mb
L3 cache 15mb
6 core / 12 threads
Thats a good $224.00 price difference premium for barely 100mhz - 200mhz negligable performance tradeoff, as everything else between the 2 cpu's are exact same... Unless you really must have the very top end in the i7 series.
Personally IMHO the 5820k is a "better bang for the buck" , and for the $224.00 price difference you can buy one of the two SSD's with.
Speaking of HD's and SSD's :
You have a mechanical / traditional platter style HD right now for your OS - Boot / System / Data partitions... Thats perfectly fine. Stay with that for now. I've always liked partitions on mechanical HD's , since you can break up the physical space like you would a multi-drawer filing cabinet. Organize , compartmentalize, and keeps things neat. Also makes for wiping and re-installing Windows much easier by re-formating just the Windows OS / Boot partition (after backing up My Documents etc) . Even my current 2tb WD drive i have partitioned, its for system storage - such as all my bought 3d content, mp3 jukebox, etc... to re-iterate this, stay with the mechanical HD right now, you can always "upgrade" to an SSD later, but you'll want or need to match the HD to SSD in capacity or your looking at an additionl SSD or two besides the Runtime and Projects drives.
Check how many Sata 6 (important) , and how many Sata 3 ports your motherboard has. This is important as his tells you how many Sata devices your motherboard can support (before you have to buy a PCI-E Sata6 controller expansion board, often called a rocket board).
Also how many hd's your towercase physically has room for since SSD's are 2.5" laptop form factor and require a HD to SSD bracket to mount them in a regular 3.5" drive bay or HD bay. Worst case you can have / leve the SSD's sitting loosely bottom of the case, but it looks proper ant neater to have them all mounted. Some 2.5" to 3/5" SSD adapter brackets allow for 2 SSD's to be mounted in the one bracket.
Now, idealy, you'd have:
Sata6: Drive 1: HD: Primary Boot / Data Drive (your mechancal drive)
Sata6: Drive 2: SSD : 500gb Runtime (Genesis + Legacy Poser / Carrara / Daz Studio content runtime folders)
Sata6: Drive 3: SSD : 1TB Projects Drive (Saved projects for / from Carrara , Studio, etc)
Sata6 / Sata3 : CD / DVD / Bluray Optical Drive... Sata6 preferably, but not critical, can be on a Sata3 port.
Alternate:
Sata6: Drive 1: HD: Primary Boot / Data Drive (your mechancal drive)
Sata6: Drive 2: SSD : 500gb Runtime (Genesis + Legacy Poser / Carrara / Daz Studio content runtime folders)
Sata6: Drive 3: HD : 2+TB Projects Drive (Saved projects for / from Carrara , Studio, etc)
Sata6 / Sata3 : CD / DVD / Bluray Optical Drive... Sata6 preferably, but not critical, can be on a Sata3 port.
Optional:
Sata6: Drive 4: SSD : Cache drive, for windows temp, Carrara temp dropbox, googledrive, etc
The Alternate being, using a 2tb or larger Mechanical drive as your Projects storage drive. A bit slower than the SSD, but price-per-gigabyte capacity is drastically cheaper to the point you can look at 2tb - 6tb capacity drives for the price of a good 1tb SSD. The downside is, if you opt for say a 3tb or 4tb drive, there may come a point when that drive fails, and when it does, it means your going to be loosing that much more data on that single drive.
Now also, I did add an extra SSD into the mix - an SSD "Cache" drive... This one is purely optional. Essentially, you set the Windows Cache / temp folder to that drive, your Carrara Temp folder, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, etc even set your browser's Default Downloads Folder if you want... If/When windows even needs to use the physical cache file should your system run up to near the max system ram you have, it won't slow down compared to having it located on the mechanical drive.
SSD's are memory chips being written to, same as a usb flash drive. Even though they do eventually burn out; opposed to mechanical drives outright crashing (same end result - loss of data). The way I see it- the only wear and tear SSD's suffer from is writing to the memory chips, as each chip has an X amount of write & erase cycles. Having both Runtime and Projects drive as SSD's, your only writing to the Runtime drive when installing new content (or content updates via the DIM) ... All other times your simply just "reading" the data which doesn't put any wear on the SSD's memory chips. Likewise for Projects, I generally save sequentially instead of re-saving the same file name, so your writing save data to new unused memory storage area each time. Bear in mind - SSD's are used for OS / Syetem drives and do work amazingly well for quite a few years of numerous random write/erase cycles as each time you save a windows setting, make a browser bookmark, etc.
Now, by the same token, on the Runtime drive, I also have a few other folders:
- Carrara Custom : Has my own Shaders and Objects folders I save into Carrara's browser with. I had to add those manually into Carrara's Browser. I never use the default "My Objects" and "My Shaders" folders in the object browser since the physical location of those folders is in your windows users "My Documents" folder area.
- Custom Textures: For when I download textures from CGITextures sites and the like, for use in Carrara. Even if i modify existing content textures (human skin re-tintent to alien skin tones, add tatooes, etc) they go here, neatly organized as stock textures and modified textures.
