Hi All,
I am thinking about getting an 8 core system based upon the AMD FX81xx series. Most reviews are about gaming and comparing it to the intel 2500 4 core. I am wondering if anyone has one of these systems and how well does Blender make use of these extra cores?
It seems like 8 cores is going to be better than 4 cores but I just don’t know.
Well, here’s a 8150 compared to my 2yo Intel i7 860 running at 2.8
Now consider, using a better cooler, I run mine a at 3.4 without any problems at all. Running at 3.4 it’s about as fast as an i7 2600k.
And, in my experience, generally the Intel/Nvidia combo also is the better solution in terms of stability and drivers. AMD is great for gaming, but for a workstation I’d go for Intel/Nvidia.
Edit: And the 8150 is not on par with 2500k - check this.
Thanks, that is a nice comparison site. Easy to use.
Oh yes, and very nice with both CPU and GPU lists and split by year it’s all very easy to compare the alternatives.
And don’t buy a 1366 or 1155 MB/CPU combo, even if there’s Ivy Bridge i7s for both sockets now. Wait for the 2011 MB/CPU combo, 1366 & 1155 is really old now, I’d definetly go for a 2011 board & Ivy Bridge i5 or i7 CPU… That’s why I overclock for the moment - and actually for the first time ever - but I’m waiting for 2011 & a reasonable priced CPU to go with it. For now the 2011 boards are insanely expensive here and there aren’t even any CPU’s available accept the 3777 Sandy Bridge - but new MB running an ‘old’ CPU…? Not really interesting. So I’m waiting… 
I got the fx8150, on the website Farmfield suggested it says it DOES get better performance that the i5 when doing 3d modeling…
anyways I upgraded from a quad core and the reason I did is because I wanted to do some physics simulations and I my old machine left me with my arms crossed, walking around, and looking at the wall for long periods while it rendered the simulations.
I got this “worlds first 8 core” and I can’t really tell much about it because the models I am working on now are very intensive.
I still walk around with my arms crossed and look at the wall at times but it seems less frequent, but then again I am doing more complex things with Blender that I don’t think I would have been able to do with my old machine.
I cheesed out and got a Nvidia GTS 450 and didn’t get top of the line, so I don’t know how that is affecting my performance, but if somebody would tell me that spending high dollar on a video card would help I might listen…
Since when is 3D modelling CPU dependent? If you run the internal CPU-GPU-thingie or what? And even if we go by that single Sysmark benchmark, it’s marginal at best - and in Sysmark 2007 for 3D the i5 is 50% faster - and it’s basically outperformed in everything else. And also, the K models are made for overclocking, it’s just about a $100 investment in a good cooler and you can run them at +20-30% speed without any problems…
And now we’re talking about the Sandy Bridge CPU’s. The Ivy Bridge ones for socket 2011 will be 15-20% faster@equal mhz…
And I always hear this in Intel vs. AMD discussions but you can google yourself blue, ask around in any graphics related forum, you won’t find many pro’s saying you should use AMD cpu’s or GPU’s, you just won’t. Sorry. 
well I finally got an answer, from a pro…
where were you 3 months ago?
Hehe, working… ;D
But it’s not like the 8150 is a bad CPU or a slow CPU - and to be honest there are always faster. With an i7 I know a Xeon will kill it, it’s just the way it is. In this thread we’re talking about buying/building a new box, then I say go with Intel. But if you got an AMD and it’s not slow, which it isn’t, that it’s not really an issue…
When I started out with 3D I ran Pentium 3’s. I did have two of them, and an awesome card - a FireGL CAD/3D card - but compared to what we use today, it was slower than an Iphone 4s… ;D…but we managed. In the end you’ll never have as fast a box as you want anyway, it just won’t happen. 
yeah, well I would have never known the difference between intel and amd would be dramatic…
I have since spent the balance of the 2,500 dollars on beer and prostitutes, but I am slowly getting back to the world of 3d modeling. ( walking with my arms crossed looking at the wall with enough time to think about the good memories of my money ill spent and the fact I could have had an intel…)
Don’t forget that the Buldozer ( being a new architecture) is not optimized to run on windows 7 yet but it will be on win 8.
Also where speed is concerned Buldozer runs faster on linux than what the benchmarks performed mostly on windows 7 say. So keep that in mind when you compare and also think about the fact that each year optimizations are going to happen at least on the linux side.
If money is a concern you should go with the 8150.