Processor Technology Vs. 3d Rendering

[rjcoolpix880]

Ive been looking at various processors and was wondering how these would affect rendering times. I use 3ds max. so here are the questions:

1. 32 vs. 64bit
2. single vs. dual core
3. opteron vs athlon
4. any other things that would affect 3d rendering

What i want to know is technical info, whats going on under the hood. (obvisously if i pay the most money ill get the fastest rendering times but i want to know what is going on with these different technologies.)

 

[Duvie]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1830732&enterthread=y

check out the ADT2004 vix renderer times...Viz is the same engine as the 3dsmax renderer....

1) 64bit definitely shows more precision but not necessarily any faster in some of the test I have seen. Most of the apps I run I haven't seen a 64bit version...

2) dual core is a big benefit in rendering...3dsmax is very multithreaded for that but most other general stuff will not see much of an increase...having a quadro yep card gives you the feel of quickness in the viewprts while working but the cpus come in during rendering and animation.

3) Make no difference here...My testing awhile back showed no advanatge with the added cache...So it is more about do you want to run a more then 1 physical cpu or not...

4) iMO the order

A) Quadro card
B) Lots of ram
C) Raid setup for faster loading of large files...

 

[rjcoolpix880]

link doesnt work here

 

[Lord Banshee]

I agree with Duvie sort-of.

IF you want faster Rendering i would get
1) Dual-Core or Dual-Dual Core CPU
2) More RAM 2GB Min

If you want faster viewport speed
1) Quadro
2) RAM
3) CPU

Get a raid setup if you still have money to spend. I haven't worked with more than 200MB files lately so i am not sure how much RAID really helps as the last time i work with big files i was on a RAID system.

Edit:

A quick render test with my setup.
Metal Ray with GI
Both Cores: 16s render time
single Core: 31s render time

3dsmax ScanLine Render same object but with Light Tracer enabled
Both Cores: 43s render time
Single Core: 67s render time

3dsmax ScanLine Render same object but with Radiosity
Both Cores: 269s render time
Single Core: 413s render time.

But don't try and compare each type of render with each other with the above results as setting were changed, just compare single core vs dual core.


So Depending on what your doing you'll get different speed increases

 

[zephyrprime]

Render farm FTW.

 

[wwswimming]

1. 32 vs. 64bit
2. single vs. dual core
3. opteron vs athlon
4. any other things that would affect 3d rendering

i use 3D max also. and a CAD-oriented solid modelling program or 2.

* when i asked around about 32 vs. 64 bit about 3 months ago, i heard a lot of "not ready for prime time" feedback about 64 bit everything (OS+ap+hardware)

* dual core. doesn't lock up as much. if it saves you from one crash, it's worth it.

* opteron, if you anticipate OC'ing. on the other hand, the AM2 Athlon's are OC'ing well, which may be attributed to memory. Conclusion - a toss-up, personal preference.

 

[ecove]

I'm also looking for a great rendering solution, slightly different scenario. I'll be rendering using Mental Ray standalone, which seems to offer 32 and 64-bit versions, Windows XP, x64, and Linux. I was thinking Woodcrest would be the way to go, but I just ran into some benchmarks that pit a dual Xeon 5160 (Woodcrest) against a dual Opteron 285. For whatever reason, the Xeon setup had 8GB RAM, the Opteron setup only 4GB. Needless to say, the Mental Ray (64 bit) test had the Opteron coming out slightly ahead. I'm wondering if the new socket Fs will do even better! Any feedback on which (Woodcrest vs. socket F Opteron) I should go for, based on price/performance?

Oh, the review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6256&page=7