Our computers are getting pretty insane

[mazeroth]

It's incredible how fast our computers are becoming. Take this for example:

You can build a dual E6600 (total of four cores) killer computer, overclock it to 3.5 to 4.0 ghz and spend under $1500 on the project. My brother does a lot of graphics in Illustrator, Photoshop, and a ton of 3D work in Blender and Yafray and he's contemplating this exact upgrade. Theoretically, he'll have 14 to 16 ghz of CPU for under $1500...insanity!

Which motherboard can handle two Core 2s? We're working on piecing him together a PC as we speak. He does not play games, so we don't have to factor in a high-end video card in the $1500 budget.

Any other recommendations?

Thanks!

 

[bunnyfubbles]

A. you do NOT add the Hz together, it doesn't work that way
B. C2D are single chip processors, you need Xeons for MP support.
C. usually such multi processor (as in more than one physical chip) systems don't exactly overclock as well (if at all) as they're built for stability, not enthusiast toying, I certainly wouldn't expect 4GHz out of it.
D. you often need special RAM (registered), which adds to the cost.

I seriously doubt you'd need such processing power. A single E6600 would easily work very well, before being overclocked...

 

[mazeroth]

For your A, notice I said "theoretically".

The reason he would like four cores is the rendering he does usually takes 2-3 hours to render a single frame on his A64 @ 2.5 ghz. I see what you're saying about the Xeons, and that's probably the reason the Apple Pros come with the Xeons. I know just going to a single Conroe would be a 150-200% (or more) speed increase, but if he doesn't mind spending the $1500 you might as well do it. He was going to get an Apple Pro but we're trying to save a grand and do it ourselves.

Otherwise, thanks for the input.

 

[Furen]

That's still no reason to add up clockspeeds since most tasks won't get more than 200% performance increase from single-core to quad-core, since even multithreaded apps dont get more benefit when going 4-way. Yes, you need Xeons and you also need FB-DIMMs, which are hot enough without being overclocked (not that I've seen a woodcrest motherboard that can be overclocked, anyway. The Mac Pro is actually very well priced and you'll probably spend more if you make it yourself, though if you need Windows you're out of luck.

 

[TheRyuu]

You still wouldn't add all the speeds together. I don't care if it's "theorectically" or not. You "TECHNICALLY" don't add them together so DON'T DO IT.

A 2ghz dual core != 4ghz

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Furen
The Mac Pro is actually very well priced and you'll probably spend more if you make it yourself, though if you need Windows you're out of luck.

Doesn't Apple now allow you to install Windows as well? I haven't really been following up on it, perhaps they don't allow this/doesn't work for the Mac Pro?

Reading into it, it does sound like you can do it, but they're working out kinks it seems.

 

[Baked]

You can install WinXP on Mac Pro or any Intel core Apple system w/ a program called Boot Camp, which is free for download at Apple.com. There's also a x86 version of OS X for PC.

 

[dderidex]

Originally posted by: Furen
That's still no reason to add up clockspeeds since most tasks won't get more than 200% performance increase from single-core to quad-core, since even multithreaded apps dont get more benefit when going 4-way.

Actually, that's the funny thing about 3d rendering. It's so discreet and predictable, it has (theoretically) unlimited scalability.

That's why servers can "farm" out rendering 3d effects in movies and such, and you routinely see 64+ processors involved in such operations.

If rendering a specific scene takes 'x' hours with a single CPU, then it will, indeed, take almost exactly x/4 hours with 4 CPUs. Each CPU is just rendering 1/4 of the scene, and it eats up all 100% of that CPU to do it - there is no dependency on any other CPU for part of the work, so there is no lost efficiency.

While the "you can't add it up" comments are *certainly* true of any home use, all games, nearly any office or professional use, etc....there are many places it's actually not true at all in. Ray-traced or other 'professional' 3d scene rendering is one. Mathematic or scientific models or calculations (can you say "folding"?) are another.

 

[Kwint Sommer]

Originally posted by: dderidex

Actually, that's the funny thing about 3d rendering. It's so discreet and predictable, it has (theoretically) unlimited scalability.

That's why servers can "farm" out rendering 3d effects in movies and such, and you routinely see 64+ processors involved in such operations.

