Cores vs. Clock Speed - 3D Rendering

[lavabird]

I have recently decided that I would like to upgrade from my i5-3570 to a better processor for 3D rendering in programs such as 3DS Max. My problem is that I am not sure what processor to get.

Which processor would provide faster rendering speeds:
- i7-5820K Haswell-E with 6 cores, 12 threads, and a speed of 3.3 GHz
- i7-4790K Haswell quad-core with 8 threads and a speed of 4.0 GHz.

One processor has more cores, while the other has a much higher clock speed. My main concern is that if I go with the 5820K, I will have to upgrade my motherboard and my RAM, which will be very pricey.

So the question is, which processor would ultimately give me the fastest render speeds for 3D rendering?

 

[rhysiam]

Check out the Tom's review: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-5960x-haswell-e-cpu,3918-5.html
The top graph has three tables, the second of these is a 3DS max benchmark.

The 5820K is faster, but not massively so. Do you have an overclockable motherboard? Because you could just buy a 4790K and cooler and OC it to see a pretty healthy performance increase with a tiny investment compared to a 5820K + Mobo + DDR4 RAM. Perhaps that could tide you over until broadwell-E where the 5930K equivalent *might* be an 8 core?

Make sure you upgrade your BIOS and confirm that your motherboard can take a 4790K before investing. It's not guaranteed compatibility.

 

[lavabird]

Make sure you upgrade your BIOS and confirm that your motherboard can take a 4790K before investing. It's not guaranteed compatibility.

Thank you for your response! That graph definitely helped me see the performance differences between the two processors. I have found out that the 4790K is not compatible with my motherboard, so I will have to get a new one with either of these processors. My current motherboard has an older chipset.

 

[rhysiam]

Sorry, yes, I'm glad you caught that. Haswell (4xxx) CPUs are all socket 1150 which, of course, is not compatible with the 1155 of your 3570. For some reason I had it in my head that you were rocking a 4670, must have got confused from another thread.

IMHO, it's not worth an upgrade from a quad core Ivy B to a quad core haswell (like the 4790K), there's just not enough of a performance increase to justify it. The higher clock speed and hyperthreading will make a difference, but if you need and have the budget for new CPU and mobo, go a 6 core. If the main task of the system is content creation, the extra investment in is justified IMHO.

 

[mlga91]

With your motherboard, you can consider a xeon 1230 v2, performs simillar to a i7 3770, but doesn't has a igpu, you'll need a dedicated video card.