Equal core Xeon or i7 for 3D rendering

[PiccoG]

I am aware that xeons are supposed to be used mainly for servers and workloads that utilize more cores and threads and the i7 processors are meant for desktop use. However, would a Xeon(s) with equal number of cores and relatively close ghz to an i7 actually out perform when it comes to 3D or video rendering? I have searched quite a bit online but haven't found a satisfying answer.

I've noticed recently that my 3930k often reaches 100% during a 3D model render or a bake of my scenes lighting in Unreal Engine 4. I'm hoping to upgrade soon but I am lost when it comes to Xeons. Im on a tight budget so would a Xeon(s) or an i7 of reasonable and relatively similar price points actually have that much of a difference in performance?

[Enderman]

its very close

[McHox]

I've noticed recently that my 3930k often reaches 100% during a 3D model render or a bake of my scenes lighting in Unreal Engine 4.

that's how it's supposed to be lol

[trag1c]

I am aware that xeons are supposed to be used mainly for servers and workloads that utilize more cores and threads and the i7 processors are meant for desktop use. However, would a Xeon(s) with equal number of cores and relatively close ghz to an i7 actually out perform when it comes to 3D or video rendering? I have searched quite a bit online but haven't found a satisfying answer.

I've noticed recently that my 3930k often reaches 100% during a 3D model render or a bake of my scenes lighting in Unreal Engine 4. I'm hoping to upgrade soon but I am lost when it comes to Xeons. Im on a tight budget so would a Xeon(s) or an i7 of reasonable and relatively similar price points actually have that much of a difference in performance?

 

You will hit 100% usage across all cores in 3D rendering and such. These systems are specifically coded to take advantage of as many cores as possible. If you got a 18 Core Xeon or a 4 Core I7 you still will hit 100% usage. Thats said though the more cores you get the better. 

 

 

Edit: Another thing you could do is setup a small compute server or cluster that way you can continue to work since you development computer isn't doing the computations. 

 

At least thats my plan for my workflow which is mainly 3D rendering and compiling. I am looking at getting a couple of 14 core Xeons off of ebay.

[Nonco]

iirc, the xeons are very close in performance to i7's but without an iGPU? Correct me if im wrong tho hehe

[Sam Z Man]

If they are the same architecture you can compare based souly on core count and clockspeed.

The individual cores of a xeon vs a i7 are identical when they come from the same generation.

[trag1c]

iirc, the xeons are very close in performance to i7's but without an iGPU? Correct me if im wrong tho hehe

 

For LGA 1150 I would say yeah its about the same but on LGA 2011-3 the Xeons will definitely beat out the i7s for his workflow.

[scottyseng]

-snip-

 

Yeah, I bought one engineering sample E5-2695V3 from eBay for $600. I really wish I had more money, I would've bought two more (I would've put two in my NAS and rebuilt my main PC with one). I have the chip as my CPU in my NAS. My idea was to make the NAS render (Since it's on 24/7 unlike my PC). This CPU eats my 2500K alive. I think on cinebench, the 14 core beats out the 5960X (Except the super high overclocked ones). It also uses a really low amount of power (Even under Intel Burn test, the vCore never got over .089v at 2.5GHz on all cores). It just idles right not at 1% CPU usage for most of it's life so far...I haven't been able to get it to break 5% in normal non-rendering workloads).

 

However, if the core counts are the same, the Xeon will not beat a overlocked i7. They should perform the same if they are the same clock though, just the Xeon should use slightly less power. The strength in Xeons are in the higher core count models, being able to pair multiple CPUs on one board, and ECC RAM.

 

If I have my 2500K at 4.6GHz fight on one core against my NAS with the 14 core Xeon, the 2500K will win because it has the higher core clock. On the other hand, with all cores, the Xeon is about 3.5 times faster than the 2500K on cinebench.