ATTN: Quad Core and 8 Core Super Uber Mega Users!

[Ivan D. Young]

I have a serious question about 4 vs. 8 cores and RAM usage in rendering with LW. Does having 4 cores and 8 gigs of RAM in a 64 bit OS make a sizable difference compared to 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM?
When grinding on content that you know is over what a 32 bit OS can handle, does the extra cores get slowed by not having say their own 2 gigs per core or does the usual fluctuation of RAM as the sytem works have enough RAM to get the job done?
I could be wrong here, but I thought that Windows will split the RAM evenly across multi cores?
I have been looking for comparisons for these types of tests and have not found any. If any of you smart folks know of any please post a link
I am just looking for some feedback as to which way to consider going, and my decision will be heavily on which way LW and FPrime render better and faster. 4 CPU 8G RAM vs. 8 CPU 8G RAM
Thank You!:)

[Ivan D. Young]

Also one more Question. Would you go with a slightly slower processor speed and have more cores or would you go with the speed and fewer cores, based on real LW rendering scenarios?
Thanks again!

[Lightwolf]

Also one more Question. Would you go with a slightly slower processor speed and have more cores or would you go with the speed and fewer cores, based on real LW rendering scenarios?

For rendering? More cores, hands down. Also, if you take the processor speed and compare them as percentages you'll see that the difference isn't that much. I.e. from a 2.4GHz to a 3GHz CPU the increase in clock speed is only 25%.

Cheers,
Mike

[Lightwolf]

I could be wrong here, but I thought that Windows will split the RAM evenly across multi cores?
Erm, no. the RAM is shared by all cores. And the limit is still a total of roughly 3GB on a 32bit OS (for all processes together) or roughly the same per 32bit process on a 64bit OS.

Cheers,
Mike

[clagman]

Going with more cores will make a much larger difference in rendering than a modest increase in processor speed and less cores. On the other hand you also have to keep in mind exactly how much slower are the 8 cores. If we double the number of cores but half the clock speed you end up the same (and probably paying out more for the 8 core setup). Remember that when modeling you are likely to see the most difference with faster cores than more of them but rendering is the complete opposite. When you are talking about RAM most workstation motherboards have only two CPU slots to work with.

The way most of the workstation motherboards work is to have multiple banks (usually two) and multiple slots for each. Each processor slot has direct access to one bank. When you populate the mobo with RAM each bank is assigned to a particular CPU slot as it's primary. Each CPU is capable of accessing the other bank but at the cost of latency. This is why you like to populate each bank with the same number of RAM. Some mobos allow you to populate one bank with more but the additional RAM will cause latency. Real world performance difference is heavily dependant on whether the application is extremely RAM dependant (lots of data to move and running out of RAM is a danger) or latency dependant (small data that needs quick access). Lightwave can be either depending on the scene and what you are doing.

Then we get into RAM striping. Since dual channel mobos are common now you definitely want to populate your RAM with pairs, using as many slots as possible while keeping an even number. So for performance sake if you are going with 8Gb RAM and have no plans to upgrade in the near future you would probably be a bit faster if you used four 2Gb DIMMs rather than two 4Gb Dimms.

This is all generalized and glossed over of course. I suppose the best advice I could give is when you build your machine get the most cores (first) and then get the fastest ones you can afford. 8Gb of RAM should be plenty for most. I hope I wasn't too long winded.

[Ivan D. Young]

Thanks guys, yeah I thought the same thing about speed versus more cores and was just looking for some real world proof of that. Any thoughts on 8 cores only having 8G of RAM? i have one friend with a setup like that and I an curious if anyone has any thing more to add to this type of setup versus maybe 8 cores and 16G of RAM?
Thanks for the replies Lightwolf and Clagman!

[Lightwolf]

Any thoughts on 8 cores only having 8G of RAM?
Only? If you need the RAM you need the RAM, any swapping out to the disks is going to kill all performance.
Then again, the question is, will you need that much RAM in the first place? This is something you must know. In any case, if you get less get the higher capacity modules, that gives you more headroom to upgrade later on.

