Computer upgrades, what to look for in a CPU
justinletchford
Posts: 21
in The Commons
Hi all, I'm planning a PC build and wondering what to look for in a CPU in regards to best performance with DAZ, in particular whether I should go with a AMD or Intel CPU.
I'm currently using an i7 2600k with 32gb DDR3 and a GTX 1070 so upgrading the CPU + RAM + mobo is really all I need.
I'm in Australia if that makes a difference.
Thanks in advance.
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What do you use for rendering? For Iray a CPU is going to be slower than a decent nVidia GPU, unless your scenes exceed the memory capacity of the card.
You stuck with that 2600k for a long time.
You want single threaded performance for most things in DS right now. Functionally any R5/7/9 or i5/7/9 of the current generation is within a few percent of each other in performance. so get the one that other wise fits your other needs and budget.
From a price to performance PoV the current "best" choices are the R5 3600 and the i5 10600k. The 3600 is cheaper in the US but I have no idea about the market in Oz.
I think, given that running out of video ram is inevitable, it would be best to get as many cores as possible.
Is there a particular reason you need to upgrade the CPU? I ask seriously. Because if you are GPU rendering with the 1070, then the rendering speed will not change at all. The only upgrade you would see is perhaps with using the Daz Studio app itself. It may be a little snappier when building a scene when using a better CPU. Outside of Daz you may see other benefits as well, but it all depends on the specific software you use. If you play video games then the requirements may also be different.
If you do any CPU only rendering because you run out of VRAM, then certainly a new CPU will help in that situation. But even the best CPUs are still going to be a lot slower than your 1070 for rendering, unless you want to go big. You would have to get into expensive Ryzen Threadripper territory to match the 1070 at rendering speed. But it is possible to do. The near $2000 32 core 3960X is between the 1070 and 1080 in render speed according to our benchmark test. That might make your wallet tremble a bit. You can go with last gen Threadripper or a current gen R9 3950x for a lot less, though the render speed would also be a lot less.
The point being, unless you are very serious about using your CPU to render, you do not need to go crazy on one for Daz Studio. If you plan to just keep using the 1070, then you can get pretty much any modern CPU and be totally fine. It doesn't even matter if it is Intel or AMD, though a lot of people might say AMD tends to provide a better value these days. It only needs to be fast enough to run the Daz app itself, and that is pretty easy. Daz is a single threaded application, so while AMD is often better at multicore operations (like rendering) Intel is still often better at single threaded applications. But you probably wont notice much difference between them with Daz.
I have a 8 core 16 thread AMD Ryzen 7 2700 and plan one day to upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16 core 32 threads) or if they make such a CPU ever, a Rysen Gen 3 Zen 2 16 core 32 thread APU or Ryzen Gen 3 Zen 2 12 core 24 thread APU (Gen 3 Zen 2 is as new a CPU/APUI arch that my motherboard supports).
The R7 4700 APU, 8c/16t zen2, is due soon but AMD isn't selling it to the public. It's strictly OEM. That seems to be the top of the Zen 2 APU line.
Are you using Iray? Gaming is either not a consideration at all, or of little importance.
If so, the ONLY option is the best Nvidia card you can afford. You want a CPU to support this, and you may want it able to at least perform decently when the scene won't fit on the card.
I would get a Ryzen CPU, 7 or 9 series. If you want more power when GPU is a paperweight as the scene wont fit, then consider a Threadripper or high core 9 series.
I no longer render in Studio. I moved to Blender. My CPU out-performs my GPU (a 980ti) by a considerably margin (Blender 2.83 and 2.90); how much better or worse than a 1080ti, or 2080ti I don't currently know.
In Iray, the 980ti was about 40% ish, better than my CPU.
If I were you, I'd mostly look into cost effectiveness. And call me biased, but I'd think an AMD would end up more cost-efficient.
