4-Core or 6 Core?

[Sampdoria]

Dear Team

Is there a huge difference between 4-Core and 6-Core machines if Im using the following to do my work :

AutoCad

Accurender

Pshop

Indesign

Possibly Revit

I know RAM is king but how much impact will the Core Count have since I believe the AccuRender Engine differs from Max.

regards and thanks

[Peter Milner]

With rendering, the two main factors are number of cores and speed of processors.

4 cores running at 3.0GHz will render roughly twice as fast as 2 cores running at 3.0GHz.

So if your 6 core option runs at the same frequency as your 4 core option, renders will run 1.5 times faster.

RAM is only used for storing the CAD file in memory. It does not affect the rendering speed.

[Sampdoria]

Thank you Peter, I really appreciate it.

Cheers

[Peter Milner]

Basically I use a very crude but effective method for determining the fastest machine for rendering: multiply the number of cores by the clock speed.

So 8 cores running at 1.6GHz would be roughly equal to 4 cores running at 3.2GHz.

It's not strictly true, but it does give a good indication.

[Sampdoria]

I'll take your experienced technique for granted!

Thank you Peter!

[Sampdoria]

Peter

Another question :

Would you go for 12 GB RAM with a 2GB Video Card or

24 GB RAM with a Dual DVI 256MB Graphic Card ?

Again, we're talking CAD/NxT/Pshop &  Indesign.

Cheers

[Peter Milner]

Neither will make any difference to rendering speed and you'll be pushed to use 12Gb RAM unless you're dealing with extremely large and complicated 3D models.

Ideally, use a graphics card that is recommended with your software such as nVidia Quadro for AutoCAD, though it's not strictly necessary.

[Sampdoria]

Thank you Peter, I really appreciate your inputs.

Cheers