Edit: To phrase it differently: Using more cores will not use more memory automatically - maybe a bit due to some management overhead, but we're talking a few MB at the most here (depending on the app, for LW certainly).

Cheers,
Mike

[Ivan D. Young]

That is probably true Lightwolf.
I was wondering how some people with these sort of setups are finding their real world usage and some of their thoughts.

[Red_Oddity]

Running our workstations on dual quad cores (X5355) with 8GB memory here and the farm on dual cores with 4GB each, and yes, the quad cores are so insanely much faster.

I say go for the quad core (single or dual) when you do lighting and shading in 3D (read lots of preview renders) and make sure you use the best FSB speed and matching memory (memory is often forgotten, but it can really boost rendering speeds)

[stib]

I've just got a q600 and I've yet to see process explorer show layout or modeller using more than 25% of cpu (ie 100% of one core) when working on a scene or a model. So things like dynamics calculations or complicated booleans etc, might run a little slower than on my single core 3400, but I can at least be doing other stuff in the mean time.

Rendering however is a different kettle of fish. It's the renderinator.

[Ivan D. Young]

again, if any one would like to share their experiences with 8 cores and 8Gb RAM vs. 8 cores and 16GB of RAM, I am very curious?

I realize of course that more RAM, more performance; but sometimes having the extra is not always noticable or used by the OS. That is why I posed the question.
Thanks for the replies.
Ivan

[clagman]

I think that going to 16Gb would probably be a good idea for several reasons. If you are using the CS3 video suite it likes to use a lot of RAM because of the way the work flow is setup (multiple apps open at once), the additional RAM would also allow for longer RAM previews with out hitting the disc, also larger scenes while working with video as well etc. I would be working a video project and then have to modify a really large trade show graphic (500 meg Photoshop file or so) this will absolutely kill you if you don't have enough RAM.

For me the most convincing argument would be that we are all going to be moving to HD resolution rendering and video very soon. Working with 1080p has 4 times the processing and 4 times the memory requirements. So if 8Gb is pretty good now it will sub par when working with HD. Maybe 16Gb will be standard and 24Gb will be considered pretty good...ya think?

Anyway it really boils down to what sort of work flow you have man. If you like to work your 3d, close that off and then do the video or graphic design (less multitasking) then for SD resolution projects I think that 8Gb should be fine.

[Ivan D. Young]

Yeah that seems to be the case, Clagman. I have worked with some HD footage and it really tasks a pc hard. HD footage can take the sails out of your pc quick. The other thing is that working on a small Hd project is'nt too bad, but going for something longer than 4 or 5 minutes the resources go way up. By the way, Intel released 45 nm chips today. They have several Xeons in the $200 - $350 range with respectable speed, now if they could wrangle some cheaper motherboards.

[Red_Oddity]

Having more RAM can be a problem.
Most mobos for intel based CPUs have 8 slots max for memory, now, that means you'll need bigger sized memory modules, the bigger the memory module the more expensive (alot more expensive sometimes) they get when you want to keep CAS latency as low as possible.

I have done some work on 2K and 3K in Fusion and when dealing with those resolutions (and no ROI in a compositor) the sheer amount of data was eating up more CPU cycles, network and local HDD resources than memory ever would have been a problem, as it never rose above 4GB.

When rendering in LW i have on occasion killed the PC (Windows running out of Virtual memory and real memory), especially when doing highres renders with Adapative Subdivisions (but that is mainly because LWs Adaptive Subdivions scheme is somewhat flawed, when doing renders in MR it can push even higher resolutions and higher subdivisions)

It really comes to down to how big your budget is, and what you're gonna do with the PC most.

[Ivan D. Young]

Actually the new Intel Stoakley platform will allow up to 128 Gb of RAM now. I have seen some new server boards for Xeons with 16 slots from Tyan and SuperMicro. But I digress, I guess that it would be fair to say that actual RAM usage would hit about 4-6 Gb of RAM in most scenarios and that you would have to be working with really large datasets to see a much bigger spike above 6 Gb of RAM. I could be wrong.

