I am still trying to decide on a new pc for blender.

I know I asked about this before but I am still trying to find information to help me in deciding what kind of computer to buy for blender and I decide to rethink my approach by first finding what is the most important point for each part.

So if it’s okay I have some questions

When it comes to processors I am thinking a 4 core i7 7700k but I’ve seen a cheaper amd with 8 cores and I’ve read that more cores maybe better for things like physics and fluid which I kind of like. What factors should I pay specific attention to.

Which is more important GHZ or age? I’ve seen newer processors with lower ghz than older ones, is an old 4.0 better then a new 3.8?

Can you expand the ram of a graphics card or do you have to buy a new card?

Build vs of the shelf, I am not crazy about DIY pc building simply because I hate messy stuff and fear catastrophic user error, but an of the shelf may not be the best option either.
Are there any specific reasons to try one over the other, or at least a site that does the building for you?

If I build, how possible would it be to cannibalize parts from older pcs, like ten years old ram and etc.

Any advice would be helpful.

i7 7700 is a good cpu. usually, the more the cores, the slower each core. but there are definitely exceptions.

cpus as old as the i7-3770 are still very good, and the price hasnt gone down much. GHz are a key factor in speed, no matter how old.

the average gpu has fixed ram, not upgrade able.

if you dont know how to build, then buy a gaming pc unless you want to learn building. your pick of case (airflow) and power supply (stability) are key reasons to build. sites that build for you arent going to be much less then a manufacturer, and if you dont know what to pick, it could make things messy.

i like lenovo and asus for prebuilds. i dont know much about dell alienware, but if the price is right, it wont be a bad choice. avoid HP, Acer(rumor had it they improved??), and the like.

most old parts wont work, technology is constantly evolving to new standards. even if you did find working compatible parts, they likely would be uselessly slow. cd/dvd drives are the only exception really.

That helps a lot thanks, though I am still a little unclear, would a higher ghz amd be better then a intel?

Another question I came across is that, from what I have read, the only difference between i5 and i7 are hyper threading and I don’t understand if it is worth it.

I am trying keep to a budget between 500 and 1000, the cheaper the better in my case since I still consider myself at the learning point. One idea I had was to buy a fast processor machine and the add the graphics card latter since I can’t upgrade the gpu.
Any money I save on the basic pc part I can spend on extra ram and the gpu.

currently amd is quite behind in the performance department.

hyperthreading effectively doubles the number of cores. really good for cpu rendering. but if you dont plan of doing alot of cpu rendering or mutli tasking, then an i5 should be quite alright. my little i3-3220 still keeps up nicely. passmark has some really good benchmark scores for cpu and gpu.

do you have a current gpu that you can use? nvidia gtx 500 or later preferably.

This topic is too tired for me to go into detail, so I’ll leave you with this advice:

  1. don’t look at specs like “cores” and “ghz”, look at actual application benchmarks to learn about real-world performance
  2. read the posts in the “technical support” forums, threads like yours come up all the time
  3. disregard what Daedalus_MDW says (it’s not all wrong, but you don’t want to take the chance)

The Ryzen chips are actually quite competitive.

hyperthreading effectively doubles the number of cores.

It doubles the amount of logical cores, but that only gives you an improvement of maybe 20% at best, on applications using as many cores as possible.

Have a look at something like this here: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1608 That shows you rendering performance for Blender 2.78.

You can choose either a benchmark to view the results for, or select 2 CPU’s, and compare their results. As you can see for rendering, the Ryzen 7 CPU’s come out as pretty much the fastest, especially in terms of $$ vs performance. However, for single threaded tasks, the Intel CPU’s will be faster, such as http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/1604

like i said, it doubles the cores, i mentioned nothing of performance. i did a test render on my i3-3220 with a 64x64 tile size. 8 mins with HT and 11 mins without. thats a pretty solid 25%.

alot of what i said is simplified to the basics, since not everyone is a geek. so yeah, i guess some stuff is lost in translation.

