- Jun 17, 2017
- 5,648
- 28,391
I'm getting excited! Threadripper 2 32 core! Looks like it launches on 13 August! And possibly as 'cheap' as $1500 US!
Note that the 24 core EPYC 7401P is currently priced in the $1200 range, and the 32 core 7551P is just over $2200..., so $1500-$1600 US sounds about right to me.
note: EPYC pricing has climbed a bit recently. Looks like there's a stronger demand for them now.
Anyways, for those of us using Daz Iray, I'm sure we've all been there...
Iray scene won't fit in GPU memory, so render goes CPU only. Which is painfully slow with 8 or less CPU cores. For reference:
- 8 Core Ryzen 1800 X, 2018 starter @ 18 minutes
- 16 core Threadripper 1950x, starter scene @ 9.25 minutes
-18 core Intel I9-7980 XE, starter scene @ 8.33 minutes
- 1080 Ti @ starter scene @ 1 minute
- Multiple 1080 Ti's - faster (divide by 2, 3, or 4 for rough estimate).
Sure, there's things you can do to shoehorn a complex scene with multiple characters into GPU memory, but it takes time to do that. But of course it will often take less time than just doing a CPU only render. Or, you can hide some of the characters and do a scene in multiple passes (different character groups in each pass), using Photoshop, etc. to merge the characters together once the renders are done. I just did this with a crossover render, in fact.
Of course, not having everything in the scene at the same time can mess with lighting reflections, shadows and such...
Even people with 1080 Tis have hit this GPU memory wall more often than they'd like...
As noted above, 16 core Threadripper will of course have better CPU only render times, as do the more expensive Intel HEDT multicore options...
But, extrapolating from the above results, 4.7 minutes (starter scene) for a 32 core CPU only render is getting within striking distance of the 'well, versus setting up multiple render passes, then merging them in photoshop, or spending the time to see if I can reduce texture sizes to make it fit, might as well just do the CPU only render' territory.
Of course, if the 16 GB+ new Nvidia card rumors end up being true...
If you are using 3Delight or other CPU only render engines though, yeah those 32 cores are already rather tantalizing!
Anyways, yeah I'm getting excited. Plus, the 60 PCIe lanes will be nice for multiple GPUs, etc. in any case! If I end up doing a build, it'll be my first desktop system in years....
The cheaper Threadripper options are already a nice value proposition for multiple (3-4) GPUs, so it'll be interesting to see if we get updated 8, 12, and 16 core versions along with the 24 and 32 core versions.
Around 1 month until launch! Looking forward to the reviews!
Note that the 24 core EPYC 7401P is currently priced in the $1200 range, and the 32 core 7551P is just over $2200..., so $1500-$1600 US sounds about right to me.
note: EPYC pricing has climbed a bit recently. Looks like there's a stronger demand for them now.
Anyways, for those of us using Daz Iray, I'm sure we've all been there...
Iray scene won't fit in GPU memory, so render goes CPU only. Which is painfully slow with 8 or less CPU cores. For reference:
- 8 Core Ryzen 1800 X, 2018 starter @ 18 minutes
- 16 core Threadripper 1950x, starter scene @ 9.25 minutes
-18 core Intel I9-7980 XE, starter scene @ 8.33 minutes
- 1080 Ti @ starter scene @ 1 minute
- Multiple 1080 Ti's - faster (divide by 2, 3, or 4 for rough estimate).
Sure, there's things you can do to shoehorn a complex scene with multiple characters into GPU memory, but it takes time to do that. But of course it will often take less time than just doing a CPU only render. Or, you can hide some of the characters and do a scene in multiple passes (different character groups in each pass), using Photoshop, etc. to merge the characters together once the renders are done. I just did this with a crossover render, in fact.
Of course, not having everything in the scene at the same time can mess with lighting reflections, shadows and such...
Even people with 1080 Tis have hit this GPU memory wall more often than they'd like...
As noted above, 16 core Threadripper will of course have better CPU only render times, as do the more expensive Intel HEDT multicore options...
But, extrapolating from the above results, 4.7 minutes (starter scene) for a 32 core CPU only render is getting within striking distance of the 'well, versus setting up multiple render passes, then merging them in photoshop, or spending the time to see if I can reduce texture sizes to make it fit, might as well just do the CPU only render' territory.
Of course, if the 16 GB+ new Nvidia card rumors end up being true...
If you are using 3Delight or other CPU only render engines though, yeah those 32 cores are already rather tantalizing!
Anyways, yeah I'm getting excited. Plus, the 60 PCIe lanes will be nice for multiple GPUs, etc. in any case! If I end up doing a build, it'll be my first desktop system in years....
The cheaper Threadripper options are already a nice value proposition for multiple (3-4) GPUs, so it'll be interesting to see if we get updated 8, 12, and 16 core versions along with the 24 and 32 core versions.
Around 1 month until launch! Looking forward to the reviews!