- Runtime (Runtime 2 is a side story from years back - long story) , this houses all my legacy runtimes from the last 7 years. All the installed content from freebie sites, and paid content from daz, runtime dna, renderosity... Still has all my Michael 1, 2, 3, 4 Character runtimes, M4 Clothing, M4 Scifi Clothing, Animals (animals, beasts, creatures etc), and everything else. All my saved projects load just fine fom years back and Carrara 6.x. As I install new Genesis content, any and all Hair content stil goes to the Hair folder.
- HDRI - all my HDRi files, mostly freebies
- IES Profiles - found a bunch of free IES lightbulb profiles, hope to begin using them at some point.
In my screenshots, yeah I do have quite the ensembl of mostly SSD's and HDs however I do have a Coolermaster Cosmos II ultra-tower tower case, and all but 2 drives have their own hd bay. Like I said, I like to keep things neat and organized. Also, should ever one drive fail, it doesn't take out my entire system. I do have everything backed up on a NAS box, but still, if any 1 drive goes down, save for the System Boot drive, the downtime is minimal, and any data loss from inbetween backups is also very minimal.
Back in the pre-Sata days, the IDE era, we were more limited as SSD's didn't exist, and there were only 2 IDE ports, and each IDE port supporting both a Master and Slave device per port on an IDE ribbon cable with 3 connectors.... That did limit me in the amount of HD's I had, so I got around it by partitioning 3 hd's and the 4th IDE drive was a cd/dvd rw drive... True there were IDE expansion cards available, but I didn't have a case at the time that would fit more than 4 IDE 3.5" sized drives. I also had dedicated Video, Video Capture, Sound, and network cards ocupying the expansion slots.
Hope that explains things a bit further :)
Dartanbeck also makes a great point here, going with the AMD route. Nothing wrong with AMD cpu's either. Price/Performance ratio, AMD does give you a really good bang for the buck. If looking at AMD, look at their higer-end FX series of processors. AMD also clocks their cpu's higher, to the 4.7 / 5.0ghz ranges.
This is where AMD differentiates from Intel. AMD gives you much higher clocked processors... Intel keeps the speed lower, but makes their processors process twice the instruction sets (think of 2 data highway lanes instead of 1) per core aka "Hyperthreading".
The AMD FX line has up to 8 cores, at speeds up to 4.7 - 5.0ghz.
AMD's Opteron sever/workstation (Intel Xeon equivilant) processor series, has up to 16 cores at 2.0ghz, but also has the option benefit of using a 2 socket motherboard for dual physical cpu processors for up to 32 cores combined.
Intel's Xeon is the same idea, allowing for 2 physical cpu processors on the same motherboard. The Xeon range of CPUs go from 4/4 (Cores/Threads) to 12/24 (core/threads) per cpu... And contrary to beleif, you can use regular desktop ram just fine (you just have to look up the supported brands and models of regular desktop ram supported by the xeon motherboard)
Its totally a viable route if your upgrade path is looking at switching to a new motherboard. Then you have all the choice you could possibly want.
With all upgrades of any type, you simply have to do your homework. Not just buy the biggest or most expensive. First part is knowing your upgrade path. If you have a fairly new or recent motherboard and it supports the latest i7 cpu's , then yeah, go for either i7 cpu I mentioned...
If your upgrade path means your choosing a new motherboard regardless, then its time to really check the performance review sites. Look at the benchmarks for stuff like Cinebench, Luxmark, Vray, MentalRay, and the other benchmark packages, not just computer gaming performance. You'll see what I mean when comparing the i7-5930k vs i7-5820k ...
:)
Other things being equal, 8 cores will be better than 4, and physical cores will be better than logical cores (especially when driving them hard in something like a render). This will be tempered by "overall performance" considerations - outside the rendrerer a lot of Carrara is single threaded: you can throw cores at it all day and it won't make a scrap of difference. For that, base horsepower is king (ie a faster cpu).
Here's a real render test, with real numbers. It's not using state of the art high end machines (I should be so lucky!) but what I've got:
2012 Core i5 (4 buckets) @3.2GHz 8GB 1666MHz RAM (iMac, "Desky")
vs
2011 Core i7 (8 buckets) @2.2GHz 8GB 1333 MHz RAM (Macbook Pro, "Lappy")
On paper, (4 x 3.2) gives 12.8 horses, and (8 x 2.2) gives 17.6
Rendering the same scene & settings in the wee hours of last night, gave the following timing: Desky took 4 hours 45 minutes. Lappy took 5 hours 42 minutes.
I realise it's comparing oranges against grapefruits, and Lappy does have significantly slower RAM. Both machines have low spec mechanical hard drives with similar spindle speeds (5400 RPM) and the godawful "eco mode". But it does show that simple horsepower is not the whole story. I'll post the render in the renders thread, but you'll recognise it as a variation of one I've posted before.
When my previous laptop motherboard broke down and I had to find another computer, I had a look to the different CPU and what benchmark I could use.
