Suitable CPU for rendering short cosmos film ?

[minhbangtran]

I made the 720p cosmos film using blender, but my I5 Ivy laptop rendered extremely slow (3s for more 4 hours). So I plan to buy a PC for these job but my budget is limit. Please advise
The films are almost about cosmos and similar to this video:
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKHZFLbtUI&t=1651s"][/video].

Please advise!

 

[Obakasama]

Money buys performance and quality. This is from my own experience of Blender. It will depend how much you're willing to spend ultimately.

If rendering on CPU, more cores/threads would be better.
Rendering on the GPU is quicker. At least it is for images, never tried a proper animation (though have used animation for physics purposes).

 

[minhbangtran]

Money buys performance and quality. This is from my own experience of Blender. It will depend how much you're willing to spend ultimately.

If rendering on CPU, more cores/threads would be better.
Rendering on the GPU is quicker. At least it is for images, never tried a proper animation (though have used animation for physics purposes).

Thanks, budget is around 800$.

 

[jr9]

Rendering with CPU is terrible in Blender. GPU is far faster. You will need a basic quad core CPU and a decent graphics card to get any work done if you are doing large renders. You want an nVIDIA card as well because of CUDA.

Good CPU choices: Anything 7th or 8th core i5
Good GPU choices: GTX 970, GTX 980, GTX 1070, GTX 1080

Note: Expect to pay nearly double for these cards. Graphics cards are very expensive right now.

Another option: Rent computing power. Companies like https://render.st/ allow you to render your .blend files on their hardware and they will send you have the result. You pay for your usage. This is a good alternative if you do not want to invest in expensive hardware. A good blender GPU will cost you $600-800 alone right now.

 

[minhbangtran]

Rendering with CPU is terrible in Blender. GPU is far faster. You will need a basic quad core CPU and a decent graphics card to get any work done if you are doing large renders. You want an nVIDIA card as well because of CUDA.

Good CPU choices: Anything 7th or 8th core i5
Good GPU choices: GTX 970, GTX 980, GTX 1070, GTX 1080

Note: Expect to pay nearly double for these cards. Graphics cards are very expensive right now.

Another option: Rent computing power. Companies like https://render.st/ allow you to render your .blend files on their hardware and they will send you have the result. You pay for your usage. This is a good alternative if you do not want to invest in expensive hardware. A good blender GPU will cost you $600-800 alone right now.

Thanks,
Please estimate how long does it take averagely to render the film above (just Youtube 720p, 15s per clip) when using GPU GTX 1060 6G or using Ryzen 1700 or I7 8 gen.

 

[jr9]

That depends on your scene. That one doesn't look overly complex so if it was done in cycles on the GPU it would get done several times faster than if it was rendered on the CPU. Nobody could give you an accurate estimate unless they had the blend file.

If you want to do any kind of hardware comparison you need to use a standardized blender benchmark to compare hardware. Click this to download the classic blender benchmark https://download.blender.org/demo/test/BMW27_2.blend.zip. Run it with no changes made and note your completion time. Then compare it to results on http://blenchmark.com/ to see just how big the diffrerence is.

Don't bother spending a lot on an 1700 or an i7 as the GPU is doing the heavy lifting in cycles. Get an i5 or Ryzen 5 and then either save the extra money or put it towards a more powerful graphics card. Or rent renderfarm time if you aren't getting seriously into blender.

 

[Obakasama]

I like using Blenchmark as a general hardware comparison guide. Handy to give you an idea of what sort of build suits your needs and the potential increase in performance.

http://download.blender.org/institute/benchmark/latest_snapshot.html

Might be of interest.

 

[jr9]

Interesting and nice to see Skylake-X and Threadripper appearing around the top with the cards. They are still processors in the $1000 range though and are for the most part slower than high end graphics cards.

 

[minhbangtran]

That depends on your scene. That one doesn't look overly complex so if it was done in cycles on the GPU it would get done several times faster than if it was rendered on the CPU. Nobody could give you an accurate estimate unless they had the blend file.

If you want to do any kind of hardware comparison you need to use a standardized blender benchmark to compare hardware. Click this to download the classic blender benchmark https://download.blender.org/demo/test/BMW27_2.blend.zip. Run it with no changes made and note your completion time. Then compare it to results on http://blenchmark.com/ to see just how big the diffrerence is.

Don't bother spending a lot on an 1700 or an i7 as the GPU is doing the heavy lifting in cycles. Get an i5 or Ryzen 5 and then either save the extra money or put it towards a more powerful graphics card. Or rent renderfarm time if you aren't getting seriously into blender.

Thank you, I will go with GTX 1060 and hope with 6G Vram it is enough for the scenes.

 

[minhbangtran]

I like using Blenchmark as a general hardware comparison guide. Handy to give you an idea of what sort of build suits your needs and the potential increase in performance.

http://download.blender.org/institute/benchmark/latest_snapshot.html

Might be of interest.

It is interesting to know that GTX 1060 render faster than Ryzen 1700, but 3G Vram may not enough for barbershop_interior. So I would choose GTX 1060 6G and I5 8400 or Ryzen 1400.

Thanks.

 

[jr9]

Any graphics card will beat a CPU in rendering. GPU renders in cycles with CUDA are simply way faster than CPU rendering. You'd need a $1000 CPU to get renders as fast as a $400 graphics card.

In Blender you either select the GPU or CPU and the render. CPU choice doesn't matter. The i5 8400 is a better chip overall and I'm fond of it.

6GB of VRAM is great for Blender. I got a 4GB 770 GTX because Blender takes advantage of VRAM heavily. You shouldn't need more unless you are doing screnes with massive amounts of textures.

 

[Obakasama]

Indeed, in any well balanced system the GPU is preferable to CPU for rendering purposes. Only in rare cases where the graphics card is heavily compromised will the possibility of a CPU be better than a graphics card (much like my Ryzen 5 1600 and GTX 750 ti).

Of interest, there is a daily build for Blender which does allow for both CPU and GPU to be utilised for those willing to check beta builds.

I found my GTX 750 ti wouldn't render some scenes (probably due to lack of VRAM) and had to resort to CPU on my old system because of it. So a GTX 1060 6GB version should be good for rendering.