The simple reason for that is cooling. The cooler that comes standard with AMD CPUs is simply better than the one that may come included (as they don't always include one) with an Intel processor. So, to maintain some decent cooling, you will want to buy a cooler on top of your CPU for the Intel one, while you won't have that expense for an AMD CPU. Well, unless you already planned to buy some even better cooling (liquid, for example, not a bad thing to consider in Australia), then you'd want to buy a seperate cooler either way.
The mobos required for the two respective CPU brands are comparable in performance, capabilities and price, so if you know of a good mobo for an Intel, then there's usually a similarly priced equivalent available for the AMD anyway.
Performance between the two is close to comparable for the latest generations of the two brands. As others noted, slightly better single-threaded vs slightly better multi-threaded. In practice, the differences aren't even noticable anymore, they're just slight variations in benchmark results. A benchmark tells you the potential of a system under maximum strain, it's a laboratory environment, not a practical use environment where such things are way less common.
So, just look at what you can afford, and get the best mobo/CPU combination with decent cooling within that pricerange.
The thing with the CPU I've currently got is it's 32nm VS 14nm on current average, even looking back a few generations.
My RAM is maxed out at 32gb and runs at 1600mhz (DDR3), don't know the actual latency off the top of my head but it would be nice to get off that.
With my mobo, I'm limited to SATA SSDs, which are great enough certainly but I wouldn't mind some extra drive speed. Clock speeds are useless (mostly) if you can't read/write data at that speed anyway.
I would plan to keep the GPU and yeah I'm using iray, at least when I'm not using Octave. No real point upgrading that just yet.
So to sum up advice, I don't really have to worry about DAZ with the CPU? Given that I don't render using it. I'm just double checking since I've never built a computer for this kind of work before, there weren't too many 3D artists around when I was an IT consultant years ago lol.
Yes, if you are not using your CPU for rendering, then the only concern is having a CPU decent enough to run the Daz Studio application. When you hit the render button, your GPU does 100% of the work when you use it for Iray. So spending $750 on CPU would give you very little benefit. A $750 CPU might render better than cheaper ones, but it still would not be as fast as the 1070 currently is.
All you need is a reasonably decent CPU, and like I said, pretty much any modern CPU will fit that bill, whether it be a i5 or Ryzen 5, or slightly better.
The ONLY time you need to concern yourself with CPU is if you actually want to use it for rendering. The rest of the PC's specs for Iray are similar. You don't need to worry about RAM speed, it is not doing much for Iray's purpose at all. This has been tested! We have had users buy a 1070 and use it with ancient DDR2 RAM, it made no difference. An SSD is about the best upgrade there, but even that isn't a huge boost for Daz. Many people still complain about Daz Genesis loading slow even with SSDs and newer computers. So Daz's loading issues are more based on software than hardware, though a SSD will certainly help. You only need enough system RAM to support your scenes, and since you have 8GB of VRAM, it would be tough to build a scene that maxes out your RAM while staying under that 8GB VRAM. 32 BG of RAM is just about right for that level of VRAM.
If you really want to upgrade Daz Studio Iray, the single best move you can do is to upgrade your GPU and forget the rest. I am being serious. Unless your computer is just plain sluggish with that 2600K, which it may be, then you don't even need to really build a whole new machine just yet unless you really want to. Iray is so GPU focused that your best upgrade is the fastest GPU you can buy, this holds true pretty every time.
No joke, you could buy a brand new 3080 that is releasing in a week and it would render Iray EXACTLY as fast as a 3080 in a brand new PC with 16 core CPUs and boatloads of RAM. Iray doesn't care about that stuff. Iray wants CUDA cores and RT cores. And since a 3080 is $700, that would also be a much cheaper upgrade than building a whole new machine, while giving you a massive performance boost.
A 1070 can hit about 2.5 iterations per second in our Iray test bench. A 2080ti can do 7.5 iterations per second. The 2080ti is basically 3 times faster than a 1070, and a 3080 is going to be even faster than that. So just think about this for a second. If you took your average scene and were able to render it 3 times faster, what would your render times be?
