CPU for a future proof workstation

[noktek]

Hello folks,

Im looking forward to build a new pc focusing on 3dmodelling, rendering, and illustration. I would benefit from multiple cores sometimes, but not the whole time. most of rendering is still done on gpu, but not all

im hesitating on which CPU to get for a couple of reasons mostly, biggest dilemma being socket survivability.

- If i go threadripper now, clockspeed is the drawback for daily work. i will want to upgrade to a higher clockspeed in a couple of generations, and apparently TR4 will stay around for a while. The extra cpu count is nice but i reckon i will be doing most of the rendering on GPUs, but not ALL the whole time.

- i could also get a coffee lake, which has added extra value of not having to worry about compatibility of corecount and also is probably much less of a hassle to set up. BUT apparently that socket will be abandoned in a generation or two, so no chance of a simple upgrade later in a couple years... considering the world of rendering is moving towards gpu rendering it could be worth speculating that i will never truly need a huge amount of CPU cores.

- another option would be a simple ryzen7. Higher base speed than the threadripper for one third the price, but less ghz than a coffeelake. 8 cores. Also involves the fact that the AM4 socket will see another 4-5years of life so it could be updated. to higher speeds.

So all in all im really having a hard time on deciding what to do.

copying over this bit of consideration ive expressed in another and more vast thread of mine

 

[t53186]

No CPU will be future proof, software and hardware improvements happy every day, two years ago. I did the same five years ago with my i7-3930K, and fortunately for me it's still going strong and not in need of any upgrades. So from my personal experience intel is the way to go.

 

[herrwizo]

In this case, having considered all the requirements and wishes you have, Ryzen 7 indeed seems the best "allrounder" solution. It can be OC-ed to 4GHz without too much trouble, it has enough cores for your needs, and general performance is very nice, especially when OCd. Socket AM4 also gets support up to 2020, or at least AMD claims so. Price is great for the power you get. Just make sure you get a quality and fast memory kit with it, preferably 3000MHz or above.

 

[velocityg4]

Since you say most of your work is GPU bound. Will you have multiple GPU? I ask because Threadripper has 64 PCIe lanes. Coffee Lake and Ryzen are limited to 16.

The 1950x will do fine at low thread tasks with its 4Ghz boost speed. It will dominate in multithreaded tasks.

 

[noktek]

thanks for the input guys! although each one has his own different opinion
what is the deal with the pcie lanes? i plan on using 3 GPUs

 

[t53186]

thanks for the input guys! although each one has his own different opinion
what is the deal with the pcie lanes? i plan on using 3 GPUs

Lanes refers to an electrical pathway built into the motherboard that allows the cpu to communicate directly to the cpu. 16 lanes = full capacity data transfer from cpu to gpu. Cards can run on x16, x8, x4. If you have 32 lanes that would feed 2 cards at full capacity...etc. Hope that makes sense

 

[noktek]

but it is not an actuall bottleneck for how many GPUS one can use right? Does it impact performance in any meaningful way?planning to have 3 gpus for rendering so i dont think id need any sort of super responsive latency for those anyway