[JonW]

5335 V8 + 8gb ram, for the type of work I do 4000x2800 render, WTM approx 2.6gb, 5000x3500 2.9gb, 6000x4200 3.3 gb, 7500x5250 3.6gb (this last one has gone to 7gb usage but very very rarely). I also have Segment Memory limit set at 1 to 1.5gb and be done with it!
At the end of the day.... One has to buy as much ghz as you can afford to wait for a render to complete.
A V16 + 8gb would be very useful.

[Ivan D. Young]

Thanks for the reply there Jon, beautiful render! Now that is what I am talking about, big renders and lots of ram usage.

[JonW]

I have absolutely no idea if it helps or not, but the very first thing I did on the new computer is set the Virtual Memory, Total Paging File Size, both min & max to twice the 8gb ram - 16368mb & re-start. With size of hard drives these days, one should be able to spare the disk space.
Only LW9.3 in these pictures & a little LWcad2.5, & obviously some pictures of building materials for the maps. Real lens, DOF - aa@64 but only in an area large enough to cover the forground. A small amount of post processing in Photoshop.
As someone else said use quality pictures & look at real life scenes!

[Gregg "T.Rex"]

Using more MBytes for Segment Memory limit than the actual render needs, can cripple badly render times; scene dependent. You have to use the exact MB number needed to render in one pass, if that's what you want. Telling LW to allocate more ram than needed for a one pass render, can slow down rendering dramatically in a heavy scene...

T.Rex

[stib]

that waterwall really shows up LW's weakness with liquid. It looks like there's a row of spikes along the top of it - I'm assuming they're HVs that are stretched along their motion path.

Gregg - I always thought that segment memory limit was just the threshold for memory use at which the renderer would chop the frame into segments, not a way of assigning memory. Have you got any example scenes to show this effect you talk about? I've always found that the memory usage goes up and down dynamically, regardless of what the limit is.

[JonW]

Thanks for the comments, (stretched HVs), suggestions for water drops I would appreciate greatly.
Also I did read somewhere that “memory limit was just the threshold for memory use”. I will have to try both options. Anything to make the computer work harder I will use.
Here is the original water drops shot on that ancient stuff called Velvia.

[JonW]

water drops crop (should have been with the above)

[Lightwolf]

Using more MBytes for Segment Memory limit than the actual render needs, can cripple badly render times; scene dependent. You have to use the exact MB number needed to render in one pass, if that's what you want. Telling LW to allocate more ram than needed for a one pass render, can slow down rendering dramatically in a heavy scene...

I've never seen that happen. Last time I checked it never used more than it needed. The limit is just that... and upper limit, that doesn't mean it will be used but it can be if needed.

Cheers,
Mike

[Gregg "T.Rex"]

Didn't say it uses all the amount of MB that you set as the limit for one pass render. The higher the limit than needed, the slower the renderer, but that can be seen on some scenes that use a lot of objects, textures and ram, so it's scene dependent. I had one scene with some high rez birds flying and landing close up to the camera and setting the segment memory to double size than needed for a PAL rez frame, made the renderer two to three times slower. Setting the segment memory limit to the exact 17MB needed for the PAL rez, produced the fastest rendering. Then again, that scene was using the Classic camera; it's been a while since then and i have't tested this theory properly with the new cameras, but you know how these things go. Old habbits die hard... :)

[JonW]

Segment Memory Limit. On the image I posted on the other recent 8 core topic.
Timings & notes for this test:
1920x1248, aa@16, FG 200, 4, 0.3, 100mm, 4.0, RRL 9 (RRL, there was virtually no improvement in transparency quality on 10 or higher which it did in another test). Polys 1300704, 238.6mb.

SML 1536mb, GI 4:19, ET 31:27, WTM 1.98gb
SML 96mb (1mb over 2 segments), GI 4:20, ET 31:42, WTM 2.01gb
SML 48mb (1mb over 3 segments), GI 4:20, ET 31:50, WTM 1.99gb

Not a great deal between the three, but it appears on this type of scene that if you have some spare memory give it to SML.

