Tom's Hardware > Forum > CPU & Components > CPUs > 3D modeling: CPU or GPU's more dependant?
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kozaki   01-08-2005 at 02:06:01 PM

Hye,

I'm looking for an up-to-the-date config for oone of my best friend, who's 200% mad about 3D modeling.
He works as a graphist on 2D apps / Maya 6 / Blender on Linux + Windows as many hours a day he can. (Un)fortunatly for him, his athlon C 1000 / GeForce2 MX 32DDR / 264 SDRam personnal PC is currently dying after many years of helpfull services ;-)

So please do you know what kind of hardware would be worth for my friend's?
- I'm especially wondering which one from the the CPU & the GPU are more important for intense 3D rendering?
- wether the AMD A64 3200+ with (which) PCIe Nvidia card (ATI's not so good on Linux) can take the comparison with P4 Nortwood

Assuming he's not Bill's relative --> he can spend a bit but the price will matter quite *a lot* in his choice. I guess he can't go further than 600-800 euros (less than $1000) for a start !

Any advice please ?

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Cyrus   01-08-2005 at 05:02:07 PM
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In rendering scene, GPU doesn't affect anything. It fully use CPU and RAM power. While editing 3D objects in viewport, GPU takes a lot of role. So all of three are equally important in 3D modelling.

P4 Prescott is a bit faster then AMD 64 in rendering, I don't know about Northwood though. But if paired with next 64 bit Windows, Athlon 64 will be a lot faster IMO.

I really recomend using Nvidia instead of ATi, because Nvidia is a lot better in OpenGL which is more often used in this field.

I just bought PC for 3D modelling a month ago (which I regret a bit), priced about $900:
- P4 Prescott 3.20 GHz
- Corsair VS 2x 512 MB
- Asus Radeon X600 XT 128 MB (don't even think about getting this)
- Asus P5GD1 915P
- Seagate 120 GB SATA<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Cyrus on 01/08/05 11:06 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Reply to Cyrus
kozaki   01-08-2005 at 06:27:10 PM
- 0 +

Wow, thanks a lot for those valuables informations about CPU/GPU/Ram respective roles + just-bought Prescott 3.2GHz Cyrus !

Regarding the 64-bits CPU, while running 3DS Max7 & Maya 6, P4 seems to be a A64's killer on those 3.0-to4GHz CPU tests I just checked (yeah on Windoze, & they're in Fr but tables still readable :)

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/496/page4.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/531/page3.html
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/532/page3.html

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Cyrus   01-09-2005 at 01:50:10 PM
- 0 +

Thanks to you too, those are the benchmarks I need. ^^

Anyway here's the English version (couldn't find the first one):
<A HREF="http://www.behardware.com/articles/531/page3.html" target="_new">http://www.behardware.com/articles/531/page3.html</A>
<A HREF="http://www.behardware.com/articles/532/page3.html" target="_new">http://www.behardware.com/articles/532/page3.html</A>

The HT is helping a lot that makes P4 much better than the A64 in rendering. I'm curious though, does the DDR2 higher bandwidth help the P4's performance?

In All of their 3DSMax and Maya benchmarks, I saw the A64 3800+ and 4000+ perform about the same. Anyone knows why?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Cyrus on 01/09/05 10:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Reply to Cyrus
mozzartusm   01-09-2005 at 03:22:02 PM
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Check out the review on Amandtech. They tested about 13 Mobo's with the 915 chipset and some DDR2 and some regular DDR. I think that I remember that in order for the DDR2 to make a difference there were only a couple of Mobo's that would break the barrier and begin to outperform DDR. Dont take my word for it, You can check out and draw you on conclusions about it. If you do read the article, i would like to hear what your thoughts are. Im still undecided if its worth it yet. Like with all compnents, they will drop in price at some point.

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pat   01-09-2005 at 03:57:51 PM
- 0 +

By the way, your clickies are screwed...


-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

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silverpig   01-10-2005 at 05:05:54 AM
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I've seen (but can't remember where) some benches of true 64 bit renders in linux apps and not only are they much faster than their windows counterparts, or 32 bit linux counterparts, but the colours are MUCH truer. Like day and night.

I'd say go with a 90 mm 3200+ A64 and get a good nvidia graphics card.

s signature has been formatted to fit your scr

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Cyrus   01-10-2005 at 05:13:35 AM
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Quote :

By the way, your clickies are screwed...


Fixed that already. Sorry, I'm only an inexperience Journeyman here. :redface:

2 mozzartusm: I'm gonna check Anandtech and will report later. Thanks for the info.

Reply to Cyrus
Cyrus   01-10-2005 at 05:23:39 AM
- 0 +

I'm gonna search for that as well. Thanks to you too, silverpig. ^^
Anyway, what's the name of the Linux 64 rendering software?

Reply to Cyrus
Lazerous   01-10-2005 at 06:12:08 AM
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I model with 3DS Max a bit. The biggest hit on performance for me when I first installed max4 a few years back was not enough RAM. The AXP 1900+ I had did a fair job and the Video card for the time was ok but when you are talking about massive amounts of polygons the biggest bottleneck was not enough RAM. I boosted my RAM to 1 GIG of PC2100 and it was a difference between night and day in terms of how well that machine handled the poly's. Rendering is definately CPU based. Display is just what it is. How things appear on your screen. However it's nice to have a bunch of built in video ram so intense graphics don't have to barge into your system Ram for assistance. ;)

<font color=green>AMD 64 3700+
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
CORSAIR XMS (1gb) PC-3200
Gigabyte GF 6800gt 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
2_36.7gb Raptors/Raid 0
Tt 480 watt PSU</font color=green>

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Flamethrower205   01-10-2005 at 06:13:15 AM
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For the NVidia video card, check out Rivatuner, it's a porgram that lets u convert NVidia "gaming" cards (GeForce series) to Quadro series thru a little software hack and it doesnt void ur warranty like a hardware mod. Quadros get maxtreme drivers and opengl optimizations, which is real nice (I use 3ds max,u will notice a difference). FYI, rendering is not as bandwith intensive as it is FPU intensive, so ya need something with mad good FPU (or optimizations).

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Reply to Flamethrower205
kozaki   01-10-2005 at 01:57:51 PM
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I just wanna thank you guys,Cyrus, Silverpig, flamethrower205, Lazerous & mozzartusm for sharing those 3D modeling's related materials !
'Cause i lack knowledge & experience on this subject, your advices help quite a bit ! ^^

ps : hope my frenglish's still readable #-)


Internet <=> Share all we can.

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