Hello,

I'm on the path right now for building a new system.

I've googled topics related to ‘best’ system for Houdini and have read the many different considerations that come into the picture.

I get the sense it really depends on what aspect of Houdini your going to hope to have improvements in for performance.

To me what is important is having quicker cook times, in regards to viewing objects motion so I am able to view and make changes to what I see/preview. In this context, looking at the project as a rendered scene is not important.

I also like to lean towards using vex - which I know from what I code can inherently emphasize single threaded ( using for loops in detail mode ) vs. multi-threaded ( running over points ).

So now that I have been using Houdini for a little while now I think I would benefit from favoring going towards higher clock speeds vs number of cores and cpu vram - thinking in terms of those xeon processors that cost alot because they have high ‘vram’, like 24+ MBs and cores.

However, I do also like to keep the option of being able to do sims and render with mantra.

And from my experience with both, RAM is not something to skimp on.

In terms of mantra, I don't mind leaving my machine to run over night to get off a sequence of exr images, but what I don't like is waking up to find out it only made it part way because there wasn't enough memory.

So from that perspective I decided I would like to have minimum of 128GB Ram in my system.

But from what I read, with the i7 or even the new ryzen 64GB is as high as I can get.

What I've also noticed is that even though I can cache sims, it really doesn't help much with playback times.

I was always puzzled by this because if I had enough memory to load the cache I assumed playback could be at an expected real time result. This is one element where I am in the dark as to which aspect of a system is the bottleneck.

However, I am clear about how many sims I can or cannot load due to memory capacity - another reason why I would like to go with 128GB. I want to keep that door open.

I will be going with a linux system ( dual boot option to windows ).

The main reason for linux is the memory management, which Houdini has shown to me how poor windows is with that.

Long time ago I did play around with linux distrubtions, even did a couple of my own Linux from Scratch builds.

But, coming back to linux is going be like new again, since it's been a while.

So as not to have a big expensive desk weight I can still get some work done in windows ( hence the dual boot option ), while I sort out possible issues with things like drivers or whatever else, to get linux up to speed.

I looked at the Wiki for both the Xeons and i7s and came across something interesting.

It's showing some released Xeons in March 2017. The one I'm interested in is the one with the highest base clock speed of 3.9 Ghz. (E3-1280 V6)

It only has 4 cores and 8MB L3 cache, but if I'm not emphazing multi-threadability this seems it might be my choice to go with two of them with out breaking the bank, as they are only listed at around $600+ each. Not much more than an i7 and certainly far less than the other Xeons with lots of cores/cache but going for $6K.

The only advantage I possibly see with the i7 is with their “Turbo” clock speeds. Which on some look quit high and advantageous. The i7-7660U for example shows 13/15 GHz.

Which to me might possibly show quit a perfomance improvement for cook times depending on the code for the scene.

However, looking into what Turbo is, wiki is saying “…Turbo Boost is activated when the operating system requests the highest performance state of the processor.”

Which brings to mind how often the OS will do that and whether or not a linux system it would at all - or if there are some tweaks required to make sure it does.

Then again, I also notice there is also a Xeon E3-1535M which has Turbo up to 11 GHz…

If anyone has additional thoughts on this matter it's much appreciated.

Thank you

There's no reason to buy Xeon unless you intend to go multi-socket (at least two). And then, there's no point to go with two quads when you can get a non-server octo - i7. Server boards are more expensive and so is the ECC ram.

At this point I don't even recommend i7 if you're going desktop route. Look into AMD's Ryzen 1800x - same I7 octo-core performance for about half the price.
I have the i7 5960x (OC @4.4Ghz), but if I were to buy now, I'd go Ryzen without blinking.
Or go for two or four octo (at least) Xeons if the wallet is thick enough.

But from what I read, with the i7 or even the new ryzen 64GB is as high as I can get.

Not sure about Ryzen but X99 is can handle 128Gb ram w/o problems.

Yeah…I was thinking at least two Xeons…but also because I would be able to get up to 128 GB.

Am I right in assuming that 64GB is a much as I can get with either the i7 or Ryzen?

I edited my post with a piece of info which you just asked

So yeah, no… X99 can handle 128Gb

Thanks McNistor,

I guess I was reading misleading information on how much Ram.

Plus the fact that my motherboard can only support 64GB and it is an X99.

Guess another Manufacturer or model is my best bet.

At first I thought, yeah Ryzen is the way to go - thinking very big savings.

But when I look more closely in comparing specific chip to chip there isn't much difference ( In some cases yes ).

I have an i7 5820k Haswell-E:

6 Core, 3.3GHz, L3 Cache 15MB; Which I picked up about 1.5 years ago for $440 Cdn.

I'm looking at a Ryzen 7 1800X:

8 Core, 3.6GHz, L3 Cache 16MB: Looking at a retailer that generally sells for a bit less than where I got my i7 -
is selling this Ryzen for $570.

I don't think I'm going to get savings ( at least not big ones ) by going Ryzen. Although it's worth taking a second look at the different ‘models’.