[JonW]

More SML notes for that last nth of a %. Did 4096 then went to do 6144 and what looked like a max default of 2000 appeared, did it at 6144 anyway to see what happen.
4096mb, gi 4:18, et 31:17, wtm 1.99gb
6144mb, gi 4:19, et 31:28, wtm 1.96gb
2000mb, gi 4:19, et 31:21, wtm 1.88gb

[Greg Lloyd 5]

I am buying a new quadcore system with 4 gigs of ram, but i would like to go 8 (I do some pretty large scenes and render them all in 1080i), my questions are:

1) Does Vista64 support Adobe cs3 32? Anyone have it loaded?
2) Do I have to upgrade to 64bit LW (probably will eventually, but i would like to run both for a few projects on the same system)?
3) Are there any program or hardware compatibility issues with Vista 64 that any of you have encountered?

Thanks for all of your input in advance!

G

[Wade]

I am buying a new quadcore system with 4 gigs of ram, but i would like to go 8 (I do some pretty large scenes and render them all in 1080i), my questions are:

1) Does Vista64 support Adobe cs3 32? Anyone have it loaded?
2) Do I have to upgrade to 64bit LW (probably will eventually, but i would like to run both for a few projects on the same system)?
3) Are there any program or hardware compatibility issues with Vista 64 that any of you have encountered?

Thanks for all of your input in advance!

G

Bump - looking to use Vista 64 with Adobe CS3 Master colllection, Lightwave 931, BNR, Archvision RPC.... Anyone working this set up with good results?

[Cageman]

Bump - looking to use Vista 64 with Adobe CS3 Master colllection, Lightwave 931, BNR, Archvision RPC.... Anyone working this set up with good results?

I know that Adobe Photoshop CS3 works with Vista x64. Some people at work have that setup, so I imagine that Master Collection will work as well. I'm not sure, however, if those apps are 32/64 bit. I personaly run LW931 both 32/64 bit under Vista x64 without problems. Of course, plugins needs to be written for 64bit if they are going to work with LW64, but everything I use under LW931 32-bit works very well on Vista x64.

[artstorm]

I don't have the Adobe Master Collection, but I have the Adobe Production Premium CS3 Collection that contains all the video/sound apps (AE, Premiere, Photoshop and so on), which I runt without any problems on Vista x64. My GF has the CS3 Design collection as she works in print running under Vista x64 as well. And I think that should cover all the apps in the Master Collection. So it should work just fine.
They are not 64 bit though, so they are stuck in the 32 bit world. But they do work without any problems.

I haven't had my quad core x64 system for very long, so I haven't had the time to install BNR yet, but other than that everything has been smooth (ZBrush, Vue, Modo, LW 9.3.1 x64/32, LW 7-8). And most plugins that I use have I been able to find in 64 bit versions, a few missing still, but I hope they'll come in the not to distant future.

All in all, extremely happy with Vista x64 so far.

[Greg Lloyd 5]

Thanks, that is some great info.

BTW: I have a friend that rendered one of my projects with BNR version 4 unlimited running on Windows 2003 Server Enterprise x64 edition. It ran very well.

Anyone know how much faster Vista 64 is from XP 32 (render times)?

G

[artstorm]

I guess that depends very much on the scene, especially the amount of geometry. The more complex, the more you should see the speed gain.

I have just done a few tests so far. My old machine was a core 2 duo with 2gig of ram om xp32. And the main reason I wanted to go to x64 and more memory is that I do a lot of ZBrush work, and I had problems getting all the polys I wanted in LightWave.

I made a comparison, I had a model that I did that needed around 2 million polygons to keep all the details. on my 2gb xp32 machine I could go to subpatch level 7, and that was around 750k of polys, and after about a minute of calculation it started to render my character. If I went to subpatch level 8 (about 1.5 million polys) I got an out of memory error. So I couldn't even render that object on xp32 with 2gigs with all details intact.

