Pc vs workstation cost for animation and video rendering

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it makes no sense to buy x58 currently. you will end up spending similar if you go for sandybridge. its just going to cost 1-3k here and there. if you want to overclock then i suggest you go for the 2600k with a noctua u12pse or dh14 heatsink. you should be able to reach close to the performance of a 980x when you hit around 4.5ghz.

alternatively you could go amd x6 even now which makes sense & costs much lesser (cost/performance of x6 is still very good)

you can check the cinebench r11 benchmarks to get an idea about render times.

if i had a budget of around 1.2L, this is what i would do.

Rig1

AMD x6 1055T + Gigabyte 890gpa ud3h = Rs.16650/-

Noctua u12pse2 = Rs.3750/- (you can easily push the 1055t to 3.5ghz with eyes closed which gives a score of 5.9-6.1 in cinebench r11)

NZXT Gamma = Rs.2000/-

Corsair vx450 = Rs.3500/-

Corsair 4gb xms3 1600mhz (4gb x 2) = Rs.5300/-

Seagate 500gb = 1800

Coolermaster 4fan pack bundle (120mm x 4) = Rs.800/-

The board has a very decent onboard gpu which you can use.

Cost of Rig 1 = Rs.33,800/- (this is the current market price as i purchased all these components around 4days back. ram prices are going down even more so this rig may end up costing you lesser in some days time)

Intel 2600k = Around Rs.17000/-

Asus/Gigabyte compatible motherboard = Around Rs.13000/- or lesser

Noctua u12pse2 = Rs.3750/-

NZXT EVO = Rs.5600/-

Corsair tx750 = Rs.7000/-

Corsair 4gb xms3 1600mhz (4gb x 4) = Rs.10500/-

Cost of Rig 2 Bare components = Rs.56,850/-

Total of Rig 1 + Rig 2 = Rs.90,650/-

Remaining components Rig 2 (money left = 29k)

hdd = you can get any depending on your need for space. I would advise against ssd for your use as it will only help in loading the software and windows faster. the files and textures usually get very big in size which doesnt make sense for them to be stored on a ssd.

gpu = i advise against quadro. go for a decent gaming grade nvidia gpu, they will handle maya or any other software you throw at it without any problems.

monitor = get any decent 24" tn panel. you should get them for around 12-14k i think. you can connect both the rigs to the same monitor. 1 via dvi & 2nd via vga.

depending on what you choose with these 3 remaining components your budget might slightly exceed 1.2L depending on choice. I think i have mentioned the highest price for cpu and mobo for the sandy bridge, it could be lesser.

if all this is going overbudget then just get 2 x amd x6 rigs and pack both of them with 16gigs memory.

or

you can get 1 rig with sandybridge which will also be very good but give lesser performance compared to 2 x amd rigs.
 
How many threads the 6 core AMD has?

With I7 I get 8 threads, but I heard AMD gives only 6 threads for 6 cores?

Regarding Quadro, my brother has waited 10 yrs to buy a real graphic card, so I think Quadro is worth the wait, especially when he needs to use it for commercial ads and 3d graphics.

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Sumeet a.k.a NEO said:
How many threads the 6 core AMD has?

With I7 I get 8 threads, but I heard AMD gives only 6 threads for 6 cores?

Regarding Quadro, my brother has waited 10 yrs to buy a real graphic card, so I think Quadro is worth the wait, especially when he needs to use it for commercial ads and 3d graphics.

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i dont understand what is your obsession with threads. amd x6 = 6core/6threads. i7 has 4core/8threads. but both give the same performance. if you render on either system both will finish the rendering at the same time. so why are you interested in threads so much.

10years ago quadro was worth it.

but now maya, max, after effects, photoshop, premiere, final cut all are optimized for regular gfx cards also. if you spend so much more on a quadro & if it actually gave that much increase in performance then it was worth it. but it doesnt justify the cost. in the end its your decission and your money.
 
Guys

The machine is not just for rendering.

I require to run multitasks on it, for example I will be running Zbrush (which itself eats up to 4-6 GB of Ram), Photoshop, Blender, Premiere and After Effects simultaneously. Maybe even CAD, Avid or Solidframes in future.

So threading is very important for me, that is why I was looking for Intel 6 core with 12 threads before.

