Latest Build Project:Xeon

areg5

It's time for me to upgrade one of my rigs, and I'm thinking of going the Xeon route.  Currently, my set up rig is an i7 4790-k, Gigabyte z97x, 32 gig ram, 1080 Tix2.  I ordered a 2080Ti Hybrid for it.  I'm planning on a brain transplant:

ASUS WS C621E
Dual Xeon Silver 4208
Corsair Vengeance x 128 gig
Noctua NH-U14S DX-3647 x 2

When the 3090 prices drop a bit, the plan is to start swapping out the 1080 Ti's for those.

Thoughts/suggestions? I would especially want to hear about the experience of other Xeon users.

 

alexhcowley

Xeon's are generally used for processor-based, heavy weight number crunching applications.  Assuming you're into Iray, I'd keep your existing processor and spend your money on the 3090(s). 

Cheers,

Alex.

nicstt

Presuming your current rig could use a 3000 to at least close to its max potential, i wouldn't waste cash on xeon.

If you want lots of threads, I'd go AMD, which I did when i got the 1950x 3 plus years ago. I'll likely go for another Threadripper when the new one appears.

I use Blender's Cycles for my rendering, and my 1950x gives me faster results than my 980ti on iray - so I got speed improvent for no extra cash outlay, which I liked a lot. Cycles also does out of core rendering, which I can use both if too large a scene for GPU RAM.

I'd work out what you want to do, then work from there. I wouldn't bother with 2000 series such as the 2080ti unless you can get a one for less than 400, but that's me, and I may even go AMD if I get more performance coupled with a new AMD cpu, which they say games will - presuming it works in rendering.

areg5

alexhcowley said:

Xeon's are generally used for processor-based, heavy weight number crunching applications.  Assuming you're into Iray, I'd keep your existing processor and spend your money on the 3090(s). 

Cheers,

Alex.

I get that. Over at Tom's Hardware, my advisor made this recommendation: I cannot stress more highly the need to get away from consumer level products and make the upgrade to professional workstations. They are designed from the start to deal with these types of high-load long-duration operations.  He basically told me that as I do rely on my computers for my comic business, which is doing well enough that it helps come tax time if I make business related purchases.

areg5

nicstt said:

Presuming your current rig could use a 3000 to at least close to its max potential, i wouldn't waste cash on xeon.

If you want lots of threads, I'd go AMD, which I did when i got the 1950x 3 plus years ago. I'll likely go for another Threadripper when the new one appears.

I use Blender's Cycles for my rendering, and my 1950x gives me faster results than my 980ti on iray - so I got speed improvent for no extra cash outlay, which I liked a lot. Cycles also does out of core rendering, which I can use both if too large a scene for GPU RAM.

I'd work out what you want to do, then work from there. I wouldn't bother with 2000 series such as the 2080ti unless you can get a one for less than 400, but that's me, and I may even go AMD if I get more performance coupled with a new AMD cpu, which they say games will - presuming it works in rendering.

The prices for the 2080ti's is now around $800.  The 3090 is around $2000 at the present time, and that is way overvalued.As for using it to it at it's greatest potentilal it will, unless I have more than one card which the system has struggled with in the past. It runs two cards fine, and when the 2080 Ti gets here I'll see if it'll run 3. Previously, it has had some issues with running 3 cards, so I'm sure they were not running to their full potential.  I already went the Threadrippper route on my rendering server, and for all of the talk of Threadrippers I expected a bit more from it.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great rig.I wanted to try something different for this current project.  In 6 or so months, I would think the 3090 price will drop to something more managable. That will be the time to start replacing the video cards, and the motherboard I chose has no shortage of PCIex slots.  I could put in two or three 3090's.