So I tried it on x64 the other day when I had everything up and running. Took it to subpatch level 8. And it rendered it in a second, and only used about 250mb of memory. So the memory handling seems to be incredibly improved.

I cranked it up to level 16, which was about 4 million polygons. Memory usage raised to 500mb and again, it cranked out the scene in just a few seconds. So my ZBrush->LW pipeline is finally working perfect. Very happy about this setup. I thought about getting another pair of dimms and go to 8gb, but at the moment it seems like 4gb will do just fine. I will do a few more tests with different scenes this weekend and check the memory usage though, before I decide.

So huge speedup on scenes with lot's of geometry. On smaller scenes I doubt there is very much difference though.

[Andy Webb]

Bump - looking to use Vista 64 with Adobe CS3 Master colllection, Lightwave 931, BNR, Archvision RPC.... Anyone working this set up with good results?

I don't know if Archvision has released the 64 bit version of RPC yet.

I emailed them about it and they sent me the 64 bit beta version which has worked flawlessly over the past few months.

Other than that everything LW, BNR etc. runs fine.

Hardware drivers are another matter but I haven't had any major issues with my set up.

[Ivan D. Young]

Well, since I started this thread I have taken the 64 bit plunge. So far going 64 bit has been awesome. I am running Vista 64 a decision that I made and yes there are one or two things that did'nt wrok out of the box for me. Regardless though it was well worth it. After having done some work in 64 bit and a Quad core, I see myself recommending this to everyone. The power most likely comes from the 64 bit OS, but having 3 extra cores also helps quite a lot. I have run Adobe's CS 3 Suite on this machine and so far has run very well. I have had LW 64 running FPrime 64, Premiere CS 3 running a HiDef project, Running Media player, and many windows open simultaneously and did not even have so much as a slowdown in responsive. I am very very impressed and mad at myself for not makeing the jump to a 64 bit OS much sooner.

I have the Q6600 chip at 2.4 GHz, 8 Gigs of RAM, a 10,000 RPM sys drive, a 2 drive RAID, and a HD 3870 video card.

[JonW]

I am using XP64 with(5335 V8), will probably upgrade the computer first half next year for more processing power, but 8gb ram for me seems to be enough.
I would like to do Bucket rendering using Radiosity. If people have any experience in this area with any tips or problems that they incurred, your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Thomas M.]

I'd like to buy an eight core system myself. Just looked at the Boxx prices. That's no option. Anyone with a link to a decent system based on two quad cores for about 2000-3000$? I heard that Q6600 won't work in an 8 core environment. What's the choice right now? 64bit, 8GB, Raid for PS, one 8800GT or better...

Cheers
Thomas

[Greg Lloyd 5]

Here is what I have found in my resent research:

You are going to spend at the very least $1500 for your processors alone (if you go with socket 771 running at 1333 FSB... I would not go with anything less):

http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/xeon_x5355.htm
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=XEON5355BX&c=pw

The real challenge is to find a board that has dual socket 771 and has a PCI Express 16x slot. There are plenty of PCI Express 8x boards. Here are a couple that have dual PCI Express 8x:

http://www.serversupply.com/MOTHERBOARD/Server%20Boards/socket%20771/INTEL/S5000PSLSASR.htm
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-X7DB8%2B

Of Course they are $570.00 and $650.00 right now.

I imagine that if there was a board that had PCI Express 16x and dual Xeon socket 771, http://www.Anandtech.com and http://www.tomshardware.com would be all over it doing reviews on dual xeon workstations, but as it sits right now, dual Xeon seem to be for server platforms only.

If anyone knows of a board that has PCI Express 16x and Dual Socket 771, please come forward.

Greg

[Greg Lloyd 5]

BTW: I just found this site where a guy figured a way to run a 16x video card in an 8x slot, but as I understand it, the card will still only run at 8x speed:

http://digg.com/mods/Hack_an_8X_PCI-E_to_16x

Greg

[oldtekerr]

Here is one... (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813151048)

[oldtekerr]

if any one has the money...This is a killer system!