I found out that the 64 bits Cinebench benchmark was the most appropriate to find the best CPU. What it does relate very closely to what Carrara does.
http://www.maxon.net/products/cinebench/overview.html
For mobile processors, here is the comparison chart :
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html
You can google easily the same list for desktop CPU
I'd agree with Tim A here very much. Laptops offer less performance than desktops generally. I personally have never understood the ideal of laptops except for those who specifically need mobility. I've always argued that desktops give you more computer for your money than laptops in terms of overall performance. Tim's test last night proves it again.
It is important to know that hyperthreading has very little impact on total render time. Logical cores when rendering only provide about 10% improvement for most people. This has to do with the way the raytracing algorithms operate, they occupy the processors so much that there really isn't much left over to lend to the logical cores. Logical cores are good for a lot of tasks, just not so much for rendering.
Generally speaking, go for the greatest number of real processing cores at the highest ghz possible, get as much ram as you can, and you'll be set. All based on what you can afford.
Here is anouther dscussion on a similar topic.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50461/
I built this computer for christmas for doing 3D animation on it.
specs are
Intel Core i7-4790 Quad-Core Processor
Corsair Hydro Series H100i Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler 240 MM
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H Socket 1150 Intel Z97 Chipset
WD Green 2TB 3.5" HDD 7200 RPM
ADATA 256 SSD
Sapphire Radeon R7 240 4GB Video
Thermaltake Smart Power 750W
16GB1866 RAM
NZXT Phantom 410 Special Edition WHITE/BLUE Trim Crafted Mid Tower Case
With the liquid cooling When I let it render for 24 hours on a project for my daughter it never got above 59C so I should not overheat the CPU on long renders.
If you go with the dual CPU meathod as has been mentioned I found that I could have gone with the same case and used 2 120 MM liquid coolers.
This case is designed for using liquid coolers and mounts then easily.
I looked at going with the New i7 HEx cores but they require the new DDR4 ram which is still a little pricey.
All told it would have cost an extra $600 canadian fro me to go that route.
Hapy with what I built and I ensure that I change the tile size down to 16 so on easy stuff it just screams through and slows a little on the more difficult parts.
The only time the Video card is important is if you plan on using a third party renderengine that uses open CL to utilize the GPU and CPU for rendering. FOr this reason I did not go with a high end vid card but one that was good but had lots of RAM.
Thank you, this is a question I also wanted to ask (about system specs)
But, does RAM really have a big impact on render time as well? I have 8 Gb - will I see any difference if you upgrade to 16 Gb?
I find that with just the Carrara NAtive Renderer it does not matter as much if all of the scene will fit into RAM as during Rendering is does not seem to in crease in RAM usage.
If I use Lux CORE or DAZ Studio to Render then it uses all RAM and All CPU's Avail.
GPUS will be utilized as well with Lux.
I find that with just the Carrara NAtive Renderer it does not matter as much if all of the scene will fit into RAM as during Rendering is does not seem to in crease in RAM usage.
If I use Lux CORE or DAZ Studio to Render then it uses all RAM and All CPU's Avail.
GPUS will be utilized as well with Lux.
Thanks for the input!
Curious -- what would you say makes Lux Core worth getting?
Thanks for the input!
Curious -- what would you say makes Lux Core worth getting?
lux core is a non biased render engine so in theory it should produce near real life lighting simulations.
It is free but the plug in is normally for a small fee.
See this thread for examples of the beta and the work produce from it.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/50130/
Wow. Thank you, everyone. What a terrific information set. You have been so generous with your time in answering. The only downside.......makes me realize what a Neanderthal I am when it comes to these hardware issues. But no more. Once I wrap my head around all of this ( that is, to my ability, given my brain is a 486), I will advance to becoming a Cro-magnon.
Honestly, if you are serious, go Intel. I had AMD cpus for years, and the FX series are nothing but disappointments.
Had an Intel i7-4930k OCed to 4.5 GHz for 6 months now and it blows any AMD CPU out of the water. Stable and fast as hell.
Also, the 8 Core AMD CPUs arent really 8 cores, they are 4 cores with 2 FPUs per core, not quite the same as a Genuine 8 Core CPU.
You will pay a premium tho, but you get what you pay for. Stability and speed.
Here is a simple comparison: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4930k-vs-AMD-FX-9590
So, what was disappointing? Was it stability? The ability to overclock?
Thank you again, Evil.
This answers exactly a question which had me going.....specifically, are all physical cores created equal.
And "Serious" is my middle name.
No, it comes down to 1 simple thing: Performance.
Heres a simple graphic to explain: http://img.hwbot.org/u5948/image_id_1075050.jpeg
Even overclocked to 5.3 GHz the BEST AMD CPU cant even touch a circa 2011 3930k cpu at stock.
That's good to know.
For the price of one 3930k system, I can build 2 AMD FX systems and use both to render in Carrara. Performance per dollar is also important for those of us on limited budgets.
Since Carrara is not getting updated frequently, you can assume that new CPU features like AVX are not being used. Then it is less important to get the latest intel cpu, unless you run othet hardcore apps.
My favorite is a 4 processor system. 64 real cores in one box, not for rookies though:
http://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=1638127&p=1
Sure, but even a cheap quad core 4770k or 4790k will give you 9590 performance and not break the bank.