Hi Guys!
I can't help myself sharing my excitement with you for my new PC system build for mainly TG, but perhaps also others like Houdini...who knows.
I really needed a new system, since my 8 year old quad core 2600k with 16GB RAM is really holding me back in creating my ideas.
Especially creating them faster and without memory restraints.
It will allow me to run larger and faster simulations of erosion, or populating instances.
My current project takes over 1 hour to populate just 5 populations over a 32x16km area with 2x 5m and 3x10m spacing.
Yes that's big and a bit densely, I know, but it kills workflow and iteration speed.
So with this new build I can iterate faster in all aspects.
Twice!
Some time ago I started a thread about renderthread scalability and it clearly showed that TG does not scale well beyond 12 threads.
Usually while rendering/simulating/populating I want to keep working on ideas. So 12 cores/24 threads for that and the other cores/threads for the other TG instance or whatever other CG software.
No waiting, no Youtubing, just keep on churning and burning. In some cases I could still render with 16/32 or 20/40 and have a workable 2nd TG instance. There's so much more I can do once I have this machine.
I'm really excited by this idea as there's so much I have in mind which I cannot create now or don't have the patience for since my PC isn't powerful enough. This will fix it all!
So in the end I took the decision to go for a bit of overkill with my machine, but I think it will be definitely worth it and I hope it will serve me equally well as my 2600k did for 8 years!
It will also mean I will probably be a lot more active here and elsewhere, because I really needed this to re-invigorate my TG/CG hobby.
Ultimately I would like to work part-time at my science job and do more freelance work on the side. Or the opposite ;)
Learning other tools while not being limited by your old machine will probably also help make it less painful/annoying, I hope. Let's see!
System build:
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X
G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200C15Q2-128GTZ
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB M.2 - SSD, 1x
Samsung 860 EVO 1TB - SSD, 2x
Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 (CPU air cooler)
Corsair HXi Series HX850i (PSU)
Asus PRIME TRX40-PRO
Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C Black
ASUS Turbo GeForce RTX 2060 Super EVO
be quiet! Silent Wings 3
Noctua NF-A15 PWM
I gave this quite a bit of thought and research, so hopefully I did not make obvious mistakes.
For a moment I was seriously investigating AIO liquid coolers, but the noise profiles vs cooling performance were not really convincing to me.
Better cooling, but generally quite loud.
Also the idea of potential leakage and moving parts like the pump eventually causing issues or even more noise did make me decide to go for the slightly less effective, but more reliable air cooling.
The GPU is not top notch, but isn't of much priority at this stage.
Say I'd like to learn Houdini, then most of it is still CPU based, like the renderer.
Simulations can be ran on the GPU and this one will still be no slough and I have insane CPU thread numbers anyway.
If I will get really serious with it eventually then I'd need to re-invest anyway, but at this stage I cannot justify that.
I first need to develop the base skills which may eventually lead me to desiring more powerful GPU's. At this stage it's all mostly TG oriented, thus a GTX 2060 seemed like a good compromise.
Anyway...wayyyy too much text here!!
Can't wait! See you guys!
Cheers,
Martin
Nice!!
Looking forward to seeing the TG benchmarks :)
Yeah, great! Can't wait to see you around again with some nice renders. It's too quiet here anyway. Also looking forward to your experience with this setup.
Don't think you'll have any limitations on any software with that system. 8)
Was that 128 Gigs of ram?
Very glad to see you'll soon have a machine worthy of your environment design and rendering talent and inspiration! Judging by the recent addition of a nearly chart-topping Ryzen 9 3950x to our TG4 benchmark list, I think you'll find your new machine to be quite something! https://planetside.co.uk/terragen-4-benchmark-results/
Looking forward to seeing your own benchmark results and much more in the future. :)
- Oshyan
Thank you guys :)
@Dune Yeah it's quiet, but it has been worse I think. I hope to receive my machine the end of the next week, some parts have 2-3 working days for delivery to their shop and then it all needs to be assembled and tested.
@Hetzen Haha yes I hope so that I can run anything I like on it for about 6-8 years!
Yes you are right, it's 128GB. I was even considering 256GB, mostly because I intend to use this machine 6-8 years as well and who knows what's possible then.
