About to buy a new Workstation. Need MOBO. Please help.

[JoostinOnline]

19 minutes ago, bowrilla said:

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not telling anybody not to go Ryzen. I just wanted to point out, that there might be issues with the amount of RAM @Iskren planned with in the first place. Since he's relying heavily on GPUs to do stuff, I'm also not sure why 64GB or RAM were necessary. 

Yet there's another thing. Since I have no experience with that many GPUs in a single system I wonder if there are compatible AM4 boards around. I think E-ATX boards aren't yet available for Ryzen? Can't find anything else than 3x full sized PCIe ports on AM4 boards so far.

You don't need full PCIe ports.  A 1080 Ti will perform the same on a x1 as it will on a x16 slot.  The bandwidth is so high that no current card will saturate it.  All you need is a riser, or (if you're too cheap) to cut the back out of the PCIe slots.

12 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

You do realize that right after Threadripper drops, Intel is dropping a 36 thread CPU, right?

I do, at well over double the price.  Here in Realistic Land (™) we consider price before recommending something. I'm not telling him to get EPYC either. 

 

PS: AMD comes up with the dumbest names.

[done12many2]

4 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I do, at well over double the price.  Here in Realistic Land (™) we consider price before recommending something. I'm not telling him to get EPYC either. 

 

See the thing with my last reply was that I said on a purely performance level, Intel wins out.  The reason why I mentioned this is that the OP hasn't expressed any concerns with his budget.  He's even gone as far as mentioning that he knows that AMD is a cheaper alternative, yet we keep talking about value.  While this is an important factor for most people, it's doesn't beat out other people desire for the highest performing part regardless of cost.  

 

It's like a Titan Xp versus a 1080 Ti.  Some people are going to buy that Titan Xp for twice as much money just for that extra 10%.  If they need/want it, that's just the way it works.

 

4 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

PS: AMD comes up with the dumbest names.

 

Intel isn't any better at that.  

[JoostinOnline]

30 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

See the thing with my last reply was that I said on a purely performance level, Intel wins out.  The reason why I mentioned this is that the OP hasn't expressed any concerns with his budget.

Fair enough.  If you've got the money, the 36 thread Intel CPU will be the best option.  At least until EPYC comes out.

 

[done12many2]

Just now, JoostinOnline said:

Fair enough.  If you've got the money, the 36 thread Intel CPU will be the best option.  At least until EPYC comes out.

 

 

Well, I am trying to stay in the consumer market.  I don't think any of us would like that motherboards that will support EPYC.  

[Iskren]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

https://www.gskill.com/en/press/view/g-skill-announces-flare-x-series-and-fortis-series-ddr4-memory-for-amd-ryzen

 

It's not about bandwidth.  It's about frequency.  And honestly, I can't see why someone would need 64GB of RAM with modern technology, unless they were running a ton of virtual machines (which he isn't).  So yes, there is a catch.  As I said, it's not perfect.  But overall, it's way better than Intel.  It doesn't have to have 3200MHz RAM to be better.  That's just where it's best.  So you can always use 2400MHz now and upgrade later.

Believe me, I need em. Even 64gb are low for what I do
Clocks are more important for me by the way. Otherwise I would end up with dual xeons till now. 8 cores @4.5ghz will work a lot better than 24 cores @2.6ghz in the simulation software I am using.
Also, about AMD... for some reason I couldn't find a motherboard with more than 3 PCI-E slots. But maybe they will release with the new CPU's. Plus, right now ryzens are with 28 pcie lanes as far as I know.

Also that "waiting" is killing me. Okay lets say I will wait for the AMD to release their new processors. But then what ? Then I have to wait few months more for Intel to release their 7980x to see if it's going to be better and cheaper. After that I have to wait more for the AMD's again. This can go to the infinify and beyond  

[JoostinOnline]

24 minutes ago, Iskren said:

Believe me, I need em. Even 64gb are low for what I do
Clocks are more important for me by the way. Otherwise I would end up with dual xeons till now. 8 cores @4.5ghz will work a lot better than 24 cores @2.6ghz in the simulation software I am using.

That's like getting an i3 over an i5 because it has a higher frequency.  Core count matters waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more in any kind of content creation.

