Dual Opterons

[lw3d]

I need a new computer, my xp 1700 and the total piece of **** 8500 128 mb card craped out ( did I say I will never buy an ati card ever again ) so the past day I have been reading up on northwood vs prescott, amd athlon 64, 2500 + which oc well, nvdidia graphics cards, mb 's which I have no clue what to get etc ... and my brain is fried

I havent kept up on the hardware scene for awhile now since the 3d has started ... its render after render ... that said, I need some advice and guidance ... gaming is not the utmost importance but rather rendering is

Currently, I use Maya the most along with some of the other pro programs

I have been recommended to go with a dual opteron setup but I thought opterons were old news ( remeber I havent been following the hardware scene for 2 years ). I have checked out the prices for 242 and they are reasonable but I am not sure if opterons are the way to go today

Gaming is not important but 3d rendering is ... should I go dual opterons or not

What do you recommend



Thanks

 

[Snoop]

Aces hardware did some rendering tests

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Snoop
Aces hardware did some rendering tests

No dual Opterons there...

 

[natto fire]

It's true there are no dual Opterons but if you read the article you can kind of guess how they would do. They point out massive code optimization for Intel processors. Only the open source program didn't have such optimzations and the 939 pin 64's actually did better than the Opteron. I thought rendering was very graphic card intensive as well?

 

[Markfw]

Welcome to the forums ! I don't render much, but this baby does every at once and fast. If the software is SMP aware, then it should kill the Pentium4. Not cheap, but they are worth the price for the performance if the software can use it !!

 

[lw3d]

Originally posted by: Captain_Howdy
It's true there are no dual Opterons but if you read the article you can kind of guess how they would do. They point out massive code optimization for Intel processors. Only the open source program didn't have such optimzations and the 939 pin 64's actually did better than the Opteron. I thought rendering was very graphic card intensive as well?

rendering is all cpu, graphics card only plays a role in ogl

thanks for the link but I can not tell how the opterons would fair there

 

[lw3d]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Welcome to the forums ! I don't render much, but this baby does every at once and fast. If the software is SMP aware, then it should kill the Pentium4. Not cheap, but they are worth the price for the performance if the software can use it !!

thats a nice computer, I wish you had some way to perform those benchmark renders

I just do not know what to do, I can not find some decisive numbers

 

[Anubis]

the FX chip is basically the SAME EXACT chip as an opteron, so a single opteron would preform exactly like it, running dual opterons woudl be faster for thoes prograqms that are written to take advantage of SMP, running dual opterons pretty much smpkes anything, only thing that is faster is a super OCed dual Xenon syetem

 

[Mloot]

Here's an Opteron review that included a test in Maya (scroll down to bottom of page):


test of 2 proc systems



test of single Opteron against...er single proc systems


Hope that helps.

 

[lw3d]

Originally posted by: Mloot
Here's an Opteron review that included a test in Maya (scroll down to bottom of page):


test of 2 proc systems



test of single Opteron against...er single proc systems


Hope that helps.

Ya, I saw those test ... those test were against xeons which I am not goinf to spend the money on ... I can not determine how they would fair against newer Intel and Amd solutions ... can you tell

I found a article on this very site regarding opterons and workstation test and they were not very good ... I think it was the last part of the getting to know the opterons article

Gamepc article showed them in good light and anandtech did not when it comes to 3d programs ... I am not sure whats going on with these numbers

 

[Mloot]

Sorry, I sure don't. That's the only Opteron review I've seen that included Maya in the benchmarks.

 

[lw3d]

Anyone else have some thoughts on whether dual opterons are the way to go here or another way

 

[Snoop]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: Snoop
Aces hardware did some rendering tests

No dual Opterons there...

Just trying to give him a little help... Thanks for your input


Here is another article which is a little dated but should give you and idea of what the performance improvement you can expect running with duels.