Goin all in on GPU rendering? or having a good cpu just in case?

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

hi

i plan to buy a 5800e render pc, so i need some new points of view about my case
( got a student job at architects bureau , i do their render for 5 month non stop as they want then they pay me the 4800 pc and i got 1000e reserved for this… im quite new to the pro render scene, till today ive worked mostly as an amateur , but this is really far from what i want to achieve with my life , and now with graduation its time to do serious stuffs)

id like this beast of a pc to handle anything , not to fail on me last minute if i have a big scene to render, so im really really afraid of going out of memory … i heard a lot of stories about pros that are going cpu last minutes because of this problem, i dont want to happend to me , this 6 000 needs to last me 5 years!

so i have thoses two option

 option one : full GPU

CPU 16 core, 4ghz threadripper (equivalent of 1x 1080 for rendering )+ 32gb vram
GPU 4x next gen nvidia 80 series 800e card, or good future amd series with at least 12gb vram

with this i have 4 possibilities:
  • maybe it will rarely goes out of memory?
  • going out of memory and start crying ?
  • going out of memory but hoping “out of core” cycles patch will do the job correctly?
  • getting redshift for blender ( ive contacted the devs they told me it will come out)
    having +50% faster render because “redshift is ultra fast” they said
    going out of memory but being saved by a great out of core algorythm ?
 option two : 70% GPU with GREAT CPU

CPU 32 cores , 3.8Ghz Threadripper (equivalent of 2 1080) + 32gb ram
GPU 3x next gen nvidia 80 series 800e card, or good future amd series with at least 12gb vram

 with this i have 5 possibilities:
  • maybe it will rarely goes out of memory? then i bough a dubble price cpu bit less powerful for nothing?
  • going out of memory and being saved by the great cpu
  • buying another gpu a year after ?
  • getting even better result with hybrid rendering so ive done the right choice?
  • maybe having a bit slow cpu for one core task because its 200mhz slower?

thanks

2

I would choose option two because a 32-core CPU with 32 gigs of ram will render any scene you throw at it, even heavy landscapes scenes.

3

Then keep 1000 for later. You don’t know what GPUs in three years will be like or if you need to replace a broken drive or buy extra memory.

1 Like
4

So out of core technology is meaningless?

5

I never said that, but high core count and lots of ram will always save you if a problem occurs.

6

The thing is that nobody can’t predict the future, and especially not a future that isn’t theirs. What constitutes a “large” scene is different for everyone. While some are happy with a 8GB graphics card, I am seriously considering upgrading my workstation to 96GB RAM.

7

What kind of work need all this ram?
For Cpu rendering or out of core rendering?

8

I can tell you right now you cpu should out last any GPU. The GPU should last at least 3 years. What you should look at is the next gen graphics, and what is required for them. 3 Years sounds like a long time for computer hardware, but really it’s not.

One more thing to think about, is your Operating System of choice. If you using windows, then it’s no problem getting the GPU drivers, when dealing with NVidia and AMD. But it it’s linux, you will have problems with the drivers.

9

outlast for what ? rendering ? or running soft ?

10

Your GPU will fail to function before the CPU, usually.

11

This kind of work made 64GB RAM look tiny: New from Tangent Animation: Next Gen. Is this Bender?
A different industry than yours, and different needs obviously. You can look at the datasets by Disney to get an impression what scene sizes in animation work can look like: https://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/datasets

Personally, I never put much into the “spend lots of money on a machine that will last me for a long time” idea. Buy what you actually need, don’t waste money on things you think you might need.