24 minutes ago, Iskren said:

Believe me, I need em. Even 64gb are low for what I do
Clocks are more important for me by the way. Otherwise I would end up with dual xeons till now. 8 cores @4.5ghz will work a lot better than 24 cores @2.6ghz in the simulation software I am using.

What software?

 

24 minutes ago, Iskren said:

Also, about AMD... for some reason I couldn't find a motherboard with more than 3 PCI-E slots. But maybe they will release with the new CPU's.

Fuck.  There are a lot of them, but I remembered NVIDIA requires you to have 8x slots, even though 4x ones would work just fine (as seen on Crossfire).

 

24 minutes ago, Iskren said:

Also, about AMD... for some reason I couldn't find a motherboard with more than 3 PCI-E slots. But maybe they will release with the new CPU's. Plus, right now ryzens are with 28 pcie lanes as far as I know.

40 actually, although 28 would be more than enough.

 

 

This sucks.  You have to go Intel, since Ryzen motherboards don't support 3 way SLI.  Fuck NVIDIA and their ridiculous restrictions.  AMD has their fair share of problems, but at least they've always been more consumer friendly.  They don't make any high end graphics cards, and if they did then they'd probably get way too hot for 3 way crossfire.

 

Unless you want to Crossfire four or five R9 Fury X's, Ryzen is off the table.  

[Iskren]

Some of the software I am using is not super multithreading. It could work better with 10cores than with 4 cores, but 24 cores wont be twice faster.

Software: 3Ds Max and RealFlow.
As far as I know in GPU rendering, speed matters. Scene will load into VRAM a lot faster with x16 than with x1.

 

No, no It's not about SLI. Sli will decrease my performance in rendering. It's about having a cpu and motherboard with 40+pcie lanes and at least 8x.

[Iskren]

I am almost sure Apex will be my choice. I will wait to see few reviews first.

[bowrilla]

34 minutes ago, Iskren said:

Software: 3Ds Max and RealFlow.
As far as I know in GPU rendering, speed matters. Scene will load into VRAM a lot faster with x16 than with x1.

Well, I'm not familiar with RealFlow but if it's about rendering as in raytracing then a lot of the renderers out there don't support CPU & GPU rendering. I use Thea with Sketchup and as a standalone suite and it only supports GPU & CPU raytracing with one specific engine. The unbiased engine for best quality results only runs on my GPU. Since raytracing scales perfectly with multiple threads (CUDA cores and CPU cores, depending on the chosen engine) you will benefit from more cores rather than from higher clock rates since clock rates don't scale at the same rate as cores (Ryzen 7 can quite easily be oc'ed up to 4,0GHz+ while having twice as many cores compared to an i7 while being only about 20% slower at max clock speeds).

Then again, it will be tricky to power 4 GPUs with current lineup of AM4 boards unless you're willing to use riser cards

You should do some more reasearch on wether RealFlow will actually benefit from a mix of GPU+CPU power or if that engine will mostly rely on GPU power. Because if If that's the case there's no real point in spending a heckload of money on a 10 core i9 – other than having the largest … thermal output.

[Iskren]

Thank you Bowrilla. Realflow is simulation software. It simulates mostly liquids and it uses a lot of RAM. Simulation works with CPU and GPU together. I am not sure if CPU or GPU is used mostly. Also Particle Flow in 3Ds Max and Marvelous Designer, which is cloth simulator uses only CPU. Those GPU's are mostly to decrease the render time. I am using FStorm, I swapped from VRay, because FStorm is a lot faste, cheaperr and easier to work with.

[bowrilla]

2 hours ago, Iskren said:

Thank you Bowrilla. Realflow is simulation software. It simulates mostly liquids and it uses a lot of RAM. Simulation works with CPU and GPU together. I am not sure if CPU or GPU is used mostly. Also Particle Flow in 3Ds Max and Marvelous Designer, which is cloth simulator uses only CPU. Those GPU's are mostly to decrease the render time. I am using FStorm, I swapped from VRay, because FStorm is a lot faste, cheaperr and easier to work with.

Yeah, had a look at Realflow. This FAQ from 2016 gives some hints: it's all about cores. So throw as many at it as you can. You thought i9 10 core? Why not Xeon 20 or 24 core? Or wait for Threadripper and/or larger CPUs by team blue on X299. 