Regarding Quadro, I was going for geforce first but after looking at suggestions here, I did some research online on Quadro

Here are few of the quotes I found online :

As someone who uses CAD everyday, and having used both Quadro's and Gaming cards, I can tell you that a gaming card will do 99.9% of what a Quadro will do. Only get a Quadro if you need 100% stability (ie your company depends on getting accurate renders/visualisations).
As you are hobbyist, a gaming card will be perfectly fine :)
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I used to do some support for engineers who did CAD work with Autodesk products - AutoCAD Lite and Inventor, mostly.
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All the workstations used the higher end Quadro cards, but in cases where we needed a machine running in a hurry a cheaper 3D game card was used.
As has been said, they work, but not quite as well as the Quadro cards - one of the main differences was that the driver packages for the Quadros had profiles for the CAD software being used, which would give better performance/stability. For the cheaper gaming cards it was a matter of trial and error to attempt to customise the profile to get decent performance.
Also, from what I saw the Autodesk products were pretty particular about what graphics card driver revisions they worked best with. An older (or too new) driver would often result in weird problems with the CAD software.
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One slight exception is that 3DS Max offers a 'Maxtreme' plugin for Quadro cards which gives better performance.
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A Quadro/FireGL is physically a rebadged Geforce/Radeon, with a different DeviceID and different bios. Sometimes they have more memory than their gaming counterparts, and more physical display connectors, etc, and on the other side they may have pixel pipelines disabled (stability over unneccesary power). They also tend to run a generation or so behind the gaming cards.

However, they don't perform the same due to artificial speed limitations in the drivers! The gaming cards run great in games, but the drivers cap them in 3d applications and stop them from accelerating the rendering at all. The workstation cards are the exact opposite, and usually run slower in games! One more important item to note: professional rendering software packages tend to have special modes that only run on workstation cards with the proper flags/device ids set. In other words, your gaming card might have more potential physically, but artificial market segmentation has seen that you'll probably never get to use it for anything other than their intended purpose.

Here's an example of what gaming cards will be like in workstation software. In Solidworks, Geforce cards only accelerate a single window. As soon as you move into multiple 3D accelerated windows, only one window is hardware accelerated. The rest? Software accelerated. Slowwwwwwww. Solidworks also has special mode called "renderview" which allows you to render the assembly in real time, just like a game. However, it only lets you do it if it detects the right flags in the bios... see where I'm going? Are you a wireframe sort of person?

However, it's not all bad. Some gaming videocards can emulate workstation cards by using RivaTuner. This will allow the installation of the relevant drivers and hey presto! The Gaming card becomes a workstation class card! It seems easiest to mod a 6800GT/Ultra AGP card to a quadro FX4000, which will do the full emulation. Some other cards are moddable, but they won't get you full emulation - for example, that renderview mode might not work.

This is quite a feat, considering that the FX4000 is considered an "ultra high-end" product by nVidia as of this moment...
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Well high resolution is one major difference, support and reliability is another. Some of the main features that differentiate a Quadro from a Geforce:

Line and Point AA (not FSAA) for wireframe models
Up to 8 clipping regions (to the Geforce's 1)
HW accelerated clipping planes
HW accelerated overlay planes
2-sided lighting
OpenGL logic operation support
Quad-buffered stereo viewing for passive (polarized) or active (shutter) 3D

I think theres more but thats all i can think of, i think memory is managed better on Quadros too.

EDIT: Some of those features you probably wont need, but some of them are simply expected by highend CAD applications and if they arent available you will either experience odd behavior (say if you're missing 2-sided lighting) or the application will have to emulate it in software which will cause a big slowdown.
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I am not spending a lac for just hobby. Its pure professional decision and I am looking for stability, so for example if I have to use Cad or Solidwork in future, I do not wish to get stuck because I have a geforce and not quadro.

Check the official difference between quadro and geforce by Nvidia

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_geforce.html&rct=j&q=geforce%20vs%20quadro&ei=p5DhTMPdGISs8AaXr_ED&usg=AFQjCNESkCnpBGLD_XkAyUuFJ4Ky6W-D_g&cad=rja
 
Sumeet a.k.a NEO said:
How many threads the 6 core AMD has?

With I7 I get 8 threads, but I heard AMD gives only 6 threads for 6 cores?

Regarding Quadro, my brother has waited 10 yrs to buy a real graphic card, so I think Quadro is worth the wait, especially when he needs to use it for commercial ads and 3d graphics.

.
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Yeah stop obsessing about threads bruv it doesn't matter if AMD and Intel are giving same performance even after Intel is crunching two extra threads ~ in the end it is Value For Money and actual performance that matters, you can't compare a Xeon based system to an Phenom II based system the same way, so sort the priorities. Do you want a balanced RIG < GAME/ PROFESSIONAL/ RENDER > or a purely Workstation system, I'm no expert at the second type of system but I will recommend the balance RIG as you want to game too, finally this is what I suggest ---->

AMD Phenom IIx 6 1090T ~ 12K
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/ USB 3 ~ 8.5K
G. Skill RIPJAWS 2x 4GB 1600 MHz kit ~ 7K
Nvidia GTX 570/ 560 < dependent on when you buy PC > ~ 21K/ 18K
Cooler Master Silent Pro 700 W ~ 7K
2x 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 in RAID 0 + 1 TB external for redundancy of important data ~ 8K ( 2.8Kx 2 + 5.2K )
NZXT Tempest EVO or equivalent cabinet of your choice ~ 7K ( If you ship from PrimeABGB )
Dell Ultrasharp U 2311H ~ 13K
Speakers of your choice
APC Smart UPS 1.1 KVA ~ 5K < you can never be to safe >

If you want to go Intel way go for Sandy-Bridge because your budget permits otherwise X 58 isn't bad either. My personal view

anything else I've missed others will correct cause they are more experienced than me, so I hope I've been of help :).
 
