Tomasz Dabert Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 Hello everyone! I am about to change my old PC for a new one. I wanted to ask you guys for advice on how to choose parts correctly with Houdini in mind. Is it better to go with dual Xeon build or one strong i7? As far as my research goes I found out that i7 can go with 128GB RAM that is pretty expensive in comparaison to the RAM one can use with Xeons (and also I was told that the speed of RAM has very little influence on performance). How about graphic cards? I have heard that they will soon introduce Redshift for Houdini, but do any of you happen to know whether Redshift mats will be as keen to edit as Mantra ones? I already have 2 SSDs and 2 HDD which I will use in the new build. I am working in Maya and Substance Painter/Designer alongside. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tar Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 Houdini is very well multithreaded, but there are some parts that still need optimising, such as Cloth collisions etc. So right now, high-speed single threaded can have advantages. Never read that the Ram speed is unimportant, or the affect it has directly. Graphic cards can affect the openCL performance of grains, flip, pyro but ram has historically been an issue, also OpenCL GPU performance advantages can drop off dramatically when you introduce collisions or start building more complex node graphs as the data is shuffled across the PCIe bus. OpenCL on the CPU is very useful as the CL code compiles for the CPU you are using, thus making it faster than the standard C++ code, and Ram is a non-issue. CL code also is naturally multi-threaded so the multi-threaded CPU is used fully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 xeon for 3000 euro workstation ?! forget it.... I7 quad or octa core is 4 times faster then xeon with some cores. xeon are expensive but they can run 24hours/7gays for years with getting warm. if u want the extreme CPU render workstation dual Xeon with 44 cores is the fastet (7000 and more just for processors) if i wanna render in octane or redshift, get a decent i7 and GTX1080..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgcris Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 (edited) I am considering building one of this http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/page1.html If you have some spare parts, this could be the way forward Edited June 6, 2016 by cgcris 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 14 hours ago, schwungsau said: xeon for 3000 euro workstation ?! forget it.... I7 quad or octa core is 4 times faster then xeon with some cores. That's oversimplifying things a bit. I would go for something like this build which is well suited for applications that scale well to many processor cores for most tasks (like Houdini) and provides big bang for the buck in terms of rendering performance. 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/supermicro-workstations-business-dual-processor-sys-7038a-i-10023804 2x http://www.wiredzone.com/intel-components-cpu-processors-server-bx80660e52630v4-10025961 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/samsung-components-hard-drives-desktop-mz-7ke512bw-10024091 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/asus-components-gpu-xeon-phi-and-vgas-full-height-turbo-gtx970-oc-4gd5-10025714 8x http://www.wiredzone.com/samsung-components-memory-ddr4-m393a2g40db0-cpb-32031426 That would get you 128GB of memory, 20 processor cores at 2.2GHz (turbo of 3.1GHz), 512GB SSD, and a GTX 970 GPU which you could swap out for whatever in the build if you want more GPU bang. It comes to around $3,300 but might be a little more outside of the United States. If you plan to use Windows add another $200 or so for the license. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 (edited) older XEON ehh? great idea..... this changes the game a bit.... i may over thing my next workstation investment.... Edited June 6, 2016 by schwungsau Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomasz Dabert Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 Thanks guys for your responses! I was thinking about similar build as Luke proposed. Those new Xeons with 10 cores have decent speed and are quite affordable. I have also composed a build with the latest i7 octa core (build in the attachment). I will reuse my old SSDs and Windows (I am considering switching to Linux someday) What are your builds at work/home for Houdni? Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magneto Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 What would Mark recommend since he was in favor of i7 over Xeon? Would older Xeons overpower newer i7s for pure Houdini fx work given the same amount budget like $2-3k for each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 (edited) I7 give better performance in application because they running with 4GHz etc.... multicore Xeon 2-3 GHz are 20-40% slower with application slower but with a lots cores, Xeon rocking for heavy multicore task like rendering etc...... btw. i my expericence boosting sims with CL has low impact. Edited June 7, 2016 by schwungsau 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malexander Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 That's a pretty sweet build! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 19 hours ago, Tomasz Dabert said: What are your builds at work/home for Houdni? At work I'm using this. It's similar to the build I suggested above but with a nicer chassis, faster processors, a larger SSD, and a Titan X instead of a GTX 970. They come out to like $5,200 or so. I wouldn't change anything unless I had significantly more money to spend. 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/supermicro-servers-tower-barebone-dual-processor-sys-7048a-t-10023705 2x http://www.wiredzone.com/intel-components-cpu-processors-server-bx80660e52640v4-10025962 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/samsung-components-hard-drives-desktop-mz-7ke1t0bw-10023549 8x http://www.wiredzone.com/samsung-components-memory-ddr4-m393a2g40db0-cpb-32031426 1x http://www.wiredzone.com/asus-components-gpu-xeon-phi-and-vgas-full-height-gtxtitanx-12gd5-10024859 At home I'm using a system with a i7-5820K processor, 64GB of memory, and a Radeon 390X card with 8GB of video memory. It's good for the budget but I wouldn't want to work on huge scenes and huge simulations with it. The clock speed of the Xeon processors isn't as big of a deal as you might think, they hit that turbo frequency all the time with single threaded stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tar Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I'm sure it's coming but does Redshift and Houdini work yet with the Gtx 1080? Adobe, Nuke and RedCine aren't working with it yet afaik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pxBomber Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 I think titan x is still better choice over 1080 - it's supported by redshift, has mature drivers and most importantly 12Gb of ram. And it's titan so if you want to add more of them in the future you can switch for tcc drivers - witch means no windows harassment over the performance. (Not a big difference but something ) I also believe that the future titan (pascal) (if you want to add it to the system later) will play better with 12Gb brother :). But 1080 looks promising in some tests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 the renderers have get updates for the 1080... this could take a while and how good it is, we will see.... GTX 980ti are cheap and works well renderers.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ISUther Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 (edited) How big difference will you get when you use 8 core i7? Compared to 10 core Regarding rendering in Houdini I am also planing to buy new pc or update existing one. I have 2000 euros Have my own case: Cooler master Cosmos S http://www.coolermaster.com/case/full-tower/cosmos-s/ It supports also E-ATX motherboards and x99 should also fit. I have no plans to get higher then 128 gb ram in future (then if i need i get new pc) As i do not have cash for all components if i should buy Intel Xeon E5-2660v3 and it has 10 cores Same time as i7 has from 6 to 10 cores. But yes The number of threads is way less then in E5 (Xeon) And On-chip L2+L3 cache is also higher on (xeon) I of course do not know what is it im not hardware IT guy. What i currently have is CPU Type HexaCore Intel Core i7-970, 3200 MHz and on ly 6gig ram As i have no plans to get another cpu any time soon but need ram and cpu power as i understand for Hoduini 16 (simulations like pyro ect) i also use zbrush a lot and after effects (trapcode particular). And also i play world of warcraft and some other games (starcraft etc) on max settings. What would be best go for me? I know i have to buy new motherboard and more ram and cpu gpu will get i think later as i have GeForce GTX 780 atm And here is one comparison;http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/293/Intel_Core_i7_i7-6800K_vs_Intel_Xeon_E5-2640.html Edited March 30, 2017 by ISUther Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treedx Posted April 1, 2017 Share Posted April 1, 2017 Hello everyone! I join this post because I'm also looking at a new PC for simulations and render with Houdini. And it also creates the doubt that it is better to simulate above all. I had in mind this PC: Dell Precision T5610 Workstation with CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2670 v2 (10 core) RAM memory: 128 GB Graphic: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SSD: 256 GB SATA 2,5" HDD: 2 TB SATA 3,5" as you see?? Better than an i7?? Above all thinking about simulation and rendering. Although every time we go more to GPU rendering what interests me above all is that it is fluid in creating caches, simulations, etc. Regards! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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