So IMO this is the best upgrade path, because it offers instant performance benefits. Cutting every single render by a factor of 3 would save a ton of time. Perhaps having a better CPU might make Daz a little better to work in, but will it make Daz 3 times better to work in? I doubt it very much.
The 2600k is starting to really show its age outside of DS. It's still adequate for things like web browsing and the like but it will really chug in newer games or productivity tasks. At 9 years old now the CPU is getting old enough he should at least be thinking about what to do when it does die.
It is something to think about, but I would assume if he plays games that he would have already built a new machine by now because a fair number of today's games require more than that to be playable. I am just offering another option. Its ultimately his choice.
There is no need to rush, either. New Ryzens are getting released very soon, and this should result in price shifts for what is currently available. Previous Ryzens tend to drop like crazy when new ones release, so it should be easy to get a decent CPU on the cheap that will hold up for some time.
Yeah! I was disappointed! Maybe next spring.
Impossible to say without knowing your price range. For 3d modelling in general it's often suggested to go with an Intel, as right now they boost at higher clocks than AMD and modelling package algorithms aren't all that threaded (if RAM was free that would be a different matter of course). On the other hand there's often a lot of other stuff going on in the background, other programs for example, so more cores is good too.
If you can go Zen 2 + X570 I would though, mostly because with AMD you'll probably be able to put a few generations of processor into that board, whereas with Intel you usually have to buy a new one per generation. It's not cheaper up front but will be over time. You also get PCIe 4.0. Nothing really needs that right now but give it time.
I'll add to my previous comment.
Depends on your budget, whilst I intend to get a 3090; I also intend to upgrade my Threadripper 1950x once the next Threadripper is released.
If I could only do one, I'd chose the Threadripper upgrade, which costs more.
But, some of that cost can be offset against needing a MB, CPU and RAM anyway as one can manage with a crap (or fairly crap) GPU or even on board graphics - it may not be fun, but one can't manage without the MB, CPU and RAM.
If you're considering any sort of CPU rendering, cores matter - so that means AMD as opposed to Intel - as long as the AMD is not pre Ryzen.
I also wouldn't suggest that you overclock.
This!
+1
You can't go wrong with a Ryzen 9 3900X...
Then start selling all the stuff in you house you aren't using till you get enough for the 3080/3090
Well, there is a use for fast, or at least more recent, CPU's outside rendering, yet within Daz Studio. While setting up complex scenes, a more recent CPU will make a noticable difference in how fast you can move your viewport around while setting up a scene. On my previous computer, I had a relatively old i5 (some 2013 model, 4440 I believe), with 8GB memory. On the new rig I got last year, I got a Ryzen 5 2600x, and due to one memorybank failing, also 8GB memory (I gladly have 32GB now). On both, I worked with the exact same scene which had Lagoon Living by Favereal, Terradome 3 for background, and a bunch of G3 and G8 characters sprinkled around. On the old rig, changing camera angle or distance was a challenge. It frequently took 10 seconds for the viewport to respond, which makes it quite hard to place a camera exactly where you want, or find a good angle to position some character or asset. On the new computer, with the same scene, the camera was perfectly responsive. So yes, a slightly more recent CPU may have a huge impact on Daz Studio. Not on the rendering, but it can make a major difference setting up a new scene.
You mean kidneys right? Apparently we only need one!
You definitely only need one. Slightly used after market is fine, although certain fairly annoying chemical therapies may be needed in addition. Yes I'm walking around with a third kidney, that works, because the two I was born with don't. Long story short, car accidents suck. Dialysis sucked more. Sign the back of your license and tell your family. You could save a lot of lives and improve the quality of life for a lot of others.
I'll put my soapbox away now.
Ha, I was joking about the apparently. Dad was a dialysis patient and had two heart operations.
Glad you got a transplant, as dialysis definitely sucks.
... And I am registered as as donor; always have been.