Just f.y.i, both kippu AND stormblast are in pretty much the same industry. They make a daily living out of this stuff and surely know what they are talking about.
 
Sumeet a.k.a NEO said:
So threading is very important for me, that is why I was looking for Intel 6 core with 12 threads before.
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Intel Core i7 980x has 6 real cores and 6 virtual cores = 12... See dont expect a much performance boost coz it has 12 threads...

For Example: See Intel Core i5 750 is a pure quadcore(4 cores= 4threads) whereas i7 920 is a quadcore too but(4 cores= 8 threads)... they both have 2.66GHz clock frequency...
In x264 benchmark's 2 passes test i5 750 processes 21.2fps whereas i7 920 processes 26fps... so u can see that Intel Hyperthreading really doesnt make a great difference... i just made this point coz intel hyperthreading is really not that worth... So just stop thinking about threads and buy which is more VFM... Do what stormblast and alpha17 suggested :)
 
Hades just check this review

980x is a monster compared to all other processors out there. The only problem is the price. If my budget was there I would have gone for 980 really but I better spend that extra on quadro instead.

HEXUS.net - Review :: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T: hexa-core computing for the masses : Page - 12/12

I am going for sandy bridge or Intel i7. I will use AMD for the second computer I buy - for playing and testing games.

Yes Alpha you can say - more of workstation setup.
 
Hades. said:
In x264 benchmark's 2 passes test i5 750 processes 21.2fps whereas i7 920 processes 26fps... so u can see that Intel Hyperthreading really doesnt make a great difference... i just made this point coz intel hyperthreading is really not that worth... So just stop thinking about threads and buy which is more VFM... Do what stormblast and alpha17 suggested :)
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you are wrong. ht does make a difference. the x264 benchmark is probably not optimized. to check proper comparison check cinebench r11 benchmarks.
 
BTW my dealer is suggesting to get the high end hard disk and not the normal one because it might not run with the motherboard at proper speed.

Till now have managed to find only motherboard and processor in Kolkata.

He is still looking for the graphics card.

Any idea what if I do not find tempest cabinet here? what to buy instead?
 
Sumeet a.k.a NEO said:
BTW my dealer is suggesting to get the high end hard disk and not the normal one because it might not run with the motherboard at proper speed.
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What do you mean by high end hard disk he might be swindling you.
 
high end hard disk?

bro that shopkeeper can be a cheater.

neway.....if you need any help then pm me your no...i will help you:)
 
stormblast said:
you are wrong. ht does make a difference. the x264 benchmark is probably not optimized. to check proper comparison check cinebench r11 benchmarks.
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I am not wrong... See in Cinebench R11 bechmark i5 760 scores some 3.96 points whereas i7 860(which is 133mhz faster than i7 920) scores 5.03 points... an i7 860 2.8GHz is just 1.07 points faster than i5 760 2.8GHz... According to me this is not a huge difference...

Intel Core i5-760 CPU Review. Page 7 - X-bit labs
 
Hades. said:
I am not wrong... See in Cinebench R11 bechmark i5 760 scores some 3.96 points whereas i7 860(which is 133mhz faster than i7 920) scores 5.03 points... an i7 860 2.8GHz is just 1.07 points faster than i5 760 2.8GHz... According to me this is not a huge difference...

Intel Core i5-760 CPU Review. Page 7 - X-bit labs
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Very interesting review, have you checked them all

when it comes to gaming - Intel Core i5-760 CPU Review. Page 4 - X-bit labs

i5 is better than Phenom :) lol
 
Hades. said:
I am not wrong... See in Cinebench R11 bechmark i5 760 scores some 3.96 points whereas i7 860(which is 133mhz faster than i7 920) scores 5.03 points... an i7 860 2.8GHz is just 1.07 points faster than i5 760 2.8GHz... According to me this is not a huge difference...

Intel Core i5-760 CPU Review. Page 7 - X-bit labs
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dude 1.07 difference in a score of 5 is huge. its more than 20%. i dont know what else to say to this.
 
stormblast said:
dude 1.07 difference in a score of 5 is huge. its more than 20%. i dont know what else to say to this.
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yes 20 to 25% difference in rendering for 50% more money ;)...
 
rendering time 20% faster is highly desirable and that 50% money will be recouped in one animation where that 20% faster time comes into action
 
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