However, the fastest 256GB DDR4 kit is somewhere around 2600MhZ if I recall correctly. Threadripper syncs with its memory at 3200Mhz, so it's best to team it up with memory of this speed.
Benchmarks of the same Zen2 architecture showed that RAM speed made a difference, so in the end I chose for "only" 128GB, because that will ensure I will not bottleneck my CPU. It also saves a fair bit of money.
@cyphyr and
@Oshyan Yeah I'm curious too! Honestly I don't expect to become the highest ranking one. It's funny that #1 and #5 seem to have same specs and same TG version, yet differ quite a lot with each other!
My current machine renders the benchmark in 26 minutes or so, so anything around 4m30s would mean almost 6x faster rendering and I would be really really happy with that.
I really hope TG will scale a bit better at some point though. My current machine has a Cinebench R20 score of 1300 while this new threadripper consistently scores >13000 points. Very impressive performance.
At this point it all doesn't matter that much, since I intend to use 2 instances at once. Can't wait!
Wow that looks like a top-notch system for today! I'm sure you'll be surprised by the difference from your past system.
The difference in those top scores seems to be RAM related. Being able to swap out data fast can make a pretty big impact.
@WAS Well, hopefully you are right then! :)
The monster is on its way, finally.
Should have it tomorrow, hopefully I can benchmark the same day.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 19, 2019, 07:50:22 AMThe monster is on its way, finally.
Should have it tomorrow, hopefully I can benchmark the same day.
I was so excited with my new PC it was one of the first things I did before installing anything else xD
It was THE first thing I did :)
Quote from: cyphyr on December 19, 2019, 01:24:47 PMIt was THE first thing I did :)
I had to install Firefox from USB. I refuse to launch Edge xD
It ripped itself through the benchmark in 3 minutes 32 seconds...damn!
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 20, 2019, 05:35:25 PMIt ripped itself through the benchmark in 3 minutes 32 seconds...damn!
:o :o :o Wow, that is *insane*! More than a minute faster than the next fastest result. Totally worth it, eh? :D
- Oshyan
The third gen lineup sure seems to be raising new bars on price vs performance. That's a really incredible. What's also incredible is what this last gen of CPUs (from both fronts) has done with the Terragen benchmark list. I hope Oshyan keeps the old listings cause it will be cool to look back on in a few years. Especially tackling new benchmarks and features. I'd love to see a benchmarks tackling different scenarios, like path tracing, lighting and reflections, etc.
Wow! :o So where I can do one render, you can do 4 or 5. Is it still a quiet machine or do you get blasted out of the office?
Quote from: Dune on December 21, 2019, 02:03:38 AMWow! :o So where I can do one render, you can do 4 or 5. Is it still a quiet machine or do you get blasted out of the office?
Yeah it's crazy stupid!
Admittedly it's not as quiet as I expected, but I already noticed it differs quite a bit on the workload.
The benchmark was pretty loud here and there, similar to my old machine, but when rendering a path traced scene it's a whole lot more quiet.
When idling the machine is way more quiet than my old one and it's actually the fan of my -also to be replaced- monitor which I'm hearing most now.
Quote from: Oshyan on December 20, 2019, 06:43:32 PMQuote from: Tangled-Universe on December 20, 2019, 05:35:25 PMIt ripped itself through the benchmark in 3 minutes 32 seconds...damn!
:o :o :o Wow, that is *insane*! More than a minute faster than the next fastest result. Totally worth it, eh? :D
- Oshyan
It's insane indeed! :D I had to run it again to make sure it was real.
It's totally above all expectations!
I was kind of extrapolating performance from a combination of review data on how the 3900X, 3950X and previous threadrippers perform compared to this new line of threadrippers. My Cinebench score on the old one was 1300 and for this threadripper ~13700. I had an idea of how these Cinebench scores related to TG4 benchmark performance and I guesstimated that I would hopefully cut render times by a factor of 6. From 27 minutes to somewhere in between 4 and 4m30s.
Now it's nearly 8! I couldn't be more happy!
Finally I can use RTP for clouds in its full glory and it's sooooo much nicer!
So yeah, for now totally worth it!
Excellent. And how does it measure up to your extrapolations/projections about performance and threading efficiency from earlier?
