Xeon or i7 for 3D Rendering?

[Altiris]

I am building a completely new system for 3D Design/Animation and rendering. Programs that will be used will be Autodesk 3DSMax/Maya, ZBrush, Realflow as well as some 2D programs such as Photoshop. The question I have is whether or not it is beneficial to invest money into an Xeon or just stick with a standard i7 and overclock it for Rendering in autodesk maya. As far as I know, rendering in autodesk maya performs better when using the GPU than the CPU but does anyone know if its still beneficial to have a very strong CPU or one with many threads or is it overkill? The other reason I may want to go for the Xeon is that they support ECC RAM which may be beneficial for long renders as there is a less of a chance for it to error, however ECC RAM is slightly slower I think.

What do you guys think? I will be dependent on this machine for many years as it is what will allow me to work and do my job, so I want something that will last a long while.

 

[logainofhades]

Wait a second, will this Xeon processor I am using be compatible with any LGA 1150 motherboard? I am assuming it is.

I would pair it up with an H97 pro4, for a decent, yet fairly inexpensive motherboard.

 

[Altiris]

Wait a second, will this Xeon processor I am using be compatible with any LGA 1150 motherboard? I am assuming it is.

I would pair it up with an H97 pro4, for a decent, yet fairly inexpensive motherboard.

Ive selected this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128616 it is an H87 and $99 am I overpaying/ is there something better out there? I do plan to be able to overclock in the future so maybe I should rule this out....
Also, I plan to play a few games on this system so I will rule out the quadro as they arent good with gaming.

EDIT: Changed to this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157507&cm_re=Z97_motherboard-_-13-157-507-_-Product

 

[Andrew Buck]

Yes. Stick with a GTX 770.

 

[logainofhades]

I would probably go with this board. You get support for M.2 SSD's, when they become more widely available, plus has a setting that will allow you to run all cores at the max turbo setting. 😀 You cannot overclock a Xeon. The board does have non Z overclocking, if you decided to later drop a k series i7 into the board though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157509

 

[Andrew Buck]

Very true. Good option there.

 

[Altiris]

Yes. Stick with a GTX 770.

I really can't afford any GPU over $160-190...I can save up for it but it would take months. Is there anything else just as good?

 

[Andrew Buck]

Then the 750 Ti is your best bet, maybe the R9 270X.

 

[logainofhades]

Yes. Stick with a GTX 770.

I really can't afford any GPU over $160-190...I can save up for it but it would take months. Is there anything else just as good?

A GTX 660 from Nvidia, or an R9 270/270x from AMD. Research the programs you intend to use, and see which is better for them.

 

[Andrew Buck]

Forgot about that GPU, the GTX 660 would be best for CUDA applications, the AMD card would be a little bit better at 3D Rendering.

 

[Altiris]

Forgot about that GPU, the GTX 660 would be best for CUDA applications, the AMD card would be a little bit better at 3D Rendering.

I added in a GTX 660 and my entire build is $866 which I think is a over my budget but I think that is fine.

 

[Andrew Buck]

Forgot about that GPU, the GTX 660 would be best for CUDA applications, the AMD card would be a little bit better at 3D Rendering.

I added in a GTX 660 and my entire build is $866 which I think is a over my budget but I think that is fine.

Alright, you will enjoy it, good luck and have fun! 😀

 

[nikoli707]

an amd radeon gpu is what you want for autodesk or maya.... just get the e3-1230v3 for around $250 and look at the amd radeon benchmarks for gpu acceleration for those apps. eec ram is very overrated unless you are doing professional rendering where every single pixel needs to be perfect or you loose your job. on top of that, only firepros/quadros have eec vram and since the gpu will be doing the work for you, that is where you would "want" the error correction if you are in a high end professional atmosphere. if this is just for fun and for family/friends personal use, you would never notice the difference with error correction unless you are trying to render movie quality graphics.

 

[McBradd]

...3D Rendering is mostly GPU dependent.

This is incorrect. In both 3DS Max and Maya, rendering animation frames is entirely CPU bound. There are a few tools leveraging OpenCL, and 3DS Max has a nice PhysX plugin, but everything related to actual rendering is calculated on the CPU.

The 4790K has an advantage because it can be overclocked...

This however is spot on. Dollars to Performance, you'll get much more value from an i7 setup. Overclocking and a simple closed loop watercooling system can extend that value even more.

 

[logainofhades]

Please don't necro threads. The last post was almost 10 months ago.