What good options for Bryce in a new computer?

Hansmar

Hi all,

OK. I am thinking about buying myself a new computer. Probably a laptop, to avoid me sitting upstairs with the rest of the family downstairs. Now, I am struggling to find what the most important things would be. I don't want to spend so much as to buy a 2000 Euro top-machine; preferably less than half. This means you can't have it all. So, if I would have to choose between the following, what would you prioritise?

Dual or Quatro core i 7, or would i 5 already be quite good?
Specific graphics card; Bryce doesn't use it, so would it be useful?
More than 6 GB internal memory, while Bryce with LAA can only use about 3?
1 TB HDD, or better SSHD or even SSD? would that be really useful?
big screen (17') or would 15.6 be sufficient? I now have 17
How important is the build quality; I tend to only move my present laptop upstears and downstears and do not take it on the trains, plains and automobiles.

So, in general: what should be on the top of my list (for Bryce, I do not game and do not render (much) in any other application) and what can be left out (or lower quality) in your ideas?

Thanks for the suggestions!

Fishtales

If it is only Bryce I would go for a high end processor large hard drive and 8Gb of memory and let the rest take care of itself. The processor will speed up renders, the memory will help keep the laptop running smoothly and the big hard drive will take all the images from your renders.

At the present I have ...

i5 Processor

Intel 4000 integrated graphics

1Tb hard drive

and have just upped from 8Gb to 16Gb memory as I do DAZ Studio renders too but Bryce doesn't use that much. The highest I have had it up too without it crashing was 3.5Gb.

Tim82

I would have to say that the core i7 would be the best value, at a affordable price anyway, but as fishtails has said the i5 should be good enough to get the job done, also as fishtails mentioned about ram...8gig of ram or higher if possible i would recommend ....as for myself at the moment i am testing out a new 8 core CPU with 32gig of G-Skill ripjaw ram, with dual Nvidia GTX Titan on SLI, with a 2 TB SSD....i wouldn't recommend going out and buying the gear i just listed, as that all cost me roughly $7500 Australian dollars!

Horo

6 GB memory is the absolute minimum because Windoze can already take as much as 2.5 GB at some moments and with Bryce set LAA and a huge scene the memory is just short if being exhausted.

i7 is somehow a standard today but not necessarily the most efficient. I have an i7 8-way on my main machine and use another machine with an i3 for long renders. The i3 is 4 core, hasn't a fan, brings 60% of the speed of the i7 but needs only 50% of electrical power when all 4 cores run at 100%. The i7 is an 8-way, i.e. 4 core multi-threadable. Multi-threading adds about 15% more CPU power. For a laptop I'd go for a true 4 core that works without the fan for most of the time.

Graphics card is indeed no issue if only Bryce is used, the cheapest is as good as the best.

You can never have enough HD space, however putting everything in the same basket is a bit dangerous. Get at least a 1 TB HD but an additional external one, either USB (faster, cheaper) or a network one (more expensive, slower; but great in a home network). I'm a bit old fashioned about SSD since the number of writes is limited. It depends on the the processor on board how cleverly it manages the data to be stored, always looking for memory cells that were least written to.

Jamahoney

As a new computer may likely have Windows 8.0, and I'm not quite sure on this, but wasn't there some posts some time back about issues with Win 8.0 and Bryce (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/11544/)?

Jay
Btw...having the laptop is all fine for freedom purposes etc., but I will never get a laptop again...they end up getting slow after a year or so, and the specs stated aren't always true to their statements. I've went through several, but never turned back on getting desktops afterwards, as potential for power, memory, vid card, two monitors...and many other physical add-ons etc., is there over the laptop. You're tied to the desk, of course, but you can still have it in your room. But that's just a personal opinion and choice.

Hansmar

Fishtales, Tim, Horo and Jay: Thanks for the advice.

In discussion with myself and my better half, I decided that I will have to choose between a new laptop (or PC) and a new Camera. I did do research for the camera and made a decision there. Since I think that camera changes are more unpredictable than computer changes, I decided to go for the camera now (much cheaper also).

So, on my list for Sinterklaas next year: an new laptop/PC. I do appreciate the advice and will look for a fast, preferably quatro core, processor, 8 GB RAM and a big hard drive (Of couse, I do already have an external for backup, but may want to buy another one too).

Still: that will be for next year; can't buy everything at once!

Thanks again!

Jamahoney

Yeah, it can drive one crazy...decisions, decisions ;)

I have a Canon 'Rebel' (well over $700) myself, and while it's capabilities can reach well beyond my use (and that's said with a 'full course' in digital photography in hand), I never get to apply the knowledge in the end. It's a bit like the Photoshop versions out there - so much asked for in purchase, but, functionality-wise, and application-wise, the 'ware is never used to full extent.

I recently bought a new computer - with the greatest, usefulness in mind of softwares/hardwares installed...etc.,, out there, but when using it, it always feels like I've just updated the latest OS version...sigh :sick: Only times I feel in getting value is when using it for games that demand high-end graphics.

Jay

Peter Fulford

Tim Bateman said:

...as for myself at the moment i am testing out a new 8 core CPU with 32gig of G-Skill ripjaw ram, with dual Nvidia GTX Titan on SLI, with a 2 TB SSD....i wouldn't recommend going out and buying the gear i just listed, as that all cost me roughly $7500 Australian dollars!

Holy doodahs, that's quite a super setup. Please keep us in touch with how you're getting on. I'm particularly interested in how Bryce interacts with the 5960X. Does it make full use of the eight physical cores or does it waste time using the virtual cores via hyperthreading? If the latter, can you turn off hyperthreading on the motherboard to advantage?

Did you go for an overclocking / gaming oriented board or a sedate but thorough workstation stylie? If you're running the Titans in SLI (not necessary for GPU rendering if I recall correctly) then I guess you have a gaming requirement.

Hoping to get some time for Brycing over the coming months but new hardware must wait for vehicle replacement.

G_smith

Hey Peter, I see you interested in 8 core response. I can attest that it works brilliantly! As I have a dual Xeon 2680 sandy bridge setup! (2.7Ghz for those who doesn't know what this particular used sandy Xeon's speed is. Same 20mb cache) *(2x 8 core/16 thread) It seems Bryce doesn't able to go beyond 8 core, but it also can't understand the threads and so it use 8 core and it's respective threads without an issue. In my current setup I just run two Bryce 7 concurrently using about 4.5 GB including OS.
As a matter of fact It's running right now :) pulling 344 watt from the wall...
One more funny thing... It seems Bryce is really allergic to memory speed, but it doesn't really care about dual or quad channel. I was going to take the enthusiastic LGA 2011 route from intel - over a year ago-, with a quad channel memory setup and I'm so glad I didn't take it. I'm currently running 2x4GB DDR3 1600 ECC REG memory, one with each cpu and it is no way slower then when I had only one CPU and dual channel memory!

About the threads as an advantage or lack of...
Definetely advantage! I see a decent increase if I use them. I have a test file from over a decade ago for Bryce 5.0 and I use that to render it on new hardware. So I have an I7, 3770S for working on everyday stuff and when I turn the HT off and run the test file it does it under 26 sec. With HT it's only 21 sec.
The single Xeon performance was a really low 14sec.../close to 13...
On an ancient Athlon MP 2600+ OCd to 2133 Mhz with DDR266 FSB to 142 It was doing it just shy of 5 min. so technology improved greatly... :)
On a disappointing note. I feel AMD isn't the best option for Bryce... (although definitely the cheaper one...)
Any questions, feel free to ask!

Now bask in the beauty of these pics...