High End CPU Benchmark Scores

Single Thread Performance (more realistic scale of performance)

I recommend using a Nvidia Quadro card. It provides more stable drivers and thus is a lot less likely to cause a failure. The higher end Quadro cards are expensive due to them having a large amount of VRAM. If there’s a budget, then use a GTX 10xx series card. They provide good performance, cheaper than Quadros, but have a smaller amount of VRAM. Large scenes may require more VRAM than you have on there.

thats a first… recommending a quadro for blender!?

the only benefit cycles gains from quadros is vram. other then that they are not optimized for single precision, making them much slower on cycles.

quadros are slower because are simply clocked slower to have longer lifetime cycle & can run constantly (24/7) in low noise working environment without being a disturbance/distraction (if you care about your well being, health, stress…) :wink:
They use same chips as GTX/Titans do, have also same CUDA core counts… with few extras enabled/uncapped as: FP64 computing, 10bit display support, ECC memory, can be set as headless (if not used for display no vRAM is reserved),… - which consequently give a professional & an expert more value, higher efficiency, broader market…

Quadros match performance of Titans, they don’t naturally perform slower. You need to remember that clock speed does not give you the total speed of the GPU, there are other factors. The clock speed is the number of raw operations per second. 3 GHz is around 3 billion operations per second. If it were a basic circuit board, just meant to perform that task, then that would be the speed. However, architecture is a concept to improve the power consumption and performance of a processor. The architecture can make a processor perform better than its raw speed, as we see with Xeon processors. They can perform the same, if not better as i7s in a lot of areas. Xeons were also made to have a lot of cores specifically for high-performance tasks such as 3d rendering or very high trafficked servers.

All this information is very helpful, thanks, I also am grateful for the bench marking information. I think the best choice I can find is the i7 7700 and I am using http://blenchmark.com/cpu-benchmarks as my frame of reference.

I felt is would be better to ask this questions my self as just searching isn’t going to help with the context.

For example one of my more recent concerns is weather or not I should buy a 600 7700 and upgrade the graphics latter or try to find one that already has a good card pre installed.

do yourself a favor and buy a prebuilt. they are usually cost effective, and you dont have to worry about installing an OS.

Ok so in my research I came across this, an Intel Xeon Hex-Core X5670 which according to blenchmark is better then an i7 7700, but all the external reviews are conflicting, they all say the i7 is better but when I look at the benchmarks they don’t make sense could someone clarify what the main differences and concerns would be, I find it hard to understand why an i7 would cost over 300 while a better xeon would be 96.

one of my main concerns is that my computer would also be for video work and I need it to be able to record several hours at a time.

that xeon is quite old, back from 2010. good luck finding a mobo. that must have been one serious cpu in its day.

Ok i think If you dont know how to build, then buy a gaming computer unless you want to learn building. I am research I came across this, an Intel Xeon Hex-Core X5672 which according to benchmark is better then an i7 7700 . For example one of my more recent concerns is weather or not I should buy a 600 7700 and upgrade the graphics latter or try to find one that already has a good card pre installed. Visit here for more : http://onedaytop.com/technology/

that xeon is quite old, back from 2010. good luck finding a mobo. that must have been one serious cpu in its day.

Thats the thing, I found a $350 refurbished Intel Xeon Hex-Core X5670 pc with a nvidia graphics card, vs an $575 i7 7700 with intel graphics, seeing as my main goal is to save money the x5670 seems to be the better choice since it leaves me more money to use if I decided to buy a better graphics card latter but I know that first impressions can be misleading, I am wondering what could go wrong.

i recommend getting something new and know its going to last a while, especially if you get a warranty. ive had too many refurbished tech go bad. my last one was a warranty replaced gtx 570, it broke in 2 weeks.

the supported ram speed is significantly slower then the i7 at 2400 vs the xeon at 1333.

you could get old tech and have to replace it in a few years, or you could get something new and put a gpu in it in a few years. or you could get a gaming computer. i dont remember your budget since you started a new thread. at this point in time, you just might need to try something and call it a life lesson.

I’ve pretty much figured out all I need on processors, now I have the harder part.

I found a pc but it’s doesn’t have a nvidia graphics card, so i went looking for one I could install, and I found two nice choices a 1050 ti and a refurbished 970, both for around $150, though I think I can find the 1050 ti cheaper, I was hoping to wait a little bit before buying but a refurbished product isn’t something I can ignore.

So I wondering if anyone has any advice as to weather or not I should consider it, according to blench mark there isn’t much difference but that’s just a bench mark and when it comes to cycles I really don’t want to pay $150 for what I feel is still being developed,