You need to look at your system as a whole not just CPU. Research your motherboard options for the best feature set for your needs. If you plan on running your CPU and Motherboard for a long period of time like your previous CPU then you will want to reaserch the best option set for your needs. Once I did my research it was clear MSI Z490 was my only real option for what i want out of my computer. Also DDR5 memory is supposed to enter production 2021, if you plan on going to DDR5 when it comes out you may want to be a bit frugal and save money on components you will be upgrading in a a year or 2. Current CPU's are not designed to suppport the faster DDR5 momory that will be coming out. Here are some tidbits I can give from experience.
Before you decide on the parts, you need to look at what you plan on doing with your computer. Extreem gaming or High Core speed favors Intel. Extreem productivity Favors Ryzen due to increreased core count. In most real world situations it won't really make a diffrence which company you go with outside of extreem scenarios I mensioned earlier. Intel is slightly faster and slightly more responsive, AMD/Ryzen typically has more cores for the same money.
Unless you are CPU rendering IRAY in DAZ on a regular basis or are running several multithread programs at once you dont need a core count above 8 core / 16 threads. My previous computer had an I7-8700 and the CPU is still a fine performer. The current I5-10600k has 6 cores 12 threads for about $300. The Ryzen 7 3700 has 8 cores/16 threads for $300. I just built a new PC with an I7-10700k it has 8 cores/16 threads for $400. You do not need an I9 unless you are going for extreem performance in a VIDEO game. You do not need a Ryzen 9 or a Threadripper unless you are going to run multiple, high thread count productivity programs at once.
Intell will have a faster single core and per core speed, but Ryzen has more cores for the same price. Unless you plan on overclocking your CPU single core prformance is close on all 3 options with intell being a bit quicker per core. If you overclock Intel is the clear winner in single core speed.
I9's, Ryzen 9's, and Threadrippers are extreem performance processors. Very few actualy need them and with DDR5 coming soon. I question the wisdom of that price tag on a processor that will be obselette in a year or 2. If you want that kind of extreem performance wait untill DDR5 comes out and is supported and see what your options are then.
My Motherboard is a MSI Z490 MEG Unify it has my I7-10700k CPU overclocked to 4700 mhz without any tuning on my part which is a faster speed than any of the Ryzen units offer. I also do not have any heat issues on my system. When looking at what I do and the fact that I am going to want to upgrade my CPU and MOBO once DDR5 comes out for desktop applications in about a year. I decided I did not need an I9 or Ryzen 9 or the heat issues that go with those 2 CPU's.
Also please note, MSI boards have more FAN headers on their boards so you can control more system fans directly from the board without a fan hub. My MSI Z490 MEG Unify has 6 fan headers in addition to the CPU FAN header, most other motherboards have 2 or 3. Fan headers. If you case is as old as your CPU you may want to upgrade the case so that you can support a USB type C connection for future needs. Also I recommend an Airflow case they work wonders for CPU heat management. You also need to research you case to make sure your hardware fits. The best CPU cooling option require more space and dont support all cases. You also want to make sure your case supports big graphics care that are currently being produced. If you don't care about appearance and just care about performance, I highly recommend Noctua. Their best CPU air cooliing units will perform in the range of a 240 mm water cooled system and their quality is 2nd to none. You need to research all of your components to make sure they all fit and play nice with each other.
Just for the sake of fairness.. Asus boards have a ton of fan headers too..(probably more brands too..) but personally, I'd worry less about that and more about the other features frankly.. < personal opinion of course.
When considering the platform and components for a system, I have followed the thought "what systems were bound to be used in testing the software?", the "software" including the OS and applications.
This principle has served me well ever since I started building computers in the beginning of the 90's, giving me stability, compatibility, longevity and expandability that I value way more than a few fps more or less in some game I never play.
I love your quote by Bill Gates btw; it is surprising how pervasive it is despite their being no evedence to back it up.