[Greg Lloyd 5]

Well, if you are going to gamble with Tyan then this seems to be a good board too:

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-S5392AR

It is dual PCI Express 16x!

I only buy Intel, Gigabyte, Supermicro etc...

[oldtekerr]

Only one I could find with 16x pcie was tyan

[Thomas M.]

Looks o.k. Where did you get this from? What about power supply and cooling? Is it already a part of the case?

Cheers
Thomas

[Gregg "T.Rex"]

Well, if you are going to gamble with Tyan

Gamble??
Tyan is one of the best and most reliable and stable motherboard manufacturers out there, AFAIK. HP relies on Tyan mobos for years now for all the high class workstations. That alone, should tell something...
Supermicro is as good; Boxx workstations are using Supermicro mobos, last time i checked...

Cheers,
T.Rex

[oldtekerr]

Looks o.k. Where did you get this from? What about power supply and cooling? Is it already a part of the case?

Cheers
Thomas
New egg... I just got a system, but not that... mine is only 1 quad extreme. I forgot the power, but it may come with the case??? have to look it up again.

[Greg Lloyd 5]

In my experience, Tyan has pushed the envelope in the past and has had some boards that don't perform well because of it. Sure they have good boards, but some things were not meant to be together (Socket 771 & PCI-Express 16x perhaps?). Find a PC manufacturer that uses one of these dual boards with both Socket 771 & PCI-E 16x and ask them how the computers perform in a workstation environment.

It would be a shame to buy all of these computer parts and end up with a glitchy system. Most vendors have a no return policy on Xeon products.
The only way to find out is to buy and test, but this just happens to be a very expensive test. It is a gamble... thats all I am saying.

If anyone is going to buy this board, please tell us how it goes!

BTW: Here is the power supply that I spec'd out for my new system:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005&ATT=17-139-005&CMP=OTC-pr1c3watch&nm_mc=OTC-pr1c3watch&cm_mmc=OTC-pr1c3watch-_-Power+Supplies-_-Corsair+Memory++Inc.-_-17139005

G

[RedBull]

In my experience, Tyan has pushed the envelope in the past and has had some boards that don't perform well because of it

Yeah i must agree, Tyan are workstation class boards, but because they sell in smaller numbers, they are problematic more often than not. Other consumer grade boards are simply updated/improved and issues resolved far quicker than Tyan does. There is only one or two board makers that do what Tyan does, which is why they generally have issues, i know personally i won't buy them again. But as mentioned it's more they just aren't as tried and tested as other brands, because they only sell to workstation class people.

I'm speaking from experience of there Dual processor attempts in the past.
But everybody has a favourite brand, (or in this case a least favourite) :)

[JonW]

Looking at options for upgrading my system. On the Intel Japan web site they have used 3ds & Lightwave for benchmarking the new 54xx processors, replacing the 53xx.

http://www.intel.co.jp/performance/workstation/xeon/dcc.htm

I think one could upgrade or build a very good machine at a reasonably affordable price (if you do not need every last bit of Ghz) using the new E5440 (2.83ghz /1333mhz) or E5430 (2.66ghz /1333mhz) using the S5000XVN board.

If upgrading check Bios setting.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-022346.htm

[JonW]

A few more comments which I hope are helpful.

I have been using a small local Chinese computer shop in Sydney for years. The prices a half what you would pay for a brand name “box”. My current computer is basically all Intel, without the Third Party Sticker on the front.

The only problem I have is that it is a noisy “box” mostly from the 120mm fan at the back (also because it is a server) but with some baffling that problem was solved. Maybe a different case will solve that problem as well.

Upgrading , adding ram, HDs & operating systems has been very easy with very helpful people. For myself I see no need to stop using a small supplier who can provide the computer you want, and you don’t have to pay for the privilege of having to advertise their Logo at arm twisting inflated prices.

Give your local shop a list of board, processors, case etc. If you don’t absolutely need the very top processors you can have 8 cores at a very good price in one case (& a side issue, if heat is a problem these are 80w and not around 150w each), which in itself can solve duplication in many other areas, (you can have one lot of 8gb Ram instead of 2 x 4gb, 2 x Operating system etc etc etc).