- Oshyan
No chance yet...had to return the machine due to a faulty CPU :( (their first guess given my description of the issues)
Wow, really? What a letdown. :( Hope you get it back soon!
- Oshyan
That's disappointing :(
Feeling silly now having just bought the 3900x!
Thanks Oshyan and Ulco, it's indeed quite a letdown/disappointment.
On the other hand it's probably better the issue showed immediately, which probably makes troubleshooting a lot easier.
I hope to have it back at the end of this week, let's see.
Quote from: RogueNZ on December 29, 2019, 04:03:02 AMFeeling silly now having just bought the 3900x!
Why!? It's a great processor! It's also quite different from a Threadripper, so no worries whether if your 3900x might be faulty as well, should that be the reason why you feel silly. No need to!
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 29, 2019, 06:43:02 AMThanks Oshyan and Ulco, it's indeed quite a letdown/disappointment.
On the other hand it's probably better the issue showed immediately, which probably makes troubleshooting a lot easier.
I hope to have it back at the end of this week, let's see.
Quote from: RogueNZ on December 29, 2019, 04:03:02 AMFeeling silly now having just bought the 3900x!
Why!? It's a great processor! It's also quite different from a Threadripper, so no worries whether if your 3900x might be faulty as well, should that be the reason why you feel silly. No need to!
Did you buy prebuilt? I know some companies are undervolting hardware. Mine was. 450watt PSU when the GPU alone required 500 watt for the whole system, so testing my new PC with TG and Blender yielded crashes, no post, all sorts of weird stuff.
Calculating CPU, peripherals, fans, lights, GPU and HDDs I needed at least 650watt so put in a 750watt and no more problems
The specs are in my opening post, FYI.
The system is fed by a 850W power supply.
CPU = ~270W
GPU = ~300W
Other = ~150W
In total that's ~720W so I added a bit of leeway by choosing a 850W supply.
The system is custom built for me and I chose all its individual components myself.
When I returned the machine to the shop last Friday I spoke with one of their assembly staff and went through the setup and why I chose those components, but he saw no obvious flaws in any of my choices.
On the contrary, instead he said he was happy to see someone was finally not skimming on things like Motherboard, PSU, extra cooling and other more future proof choices.
Fingers crossed this will happen just one time.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 30, 2019, 03:37:41 PMThe specs are in my opening post, FYI.
The system is fed by a 850W power supply.
CPU = ~270W
GPU = ~300W
Other = ~150W
In total that's ~720W so I added a bit of leeway by choosing a 850W supply.
The system is custom built for me and I chose all its individual components myself.
When I returned the machine to the shop last Friday I spoke with one of their assembly staff and went through the setup and why I chose those components, but he saw no obvious flaws in any of my choices.
On the contrary, instead he said he was happy to see someone was finally not skimming on things like Motherboard, PSU, extra cooling and other more future proof choices.
Fingers crossed this will happen just one time.
You just can't skimp on parts. I had, and still have a lot to replace in the PC my fiancee got me. The PSU was the most vital. Especially one rated for 24/hr use.
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 29, 2019, 06:43:02 AMThanks Oshyan and Ulco, it's indeed quite a letdown/disappointment.
On the other hand it's probably better the issue showed immediately, which probably makes troubleshooting a lot easier.
I hope to have it back at the end of this week, let's see.
Quote from: RogueNZ on December 29, 2019, 04:03:02 AMFeeling silly now having just bought the 3900x!
Why!? It's a great processor! It's also quite different from a Threadripper, so no worries whether if your 3900x might be faulty as well, should that be the reason why you feel silly. No need to!
Having looked at the price of Threadripper, back to feeling happy again :D
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on December 29, 2019, 06:43:02 AMThanks Oshyan and Ulco, it's indeed quite a letdown/disappointment.
On the other hand it's probably better the issue showed immediately, which probably makes troubleshooting a lot easier.
I hope to have it back at the end of this week, let's see.
Quote from: RogueNZ on December 29, 2019, 04:03:02 AMFeeling silly now having just bought the 3900x!
Why!? It's a great processor! It's also quite different from a Threadripper, so no worries whether if your 3900x might be faulty as well, should that be the reason why you feel silly. No need to!
How do they differ besides speeds and cache? They're both Zen 2 processors. the only real difference is sTRX4 socket type. That's the "magic" about the Threadrippers, is it's kinda a "Why hasn't Intel done this?" sorta thing.
