Rendering machine MKii

[mycarsavw]

I completed this build (Superbudget rendering machine) last year which has been burning through projects with relative ease.

The business (and workload) has grown considerably in the past year and the need for more and more storage has meant they've outgrown the current machine. Rather than throw money at a 5 year old platform, they're going to retire the old machine, fill it with HDDs and reuse it as a backup box, knowing it can also render should the need arise.

The replacement machine will be headless, GPU-less and all software and drives have been purchased already.

We've narrowed things down to either an i7-7700, an i5-8600 or an i7-8700 but I'm in need of a bit of guidance, please.

I'm happy to share all build ideas but I don't want to overload the first post and confuse things so I'll start with the i5:

CPU: i5-8600
Cooler: NH-D15
Mobo: ASUS Prime H370-Plus
RAM: 2x8Gb DDR4
GPU: APU
PSU: Corsair CXM 550W
Case: Fractal Define R4

Do your worst!

[Millennium]

well I would suggest the 8700 if it's for rendering though threads are important so a 16 thread Ryzen might be a more budget sensible choice (and is more interesting!)_

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You missed the Ryzen 7 1700X for £150. Also TBH I would be considering the Ryzen 5 2600/2600X too.

[peterb]

Have you thought about using an Ultrium 6 tape drive (in the older machine) as your backup/archive device? A machine with that power will be able to supply data fast enough for the streamer and enable multiple backups to be created cheaply, minimising the number of disks in the machine and reducing power consumption.

[Kanoe]

I'm not sure of the build budget but if its for rendering I would throw a left field choice in there as a Threadripper 1920X machine with 12C/24T seeing as the processor is down to around £350 these days.

[mycarsavw]

Apologies for the delayed reply, I didn't spot the notification!

I've left my comprehensive pad of notes at home, but the main reason Ryzen was off the table is down to the slower performance when using warp stabilising and the boys like to use warp stabilising.

I'll have a proper look if the collective-you think it's a better choice though.

Have you thought about using an Ultrium 6 tape drive (in the older machine) as your backup/archive device? A machine with that power will be able to supply data fast enough for the streamer and enable multiple backups to be created cheaply, minimising the number of disks in the machine and reducing power consumption.

I hadn't thought of anything other than using the HDDs they already had, but that's a good shout, I'll have a look.

[mycarsavw]

Boys have indicated they'd like to go down the 8th gen route.

The proposed build is exactly the same as the one in the opening post but with an 8th gen i7:

CPU: i7-8700
Cooler: NH-D15
Mobo: ASUS Prime H370-Plus
RAM: 2x8Gb DDR4
GPU: APU
PSU: Corsair CXM 550W
Case: Fractal Define R4

I had a look at the Ultrium 6 drives and the price made my eyes water. One for the future I think, when they've made their first feature film

[DanceswithUnix]

From reading around, it sounds like warp stabilizer isn't really threaded so an i3 and an Nvidia (for CUDA) graphics card would be fine.

When you say "render", I think of something like Blender where the more cores the better.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2360219

[mycarsavw]

With the first build, the reasons for not going with a GPU were budget and CS6's lack of CUDA support.

Reading a few Puget Systems articles (this one and this one) adding anything from a GTX 580 upwards will boost performance.

However, from the first build thread we deduced the 580 was incredibly power hungry. We had to sit and work out whether the added costs of a GPU, a beefier PSU and additional cooling is worth the seconds saved - at the time, it wasn't.

But... if I can pick up an OEM 2GB GTX660 (130w power draw) for £55 from CeX that's not a lot on the budget. Were they popular mining cards?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would be very careful with the 8700 non-K. Non Z series boards tend to hard lock the CPU TDP and hence clockspeeds are not as high as you would expect and the stock cooler is also meh. In a number of cases under heavy load the Core i7 8700 ends up being Ryzen 5 6C/12T level.

[peterb]

I had a look at the Ultrium 6 drives and the price made my eyes water. One for the future I think, when they've made their first feature film

No, not cheap

These people

https://www.imagestore.co.uk/search/...&search=Search

Are as low as I have found - I have bought from them in the past - they are good.

(£1,500 for an internal drive and SAS card to drive it - of course if you are using SAS drives in the rendering engine, you would just need a bare or external SAS tape drive)

[DanceswithUnix]

But... if I can pick up an OEM 2GB GTX660 (130w power draw) for £55 from CeX that's not a lot on the budget. Were they popular mining cards?

Wouldn't have thought so, given mining is all about power efficiency.

GTX 1050 should be a better bet than a 660; it is faster, sips power and £125 new shouldn't break the budget.