You're not comparing apples to apples.

Ryzen 7 1800X is comparable to the i7 5960x (Broadwell-E) which is still going for 1000 Euros (looks like $1.5k Cdn on newegg). That's the one to compare to. Massive savings at the same performance for multithreaded workloads.

You could also consider the 1700X which has almost the same performance but better price/performance ratio.

Ryzen only supports 64GB RAM. Xeons are overpriced compared to equivalent i7s (e.g. E5-1650 v4 vs i7 6850k) and usually locked down (no or more limited overclocking). And I wonder if current-gen i7s are even that much faster than a 5820k. Also I'm curious where you are getting some of those specs. What I see for base and ‘max turbo’ frequencies:
Xeon E3-1280 V6: 3.6 - 4GHz
i7-7660U (mobile processor): 2.5 - 4GHz
Xeon E3-1535M (mobile processor): 2.9 - 3.8GHz

I think overclocking an i7 is still your best bet. I might wait until Intel launches the X299 platform in a few months. The chips for that platform should receive another incremental clock speed bump over Broadwell-E. It's possible to hit 5GHz overclocks with a 4-core i7-7700k and there will be a “Kaby Lake-X” version of that chip for the X299 platform (although 4 cores suck for a workstation if you ask me).
AMD will probably also launch a new high-end desktop platform at some point.

BabaJ
I guess I was reading misleading information on how much Ram.

Plus the fact that my motherboard can only support 64GB and it is an X99.

Both the 2011-3 CPUs and the X99 chipset support 128gb, so unless the your board has only four RAM sockets, there's no way the MB producer can or will limit the max. ram quantity.

Lots of boards when they first appeared said “max. 64Gb” in their specs, but it was limited from BIOS because, as with many new platforms, bugs and quirks had to be dealt with. As time went by, most MB manufacturers updated the BIOSes and right now I don't think there's an X99 board that doesn't support 128Gb ram (again, if it's not physically limited to only four RAM sockets), yours included. Check for a BIOS update.

DaJuice
Ryzen only supports 64GB RAM.

It's true, but I'm not sure if it's a h/w limitation or a situation as described above, but going 128gb DDR4 is going to put a big hole through your pocket, especially if you want a good brand (G.Skill, Kingston, etc) at a higher frec. than 2133Mhz. Since this would not be a trivial budget increase, one has to make absolutely sure he needs 128Gb of RAM.

Hi all,

I want to say thanks very much. I always make better decisions when I can look at the same thing from more than one perspective, so all your feedback is much appreciated.



Having said that, and hoping I'm not being appreciative for your thoughts, but -

**************
@KaiStavginski
**************

No I wasn't really comparing apples to apples, but I don't think it's entirely possible because there is no equivalent spec for spec chip comparison that they are the same on both sides.

My thinking with the choice I compared is that the Ryzen has 2 more cores, .3 more GHz and 1 MB L3 cache.

With the i7 5960x yeah, it has same cores, but .6 less GHz, and 4MB more L3:
and yes the price difference between these 2 I would say is not worth it.

But the same could be said between the two i7s ( yours and the one I used ).

It's good you mention the 1700x because it's close in specs to the i7 5280k, with 2 more cores, .3 less GHz, 1 MB more in L3 cache.

But it costs $433. So its $7 less than my existing i7.

I don't want to pretend I know how much a performance gain/or not. But with 2 more cores at 1 MB more L3 cache tells me yes for multi-threaded ops, yet less performance for single threaded ops because .3GHz less.

Hard to tell I would say ( to me ) unless one had the two rigs side by side comparing by using it on day to day for the same use.

And also my base thinking around this particular point is not that I disagree with you Kai - but from all the bantering I heard months ago from different people about huge price differences.

In this case unless 2 more cores with 1 MB more L3 cache is a ‘huge’ performance increase for $7 less in price; I don't understand the ‘hype’ ( from others ).

However if the number of cores is the most important spec to consider, and you match the comparison of 8 to 8, then yeah there is a big price difference.

I don't see any i7 that has 8 cores or more whose price doesn't jump up significantly.


********
@DaJuice
********

Yeah I see what your saying, for the Xeon E3-1280 V6 alone my source and what you got are different.

For the Xeons I used - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xeon_microprocessors [en.wikipedia.org]
For the i7s I used - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors [en.wikipedia.org]

And also in the back of my mind I was thinking of overclocking.
I've never delved into doing that but from what I can tell it has come a long way in terms of being more simple to do?

I think it's probably best that I post questions on a overclocking forum to get a better idea of what I should consider in regards to power supply, cooling, and whatever else, etc.

But thanks for reminding me of that option.

********
McNistor
********

Yeah, your right, my board has 8 sockets but the ‘manual’ says only 64GB. But I understand they can be out of date.

When I was looking at getting more RAM for my current system, I noticed the shop that put my rig together used RAM that was DDR4 @ 2800 although the manual said max support was 2133.

You may have just helped me get more use out of my current system, as I can perhaps bring it up to 128GB Ram.

Thank you.