[CourtJester]

Yeah i must agree, Tyan are workstation class boards, but because they sell in smaller numbers, they are problematic more often than not.

I'm speaking from experience of there Dual processor attempts in the past.
But everybody has a favourite brand, (or in this case a least favourite) :)

Well, my Tyan S2466M has its quirks, no doubt, but every time I've had issues, it has turned out to be something else... the latest cascading series of mysterious failures was due to the memory sticks needing some ProGold and Deoxit applied to their contacts.

The only nightmare that was related to the mobo itself was updating the BIOS -- because I don't have a floppy drive, I had to get creative with fooling the BIOS updater into thinking it was on a floppy when it was actually a CD.

Other than all that, it's been solid for five years. I'm planning on an 8-core box, hopefully it will happen this year.

[JonW]

I had a Tyan S2466 with AMD 1800 MP (1533 Ghz) processors with 2.5gb ram
(1 x 1024mb + 3 x 512mb). I had this computer far far too long, it never missed a beat. In the end I was grateful that the power supply finally killed it which forced me to update.

Another way to look at a V8:

My current 5335 is au$225 per Ghz per box, which compared to single CPU/Ghz/boxes is not bad.

The current clock speed steps for the 54xx are about 6% per processor, & each step is about a 35% increase in price. If you can put up with for arguments sake 3 processors from the top speed.

A 1h render would have been about 49min. The difference for most people I don’t think would be that life threatening! Remember you are already ahead by about twice with the second processor & the advantages of say 8gb ram (& unless it's a massive scene 8 cores are running at 100%) plus all the other benefits. If you need a render farm that's another story.

You could also put some E5410s in now (only a lousy 18.64 Ghz of 45nm processing) & upgrade the CPUs later.
Also server box is designed to run 24/7/365 & everything clips in & out.

Do the maths with 2 boxes v 1 box with 54xx
(you may also be a slightly lighter shade of green for the environment)

Rendering = Ghz first, Ram second, all the rest third.

JonW
GreenPower100

[Boris Goreta]

Greg, don't buy Corsair !!!! I bought 750W on my V8 and after I hit F9 and fire all 8 cores to 100% PSU gets really noisy, like a jet airplane ! Then i bought Seasonic 650 W (model with one 12 cm cooler) and it is super silent all the time, stays as silent on 100% load too.

[Greg Lloyd 5]

Thanks for the heads up! I actually changed my mind about that one because it does not have modular cable management, I got one without all of those cables and that system is by far the cleanest that I have put together so far. I love the unrestricted air flow.

After searching for the roughest and toughest, I found this one:

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Power/ToughPower/W0116/w0116.asp

I read this review and decided I may go with it:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/369

The Seasonic looks real good too... I think that the power supply is probably the most important component on any system.

Thanks again for the warning on the Corsair PS! Anyone have any experiences with the Thermaltake?

G

[Thomas M.]

So there's no way to use two Q6600 instead of the Xeons?

[Gregg "T.Rex"]

So there's no way to use two Q6600 instead of the Xeons?
Yes...
That's impossible by design...

[jojolimited]

NewEgg has the new harpertown 45nm Quad core Xeons from a little over 300 to 900 usd depending on speed.
SuperMicro has a great Mobo(X7DWA-N) supports dual Xeons and has 2 pciexpress 16 ver 2 slots and PCIX.
Here is the link...http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5400/X7DWA-N.cfm
It has enough slots to go to 16gigs ram with 2gig DDR667 FBDimm modules. 8gigs with DDR 800 FBDIMM.
Primarily a workstation board instead of a straight server one.
Net prices are around 500.00 USD for it.

Looks like FBDimm is as expensive as DDR3 though. But you can put together a system with 16gig and 8 cores for around 5K USD not counting monitor. Thats including several 750 gig drives, a couple of ATI HD 3870s and a nice full size gamer/workstation case. Probably should get a couple of CPU coolers and a 750 watt power supply.