When I returned to educatoin a few years ago to do a degree in IT (programming as it happens), I remember using it in a report as an example of what folks know to be true, when there is either no evidence to suggest it is, or worse still isn't actually true.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--quote-won-t-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html
There are minor, very minor differences between motherboards. Mostly they are irelevant. I have never seen any brand that consistently had more or better anything than another. MSI does not have more fan headers than ASUS or ASRock or Gigabyte or anyone else. They all sell dozens of boards across a broad range of price points. Compare apples to apples, same chipset at the same price point and mostly they will have the same features. Yes, occasionally you find one with one more fan header or something, and if you really need 8 versus 7 headers then yes that's the board for you. But blanket statements that this brand always has more? Don't kid yourself.
Except for some very edge cases. If you want Thunderbolt on Ryzen you have to get ASRock, unless I missed a new board somewhere. IIRC Asus makes the mid cost board, below $500, with 10 gig ethernet, I know there's a company that makes one for both Ryzen and Intel but you'll have to check.
On that 640kb quote and general Gates hate, I've been around computers almost as long as Microsoft, when I got my Apple II it came with AppleSoft Basic (1 guess why it had Soft in the name). Apparently being successful is a terrible horrible thing. Sure he's done some not nice things along the way. So has every one of the guys who built a big company in any industry. I think I can make a very strong case that Jobs did far more and far worse things but he's almost a deity in some folks eyes. Don't even get me started on Michael Dell, but just take a look at the name and think what company he might be involved with.
For me, choosing the brand of motherboard, depends on personal experience, and which ones haven't failed over the years, but the brand is only about the expected quality and maintainability, the biggest and most important part of the motherboard if not the most important component in the whole computer is still the chipset. It's the chipset that determines what can be connected, how much and how fast.
I heard the Gates quote the first time in -87, when I got my first PC with 1MB memory (AT286 with math proc, VGA and 30MB HD) and the fellow students kept telling me that "Nobody needs more than 640kb", of course very little records have survived from that era, since whatever information or news that was available, was mainly in computer magazines which few saved for more than a couple of years.
I read my first computer magazine in the 70s, albeit late 70s and I was more interested in the games then; this one didn't talk about games, but I still found parts interesting.
I've been reading them since and I never came across an article claiming that Bill Gates said that, however I have met many people who new someone who told me he said that. I even believed it myself until I set about trying to proove it. As I stated previously, we'd been discussing what constituted common knowledge and where that stopped and the requirement for legitimate citations supporting our arguments came in.
There is a belief that one can't proove a negative, scentifically this isn't true (no I'm not linking it - Google it with Google Scholar; I would suggest that the complete lack of hard evidence constitures a level of proof - becuase those magazines have generally not ceased to exist; don't believe me, their are loads available on ebay, this is not counting what the companies themselves keep.
Bill Gates himself admits to saying some crazy stuff, but has always denied that.
Then there is the fact that when folks say something, it can be taken out of context; a good example is the requirement that folks need to drink 2l of water a day. Many believe that I understand, but it was taken by a marketting department of a bottled water seller, and used out of context to sell water. Google it, I can't be bothered to find 'em.
This. Oh my god, this.
Just because there's a PC platform standard, a PCI standard, etc, does not mean that everything is guaranteed to work together. The more esoteric your setup, the more likely you are to have unearthed an edge case that has never been tested, and the more likely you are to have a configuration that doesn't work. Computer components are not like Legos... every vendor interprets the relevant specs in different ways, or try to differentiate their products by wringing out every last bit of performance, optimizing them in ways that inadvertently create edge cases by voiding certain assumptions that the spec is supposed to guarantee.
The $5K worth of Titans that I bought that should have worked but didn't is perhaps an extreme case, but with the price of the components needed for 3D rendering, I'm more interested in the particular setup reviewers used more than I ever have been in the past.
Yikes.. what was the issues you had?
I believe this is an example of what is called the "Mandela Effect" whereby some people swear that they know that Nelson Mandela died in prison. Leakage from alternate realities often come up as wacky explanations. But it's really just ideosyncracies of wet jelly memory networks.