I've done a bit or research and am still looking for a solid answer as to which is more important when you are working with 3d graphics rendering. I know you want as much ram as possible as that makes rendering much faster, but after ram what is more important, your Cpu or Gpu? I will be building a new computer soon and am in the dilemma of whether I should buy a high end Cpu or go lower end and bulk up on the Gpu front, the price isn't to much of an issue on the machine so any answers and suggestions would be appreciated.

For serious rendering, I would think that most people go the workstation route rather then the desktop route. This means building a system with workstation parts, such as a motherboard with 2 socket 771 CPU slots. You'll probably want dual Quad Core Xeons if you got the money. Usually this also means going with the Nvidia Quadro line as apposed to the Geforce gaming line. Although, apparently the differences are more in the drivers and marketing then the hardware. I'm not too familiar with 3D rendering, but I would think that since it involves 3D that the GPU would be very important, but I think you would still want a lot of CPU power too. If you are looking at a cheaper budget you might want to go the desktop motherboard and cpu route instead, but you'll be limited to a single CPU.

I'm by far a knowledgeable person on the subject but anyway this guy seems to be doing what you want to
http://helmer.sfe.se/

looks to me he is using brute CPU power rather than GPU

besides i would assume GPU's are for rendering in real time ie games, and CPU's do all the real crunching for rendering an image say?

http://helmer2.sfe.se/

actualy having said that it looks like his version two machine consits primerily of GPU's so like i said i havent got a clue which to use.

Having said that again maybe he can render with either GPU or CPU and uses GPU's in the second one because they are faster for this type of job?

Well for a start, what software do you intend on using?

Depending on the environment, it could be GPU or CPU power thats required.


Sure, Maya, etc all currently use the CPU to render the scene, then the GPU to display it / rotate etc

(however I understand MAYA does have a hardware level renderer, as does 3Ds Max in OGL or D3D) - you can even replace the renderer in 3ds max by using a plug-in renderer to increase performance (CPU).

Ray trace based renderers also currently use the CPU to render the scene

Obviously any OpenGL renderers will use the GPU primarily

This will change in time, as I've already seen demos that use nvidia GPU's to accelerate even Photoshop.

Most workstatiions will use quad / dual quad CPU's, and a professional class graphics card, such as Quadro & FireGL.

The main reason is this (IMO), a desktop (gaming) GPU can only display a 3d scene in 1 window, whereas professional level cards can display multiple 3D images in multiple windows (viewports). This is basically hard coded into the card (usually only at BIOS level however) to distinguish professional & consumer level cards. There are more diferences of course, I cannot think of the top of my head, but there is plenty of info on nvidia's site for instance, which points out the differences between professional & consumer level graphics (even though essentially the same GPU core is used, hence in some scenarios you can BIOS flash a consumer level card to professional level)


One thing I cannot stress enough though RAM. Get as much as you can afford, and can fit in the machine - so obviously a 64bit OS is a must.

So all in all, currently I would go with the best CPU's you can, as much ram as you can, 64bit OS, and a decent professional level card (or high end consumer if you can flash it to pro version).

In most cases currently, even a 7900 / x19xx class card is more than enough.

For software I can see this set up using Maya, C4d, 3ds Max, Blender,and zBrush for the most part.

Shawn Langley said:


What was the point of him building this cluster? To show off?!
In any case, it's one hell of a system...
as for the 24 ATIs or even Helmer 3 projects... it just becomes uberly expensive... and for what cause? To beat a record? I doubt that his system will be used by 3d rendering professionals or that he will find fundings/sponsors who would 'help' him out...


Despite all my criticism, I must admit, the guy is a brainer!

Jon Taros said:

IMO go for a good CPU strong setup, with a decent quad CPU, or if you wish to spend the money, an 8 core Workstation setup.

If for professional purposes, I'd personally opt for the workstation class hardware, but it can be expensive.

I will give you one tip though, the lower end FireGL cards based on the AMD 2600 gpu are very good performers in this field, especially for the price.

So go with 4/8 cores, 4GB ram (or more if possible), a professional class video card, and a 64bit OS (to facilitate the extra RAM) to get you started.


Personally, I'd be looking at a quad core Xeon / Core 2 Quad, 8GB ram (DDR2 - its very cheap these days) and either XP Pro x64 edition, or Vista Business x64.

You can skimp enough on the video card, so I'd go with the FireGL V7600 (although its around $1000)

Here's a good article on some mid range, workstation class cards all at the ~$500 range.
http://hothardware.com/Articles/MidRange_Workstation_GPU_Shootout/

As you can see, in OpenGL apps (Maya, 3Ds Max), even the FireGL V3600 ($299) offers the best price performance ratio, performing on a par with the other FireGL cards, and much better than any of the QuadroFX cards (3Ds Max is a win for nvidia, but not by the same margin that AMD win the Maya benches).

I'd personally go with the FireGL V3600, as for $299, you really cant go wrong.