I think there is something interesting in this article, but it seems shoddy enough that I'm not sure I can dig it out:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3...k-gpu-vs-ryzen

From a quick skim read, they say they are using a 8700K because it has integrated graphics which bring it up to threadripper speeds for much less money, yet they say they used a 1080ti in all the builds so it would have been using that not the igp? I don't think I have *ever* built a machine with no graphics at all just in case the machine fails to boot the last thing I want to do is go scrabbling for a GPU to hook up a monitor to see what failed, so even if they used a cheap 1030 gpu it would outperform an intel integrated graphics making the big multi core chips (Intel and AMD both) a lot faster.

I dunno, this isn't my field so I was only showing a passing interest and I have work to do so can't dig further, but perhaps you can pick that apart in more detail.

[scaryjim]

… From a quick skim read, they say they are using a 8700K because it has integrated graphics which bring it up to threadripper speeds for much less money, yet they say they used a 1080ti in all the builds so it would have been using that not the igp? …

I think the key is

Adobe recently added IGP-enabled acceleration to its Premiere video editing and creation software

which seems to mean that the software uses *both* the IGP and the 1080 Ti for acceleration where available. Dunno if that's because different tasks respond better to Intel's IGP/OpenCL v CUDA, or if it simply provides additional acceleration of GPU accelerated tasks...

[DanceswithUnix]

I think the key is which seems to mean that the software uses *both* the IGP and the 1080 Ti for acceleration where available. Dunno if that's because different tasks respond better to Intel's IGP/OpenCL v CUDA, or if it simply provides additional acceleration of GPU accelerated tasks...

I went back for another quick look, and you are right. I think this is the key graphic:



Which shows CUDA turned off where the IGP make no real difference, yet with CUDA turned on it seems to streamline a pipeline somewhere and gets a good speed boost. In fact, I make 349vs347 about a half percent improvement which sounds like experimental error margin to me and I suspect by turning off CUDA they have turned off all GPU accel?

This does make the GPU look quite important though, going back to the original question.

[mycarsavw]

I would be very careful with the 8700 non-K. Non Z series boards tend to hard lock the CPU TDP and hence clockspeeds are not as high as you would expect and the stock cooler is also meh. In a number of cases under heavy load the Core i7 8700 ends up being Ryzen 5 6C/12T level.

I started with a K build but thought, perhaps wrongly, that as we weren't going to be overclocking I'd be wasting money that would be better spent on RAM. I'll see what sort of price differences we're looking at before making a decision. Thanks Cat.

Wouldn't have thought so, given mining is all about power efficiency.

GTX 1050 should be a better bet than a 660; it is faster, sips power and £125 new shouldn't break the budget.

I think there is something interesting in this article, but it seems shoddy enough that I'm not sure I can dig it out:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3...k-gpu-vs-ryzen

From a quick skim read, they say they are using a 8700K because it has integrated graphics which bring it up to threadripper speeds for much less money, yet they say they used a 1080ti in all the builds so it would have been using that not the igp? I don't think I have *ever* built a machine with no graphics at all just in case the machine fails to boot the last thing I want to do is go scrabbling for a GPU to hook up a monitor to see what failed, so even if they used a cheap 1030 gpu it would outperform an intel integrated graphics making the big multi core chips (Intel and AMD both) a lot faster.

I dunno, this isn't my field so I was only showing a passing interest and I have work to do so can't dig further, but perhaps you can pick that apart in more detail.

Nice find, I've been using a lot of their articles to try and bring everything together. I missed this one completely, thank you.

As for your bold comment above, you've been a massive help, both here and on the previous thread so thank you, don't do yourself a disservice

I think the key is which seems to mean that the software uses *both* the IGP and the 1080 Ti for acceleration where available. Dunno if that's because different tasks respond better to Intel's IGP/OpenCL v CUDA, or if it simply provides additional acceleration of GPU accelerated tasks...

I went back for another quick look, and you are right. I think this is the key graphic:

Which shows CUDA turned off where the IGP make no real difference, yet with CUDA turned on it seems to streamline a pipeline somewhere and gets a good speed boost. In fact, I make 349vs347 about a half percent improvement which sounds like experimental error margin to me and I suspect by turning off CUDA they have turned off all GPU accel?

This does make the GPU look quite important though, going back to the original question.

Noted, I wonder if this is geared towards all versions of Premier Pro or whether it's just for the newer releases. Either way, your last sentence is key. A GPU makes a difference.

Time to revisit my original plans I think.

No, not cheap

These people

https://www.imagestore.co.uk/search/...&search=Search

Are as low as I have found - I have bought from them in the past - they are good.

(£1,500 for an internal drive and SAS card to drive it - of course if you are using SAS drives in the rendering engine, you would just need a bare or external SAS tape drive)

Bookmarked for the future, thanks Peter

[mycarsavw]

Double Post achievement unlocked.

CPU: i7-8700K
Cooler: NH-D15
Mobo: MIS Z370-A Pro
RAM: 2x8Gb DDR4
GPU: GTX 1050 2GB
PSU: Corsair CXM 550W
Case: Fractal Define R4

With a 10Gb NIC and an M.2 SSD we're just knocking on a grand.