If rendering a specific scene takes 'x' hours with a single CPU, then it will, indeed, take almost exactly x/4 hours with 4 CPUs. Each CPU is just rendering 1/4 of the scene, and it eats up all 100% of that CPU to do it - there is no dependency on any other CPU for part of the work, so there is no lost efficiency.

While the "you can't add it up" comments are *certainly* true of any home use, all games, nearly any office or professional use, etc....there are many places it's actually not true at all in. Ray-traced or other 'professional' 3d scene rendering is one. Mathematic or scientific models or calculations (can you say "folding"?) are another.

If you have very fast CPUs, minimal overhead and long chunks of video being created then you can virtually multiply by the number of cores. However, given that each frame is based on the last and there is an operating system, short segments or slow CPUs can yield poor results.

For instance, one thousand 500mhz computers running Windows XP would do a small fraction of the work that one hundred 5ghz computers running XP would do despite the fact that 1000*500=100*5000.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Originally posted by: mazeroth

Any other recommendations?

Thanks!

When I saw this, I thought of "render farm."

I'd have a couple of cheap boxes in the basement with X2 3800+ in them.

 

[Cheex]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
You still wouldn't add all the speeds together. I don't care if it's "theorectically" or not. You "TECHNICALLY" don't add them together so DON'T DO IT.

A 2ghz dual core != 4ghz

I totally agree.
In fact...
My Pentium D 915 at stock 2.8GHz is rated as 4.22GHz...not 5.6GHz as if you added the cores.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: mazeroth
It's incredible how fast our computers are becoming. Take this for example:

You can build a dual E6600 (total of four cores) killer computer, overclock it to 3.5 to 4.0 ghz and spend under $1500 on the project. My brother does a lot of graphics in Illustrator, Photoshop, and a ton of 3D work in Blender and Yafray and he's contemplating this exact upgrade. Theoretically, he'll have 14 to 16 ghz of CPU for under $1500...insanity!

One minor problem. C2D does not run multiple chips on the same board. You'll need to use Woodcrest Xeon's for that, and they're considerably more expensive. But yes, 4 cores is possible. AMD has had Dual Dual-Core Opteron boards out there for a long time.

Which motherboard can handle two Core 2s? We're working on piecing him together a PC as we speak. He does not play games, so we don't have to factor in a high-end video card in the $1500 budget.

Heh. He ain't gonna get squat for $1500. That won't even buy 2 Woodcrest Xeon 5100's. And wait until you see the motherboard cost!

Any other recommendations?

Yeah, build a pair of cheap Conroe rigs and divide the workload.

 

[foosa]

Moore's law is the empirical observation that the complexity of integrated circuits, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every 24 months. It is attributed to Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel.

He said that in april of 1965.

So what is going on now with the c2d is nothing new. Does anybody remember when the 1gb hard drive came out? It was sold as "the last hard drive you will ever need!". Now i can't even fit my William Hung music collection on that.

If you reflect back you will see that this is just a stepping stone in the long line of great technological bounds. Not to take away from c2d or anything.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: Baked
You can install WinXP on Mac Pro or any Intel core Apple system w/ a program called Boot Camp, which is free for download at Apple.com. There's also a x86 version of OS X for PC.

OS X for x86 is only officially supported on Apple's own hardware, everything else is a crapshoot.

 

[coldpower27]

Dual LGA771 Socket Motherboards are fairly expensive, here is a listing on them.

http://tinyurl.com/mhta5

1500 would buy Woodcrest just not 2 Woodcrest 5160's, 1500US won't buy 2 Opteron 285 or 280's so I don't see the point...

 

[Markfw]

Well, for about $1220, you can get a dual socket 940 and two Opteron 270's (like 3800 X2's) for 4 cores. Requires registered memory....

 

[gobucks]

from what i've read, that mac pros are actually quite reasonably priced considering their features. i saw somewhere where they did a price breakdown of all the parts in the pac pro, and the premium was like $200-300, not $1000 as many (including myself) would have thought.

unfortunately OCing probably won't be very successful. apple doesn't really include things like FSB adjustment and memory timing settings. but any other woodcrest motherboard will probably be in the same boat. if you want to OC, just buy a decent C2D.

 

[myocardia]

There's absolutely no way to build a dual processor system for $1,500. No way. Just the RAM for the system would cost you between $1,000 and $1,200. Just the RAM.