More PCI lanes and greater max RAM capacity, for instance.
Nice build sir ! I'm about to build something around the 3960x too, got almost all the part picked except the cooler.
The only TR4 water cooler that full cover cpu (enermax LIQTECH TR4 360) has such bad review that I will pass.
This one looks promising : https://www.icegiantcooling.com/ ... but not available before months I suppose. I will go with the Noctua for the moment too.
Anyway, nice to see your result in Terragen, that's a really impressive score !
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on January 03, 2020, 11:45:52 AMMore PCI lanes and greater max RAM capacity, for instance.
Thaaat's not really a design difference, that's allowance because of power...
Maybe actually look up the CPU architecture. You said they're quite different when they're essentially the same in different form factors, one having of course a lot more core-head room for I/O, PCI lanes, and RAM, but this is inherent to any CPU and isn't a "difference" beyond performance. Architecture is CPU differences, which would also encompass CPU compatibility.
Usually when people talk about CPU differences, it's architecture. Like Zen 1 vs Zen 2, or Zen 2 vs Ice Lake or something of that, which actually compares differences in CPU architecture and functionality.
Jordan, check your language. There's no need in the belittling if you disagree with something.
Quote from: Hetzen on January 06, 2020, 03:50:03 PMJordan, check your language. There's no need in the belittling if you disagree with something.
Don't read so far into things, and considering the whole issue between us started with Martin's continued belittling, erroneously, lol.
Some things aren't about opinions, also. They're about facts. You're either wrong or not. Applying opinions would be negligent and serves as an avenue for misinformation.
They're both Zen 2 CPUs, on the same architecture... one is in a different socket type because of it's beef. But nothing is quite different beyond that, that wouldn't be expected like any line of CPUs. But the EPYC system performs on the same performance scale as any other Zen 2, with the same instruction sets.
Quote from: WAS on January 06, 2020, 04:54:58 PMQuote from: Hetzen on January 06, 2020, 03:50:03 PMJordan, check your language. There's no need in the belittling if you disagree with something.
Don't read so far into things, and considering the whole issue between us started with Martin's continued belittling, erroneously, lol.
Some things aren't about opinions, also. They're about facts. You're either wrong or not. Applying opinions would be negligent and serves as an avenue for misinformation.
It's a general comment. I'd rather get to the truth of something without any losers.
Quote from: Hetzen on January 06, 2020, 04:57:26 PMQuote from: WAS on January 06, 2020, 04:54:58 PMQuote from: Hetzen on January 06, 2020, 03:50:03 PMJordan, check your language. There's no need in the belittling if you disagree with something.
Don't read so far into things, and considering the whole issue between us started with Martin's continued belittling, erroneously, lol.
Some things aren't about opinions, also. They're about facts. You're either wrong or not. Applying opinions would be negligent and serves as an avenue for misinformation.
It's a general comment. I'd rather get to the truth of something without any losers.
Suppose your right, but there may be a loser when it comes to thinking there is such a great difference and taking such comments as advise (especially vs price). In fact, they're quite comparable considering the scale, with again, the same instruction sets, so nothing you can run on EPYC wouldn't run on any other Zen 2.
Only you are making this a competition.
Quote from: Hetzen on January 06, 2020, 05:05:25 PMOnly you are making this a competition.
I'd refer to Martin's posts for awhile, in that case. Lol Passive aggressive comments and instigation aside, I don't think you know how talk to people that are having a issue.
Quote from: paq on January 06, 2020, 09:00:21 AMNice build sir ! I'm about to build something around the 3960x too, got almost all the part picked except the cooler.
The only TR4 water cooler that full cover cpu (enermax LIQTECH TR4 360) has such bad review that I will pass.
This one looks promising : https://www.icegiantcooling.com/ ... but not available before months I suppose. I will go with the Noctua for the moment too.
Anyway, nice to see your result in Terragen, that's a really impressive score !
Oh wow that's cool! No pun intended here :P
I saw Linus's video on the icegaint cooler and it's definitely a compelling option, but indeed not for now unfortunately.
Expect a bit of noise though, so perhaps you can see if there are better sound isolated options than the Fractal Define R6 I chose.