AMD FX vs intel i7 (the age old question)

[Ian Foster Griffith]

Open Question...........

Going to buy another desktop to keep up with demand and the old question starts again.

Having a think about two systems, please comment on the pro's and cons.

Question 1

AMD AM3 FX 8120 vs Intel S1155 i7-2700K

The i7 is faster as I'm told but the cost is about 30-35% more.

Does the difference in proformance justify the extra cost.

Question 2

If I'm running window7 64bit with nxt will the addition of more ram be (more is better)?

With 34bit system 3-4gb ram is the number and more is a waste. So 8gb-16gb-32gb kits?

Is there a sweet number when you get value for your money, where the software and cpu/motherboard/ram work best.

Question 3

Am I right in saying that the video card is not that important to rendering times.

So all-in-one motherboards with onboard video is OK for a rendering desktop station.

Details

System is only for rendering, not gaming are any thing else.

It's very hot here so will not over-clock cpu's. Cooling is always on issue.

Most of my computers are AMD.

Thanks All

[George Ioannidis]

1.

AMD FX-8120 3.1GHZ 8-CORE BLACK EDITION costs here 210 euros and has CPU marks score 7181

Intel i7 2700k 320 euros has CPU marks score 10317

Price difference ~50% and speed ~ 30%. Obviously AMD is better choice as speed for money, Intel as an absolute speed choice.

2.

That one Roy could answer better than me. As a general rule - the more RAM you get the better for 64bit systems.

3.

The cost cut using Mo-bo with built-in video card is about 200 euros maximum. I would never do that choice. With dedicated video card you will have better performance in OpenCL mode (shaded view of models in nXt walk about window), two or even more connectors for additional monitors and in the future the use of card processor's hundreds of cores for rendering for very fast computing. Several programs can do this today (see Indigo, Lux, Blender Cycles, Octane render, Arion, V-Ray RT....)

4.

Good cooling is healthy for any system. The lower CPU and GPU operating temperature, the longer lifespan.

[George Ioannidis]

Absolutely right. Just keep in mind, that after 2-3 years today's top processors will rather be somewhere in the middle of the list. The cost of two processors surely isn't the basic criterion for professional renderer, as the most probable choice would be mo-bo with two or even more CPUs.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

For pure nXt performance, the AMD should be faster-- I would expect at least a 50% improvement over the 4-core intel.  I can't promise this, but I'm pretty sure.  Don't be fooled by industry benchmarking suites.  The reason the Intels tend to come out ahead is that they aren't tested against pure multi-threaded apps like ours.  Use "# of physical cores x clock speed" as your rule of thumb.

I've got 8GB on my box and it's certainly adequate.  16GB if you do very large data sets.

The video card is important for WalkAbout and AutoCAD, not nXt rendering.

[Ian Foster Griffith]

Thanks guys

AMD with 8gb ram on a mo-bo will be the call, thanks again for the input.

Ian

[Ian Foster Griffith]

Hi All

So I have gone with the AMD AM3 FX 8150 And this is why.

Roy likes it's and all so the benchmark makes it clear to me that the top CPU's will be in the middle of the pack in 12 months time. Just like my current CPU is move down to the lower end of the pack. So I think the $ on the high end are like suppy and demand.  Value for money comes in the middle.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

thank again for your comments........