I’m not 100% sure what your question is either, but the answer I’ll give nonetheless is E-Cycles. E-Cycles - like a new GPU, 2.7x and 2.80 final available
Cloud rendering is always an option, but I’ve never used it, not even the Octane Cloud render credits I received. Often times, it would take too long to upload… I’d have more than half my animation rendered by the time the thing got uploaded. But if I was in a serious jam, I’d use it for sure.
Cloud based (such as using the brenda scripts on AWS) is the best for rendering the final product but for fast preview renderings you still want a decent GPU in your workstation.
In this case one should compromise with the resources available. Faster previews can be achieved with lower resolution renders. This discussion is irrelevant though. For TS’s use and budget, more than two gpus (hence less than x8 pcie lanes per gpu) are not an option.
Alright I’m going to bring this back to basics, I’m going to reply this to a few people as I’m not sure how to capture everyone’s thoughts in 1 reply without making another post.
If you had to suggest based on what I needed for,
Small scale citites to create a photorealistic shot, maybe 10 buildings in the frame + smoke/fog
Large particle systems , maybe 20,000+
Photorealistic renders in terms of small objects.
Getting fast viewport performance and decent rendering times, I’ve seen a lot of people saying go with AMD. So,
What would your suggestion be from the Threadtripper range (Assuming I don’t need the highest end version)
- I will then research into cooling systems for the specific one as most suggested
I’ve heard a large range of people saying that for GPU, RTX 2080Ti is the way to go
- I see a lot of package deals that the card comes with cooling systems on the current site I am looking at so I’m trying to figure that out as well.
Failing that if there was a slightly cheaper option you could suggest for GPU, or by the same token if the better option is to get the RTX 2080Ti in my case and try a cheaper option for the CPU, please offer a suggestion based on that as well.
Based on the decisions above I will then research into motherboard options, if I am not mistaken I need to take into account the PCI Lanes.
Then I will need to look into an SSD drive, as I’ve heard it’s the better option over HDD
And ensure that I then get a PSU that can adequately handle the above hardware.
For RAM I will try and get a reputable brand and the highest amount I can afford to put into the package.
From there the other options I could probably narrow down the options from there via my own research.
Thanks for all your help.
If you would say that the GPU is more important and try and spend more on the 2080Ti here, what version of the Threadripper would you suggest, or maybe I don’t even need a threadripper?
Just trying to narrow down the best GPU/CPU combo for my needs and then I can narrow down the other options from there
Are you referring to RAM or GPU RAM here?
Forgive the probably stupid question, what determines the how many X a GPU can run at?
Eg. What numbers would determine if your GPU can run at 8x each?
This comes from the SeePeeYoo. They got PCI-e lanes and stuff up in there…When shoppin’ for a compooter brain, try to get one with more lanes and crap, if you want to run a bunch of GeePeeYoos yo…
Seriously though, in my case I have a i7-5820k, which has 28 PCI-e lanes. My three GPUs are each running at 8x (which I can confirm in NVidia control panel’s system info). And like I said above, I am fortunate this left me with four lanes, that is exactly what my M.2 NVMe SSD requires… So that rocks.
If I am not mistaken, I believe that if I only had two GPUs, the first would have 16x allocated to it, and the 2nd would get 8x… Maybe someone can confirm this…
Yeap, with the 5820K on a X99 that’s the scheme for two gpus.
Listen. Pcie lanes come from the cpu directly. It’s the motherboard’s job to distribute them via pcie slots. See the red arrows below. These are x16 length pcie slots that can hold gpus.
Both AMD and Intel consumer platforms, i.e. AM4 for AMD and 1151 for Intel, support cpus which give out 16 pcie gen 3.0 lanes (or gen 4.0 for new Ryzen cpus in X570 mobos). These are basically allocated to gpus or other devices installed in pcie slots.
If you only install 1 gpu in these slots then it would get the full 16 lanes coming from the cpu. If you install two, then the lanes would be divided in two, so each gpu would get x8. If there is a 3rd slot which can hold a gpu too (like the picture above), then with 3 gpus, the first would get x8, the 2nd and the 3rd x4, x16 in total. Simple as that.
yeah, i see how I confused you. Even when I read it i got lost towards the end hehe.
Shot version. GPU 8GB is sufficient. unless you are working on large projects… then 16GB woudl be better. But most of us here 8GB is more then enough.
System memory at 16GB.
Got it, thank you
If you had to suggest based on what I needed for,
Small scale citites to create a photorealistic shot, maybe 10 buildings in the frame + smoke/fog
Large particle systems , maybe 20,000+
Photorealistic renders in terms of small objects.
Getting fast viewport performance and decent rendering times, I’ve seen a lot of people saying go with AMD. So,
What would your suggestion be from the Threadtripper range (Assuming I don’t need the highest end version)
- I will then research into cooling systems for the specific one as most suggested
I’ve heard a large range of people saying that for GPU, RTX 2080Ti is the way to go
- I see a lot of package deals that the card comes with cooling systems on the current site I am looking at so I’m trying to figure that out as well.
Failing that if there was a slightly cheaper option you could suggest for GPU, or by the same token if the better option is to get the RTX 2080Ti in my case and try a cheaper option for the CPU, please offer a suggestion based on that as well.
Based on the decisions above I will then research into motherboard options, if I am not mistaken I need to take into account the PCI/PCIE Lanes.
Then I will need to look into an SSD drive, as I’ve heard it’s the better option over HDD
And ensure that I then get a PSU that can adequately handle the above hardware.
For RAM I will try and get a reputable brand and the highest amount I can afford to put into the package.
From there the other options I could probably narrow down the options from there via my own research.
We’ve seen mention of X99 boards in this thread a couple times. Can anyone link examples?
Besides the ssd look into an m3. This is useful for reading and writing particle caches faster.
For ram i would go with at least 64 gb. When buildibg cities you will want to use linked collections which means that you will run multiple instances of blender all the time. Ram is also important for simulations.
I’ve already made my suggestion in this post, according to your use and max 4K$ AUD budget.
There are several reasons I wouldn’t pick a Threadripper right now. If you don’t plan to use more than two gpus in total there’s no reason to consider the HEDT platform from AMD at the time being.
Alright so go with higher end GPU (2080Ti) and lesser CPU as potentially the 3900X or 3950X unless considering multiple GPUS - perfect thank you.
I’m assuming based on the scenarios I would be using blender you feel multiple GPUS aren’t a necessity?
Believe me, the 3950X would be better in any scenario compared to most Threadrippers. Especially in Single Threaded Tasks (modeling, editing, simulations and viewports) the new Ryzen are in general far better due to increased IPC and higher turbo boost clocks.
But even in multi threaded tasks like cpu rendering, the 3950X would be way faster compared to the Threadripper 2950X and quite close to the 2990WX. The 3900X is on par with the 2950X in rendering even though it has less cores/threads (12c/24t vs 16c/32t that the 2950X has).
My opinion is: Go for the 3900X paired with a decent X570 motherboard and 32gb of fast RAM. Start with a 2080ti, add a 2nd one when budget allows and you’ll have a monster rig for your budget. GPU rendering will become better and more efficient day by day. If you need more horsepower for large projects or animations, then use cloud rendering for the final product.
We always proceed to these decisions according to our budget. For 4K$ AUD this is the best you could do imo.
That is amazing info, thank you so much.
I’ll run with your suggestions from there and research into compatible cooling and so on.