[scottyseng]

4 hours ago, Iskren said:

Thank you Bowrilla. Realflow is simulation software. It simulates mostly liquids and it uses a lot of RAM. Simulation works with CPU and GPU together. I am not sure if CPU or GPU is used mostly. Also Particle Flow in 3Ds Max and Marvelous Designer, which is cloth simulator uses only CPU. Those GPU's are mostly to decrease the render time. I am using FStorm, I swapped from VRay, because FStorm is a lot faste, cheaperr and easier to work with.

Hmm, that makes me curious. I'm mostly learning Vray but I'll check Fstorm out (Looking for a good renderer to stick with for my 3D modeling hobby).

 

I know Vray you need both GPU and CPU, even in CUDA RT. The CPU builds the light cache, which is very demanding depending on the scene. The CPU also has to feed the GPUs while they're rendering, I remember RT was using 70-90% CPU on my 2700K vs 25% on my Xeon E5-2695V3. The latest version of Vray RT supports CPU and GPU rendering though.

[Iskren]

22 hours ago, bowrilla said:

Yeah, had a look at Realflow. This FAQ from 2016 gives some hints: it's all about cores. So throw as many at it as you can. You thought i9 10 core? Why not Xeon 20 or 24 core? Or wait for Threadripper and/or larger CPUs by team blue on X299. 

Because 24 cores costs 7200USD and I cant even play GTA normally with that CPU.
Cinebench result of 7200USD CPU is 2900, while result of 999USD is 2400. Why should I pay $6000 more ? Especially when I am focused in GPU rendering.
Plus... ECC RAM is very very expensive.

[Iskren]

20 hours ago, scottyseng said:

Hmm, that makes me curious. I'm mostly learning Vray but I'll check Fstorm out (Looking for a good renderer to stick with for my 3D modeling hobby).

 

I know Vray you need both GPU and CPU, even in CUDA RT. The CPU builds the light cache, which is very demanding depending on the scene. The CPU also has to feed the GPUs while they're rendering, I remember RT was using 70-90% CPU on my 2700K vs 25% on my Xeon E5-2695V3. The latest version of Vray RT supports CPU and GPU rendering though.

Yesss that's why i stopped using VRay. Fstorm uses almost nothing from the CPU. Everything works fast and soft If you need the DEMO i can give it to you. Right now it's not available because Octane render sues FStorm for stealing their source code... silly.
You can see my work here if you want: https://www.behance.net/iskren8711f8

[scottyseng]

2 hours ago, Iskren said:

Yesss that's why i stopped using VRay. Fstorm uses almost nothing from the CPU. Everything works fast and soft If you need the DEMO i can give it to you. Right now it's not available because Octane render sues FStorm for stealing their source code... silly.
You can see my work here if you want: https://www.behance.net/iskren8711f8

Ah, if you can send me the demo, please do. I was a little lost on the website trying to find a demo or even a purchase link. It seems pretty interesting.

 

I'll have to start saving up and making more slave render node servers...

[rockon5622]

On 7/3/2017 at 5:21 AM, tom_w141 said:

AMD are using the same Zen die across their entire CPU product stack. They have an 80% yield for an 8 core die that costs $30 to produce with 8 functioning cores. If a say only 6 cores are functional then they can still use it for Ryzen 5 and if only 4 are functional for Ryzen 3. This means their actual yield is something like 97-98% (someone on reddit did a page of math to theorise this). What this means for AMD is that their waste is very very low, combine that with the low cost and modular design of their new product stack means they can undercut Intel and still make plenty of profit (Intel's yields are much lower + Brand Tax). The only "catch" with this design is that a zen core can only really do 4.1Ghz on average.

Where did they get a yield value? That number is very very confidential.

[tom_w141]

9 hours ago, rockon5622 said:

Where did they get a yield value? That number is very very confidential.

AMD "leak" information that they are happy with. 80% yield on an 8 core is real bragging rights. Everything after that is reddit napkin math though. Search and you will find.

[rockon5622]

On 7/5/2017 at 3:19 AM, tom_w141 said:

AMD "leak" information that they are happy with. 80% yield on an 8 core is real bragging rights. Everything after that is reddit napkin math though. Search and you will find.

I see. Also why is no one giving credit to globalfoundaries?

[tom_w141]

4 minutes ago, rockon5622 said:

I see. Also why is no one giving credit to globalfoundaries?

Because they aren't the face of it. Just like Intel or Apple never give credit either.