 

[mazeroth]

To all the people that bashed my "theoretically" comment, I was right. When he renders he can set it to render a single frame per core, so he WOULD have 14-16ghz of power at his disposal, ONLY for rendering. I'm not an idiot and I know that having two cores doesn't add up to twice the speed for any other situation, only in select 3D rendering programs (I'm sure there are others).

From the comments above I think it would be best to build two Conroe systems and set up a small render farm (can you call a 2 PC setup a farm, heh). That way he could easily do this for under $1500.

Motherboard - $100
CPU - $300
RAM - $150
HD - $50
Case and PS - Already have
Video card - $50

$650 each, $1300 for two. Not too shabbay.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: myocardia
There's absolutely no way to build a dual processor system for $1,500. No way. Just the RAM for the system would cost you between $1,000 and $1,200. Just the RAM.

I only have 4x512 meg registered ram in my dual opteron board. That is $300 today ! If I wanted to go to 4 gig with 4 more (I have 8 slots) its only $300 more.

Where is the $1000 figure coming from ? You want 8 gig ram ? Even for core duo systems that would be hard or impossible to do.

EDIT: 1 gig PC 3200 registered (Corsair) is $120/gig shipped for $960 total. I don't think you need more than 4 gig, nor can Windows use it.. That would be $480 for the Dual-dual-core Opteron box I suggested.

Mobo=$260
Opteron 270=$461 each = $922
Memory $480
for a total of $1662 for 4 cores and 4 gig memory. Not bad.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Where is the $1000 figure coming from ? You want 8 gig ram ? Even for core duo systems that would be hard or impossible to do.

Maybe he did want 8GB of RAM

On a side note, take a look at Apple's FBDIMM prices. The Mac Pro is priced nice, but you are gonna get raped on the RAM.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: myocardia
There's absolutely no way to build a dual processor system for $1,500. No way. Just the RAM for the system would cost you between $1,000 and $1,200. Just the RAM.

I only have 4x512 meg registered ram in my dual opteron board. That is $300 today ! If I wanted to go to 4 gig with 4 more (I have 8 slots) its only $300 more.

Where is the $1000 figure coming from ? You want 8 gig ram ? Even for core duo systems that would be hard or impossible to do.

FBs perhaps? =)

Originally posted by: dderidex

Originally posted by: Furen
That's still no reason to add up clockspeeds since most tasks won't get more than 200% performance increase from single-core to quad-core, since even multithreaded apps dont get more benefit when going 4-way.

Actually, that's the funny thing about 3d rendering. It's so discreet and predictable, it has (theoretically) unlimited scalability.

That's why servers can "farm" out rendering 3d effects in movies and such, and you routinely see 64+ processors involved in such operations.

Hence my saying "most" insted of saying "all". Yes, Ray-tracing software will benefit from it since these applications are usually massively threaded and will take however many CPU cores you feed them. Photoshop, on the other hand, is pretty much dual-threaded and having 4 cores gives you marginal improvements over two cores, and only when using heavily-threaded filters. The same can be said about most other applications, including many video renderers (not because the task cannot be parallelized more but because the programs are coded for two cores at most). My point was that for the most part, unless he does blender RENDERING the vast majority of the time, he will not be using the full power of all the cores and, as such, he won't be much more productive than having one or two cores running at the same clock.

Before buying a Mac Pro to use Windows XP on it you should read Anand's blog. It looks like, at least in his case, Bootcamp doesn't work properly with the Benseley platform (PIO mode will pretty much kill performance single-handedly).

EDIT: If it was me I'd get 2x512 and just look for cheaper ram elsewhere.

 

[zephyrprime]

I have to disagree. Computer improvements have actually been slowing down. We've been failing moore's law for a while now.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Furen
Before buying a Mac Pro to use Windows XP on it you should read Anand's blog. It looks like, at least in his case, Bootcamp doesn't work properly with the Benseley platform (PIO mode will pretty much kill performance single-handedly).

One word... Parallels

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, for about $1220, you can get a dual socket 940 and two Opteron 270's (like 3800 X2's) for 4 cores. Requires registered memory....

For about the same you can price out a Dual LGA771 motherboard and 2 Woodcrest 5130. Which is 4 cores as well, so hence I still don't get the above comment...

1500US can easily buy two Woodcrests, just not the top end versions, but in the end you can't get 2 top end Opteron 285/280 Italy's either with that money. So the comment makes no sense to me whatsoever.