Xeon vs i7

[Michael Tebinka]

This is very useuful information as I'm pretty much in an identical situation of building a new machine. Let me know what you decide Margus.

[Margus Voll]

I have some sort of plan set already now. In first "wave" i plan to build base system and later add big array etc. so i can do my vfx stuff better and do occasional Resolve renders for 4k and such.

Reading and gathering information on raid's now to decide which model to use.

I will probably go with the big box shared in another thread.

http://www.lian-li.com/en/dt_portfolio/pc-d8000/

Those are cheap and fit about anything i need now or in the future.

 

[Alex Prohorushkin]

Very good choice, Margus.
I have now 60Tb raid, and in the next few days I plan to upgrade hardware.
Supermicro X10DRG-Q + 64Gb Memory + 2x Xeon e5-2630 v4

Now have  2 cards gtx1080.

Virtually no alternative option for little money.

Alex.

[Margus Voll]

I postpone my xeon ideas for now as some users report they choke under some operations in win os.
I have had similar experience with clients win machines where 36 cored xeon was beaten by average i7 in Resolve.
That made me thinking again if not going to Linux now then it seems better to hold my xeon ideas for now.
Specially with things like AE and such that need faster single core operations that is a problem when core speed drops down to 2,5 ghz. Seems to me that i7 can be pushed to 4 ghz and thus get more speed out of single core.

In a way this is a complex problem to have machine with multiple usages and still be optimal for everything you do.

 

[Michael Tebinka]

2 minutes ago, Margus Voll said:

I have had similar experience with clients win machines where 36 cored xeon was beaten by average i7 in Resolve.
That made me thinking again if not going to Linux now then it seems better to hold my xeon ideas for now.
 

Does that change your decisions regarding choice of motherboard, if yes, then what is your line of thought?

Many thanks.

[Margus Voll]

For now i'm aiming for this one:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/X99-E-10G-WS/overview/

Few main things that are different from xeon boards:

M.2 ssd now with 2 TB capacity of new Samsung 960 Pro drives 3500 MB sec read and 2100 MB sec write.
That is one snappy os drive.

Dual 10gig lan card as internal device i can use to connect to my mac pro for project sharing and save pci slot.

Possibly a bit faster ram (3333 mhz)

I'm not sure about it scientifically but seems to me on ida level it should make out one snappy grading machine for overall work as i described before and some moderate (4k) grading jobs. Dual new titans should be enough for now. There is not any indication i would grade 8k stuff any time soon.

That is my reasoning.

With big box like this i should be able to fit in also LTO7 in future for archiving purposes. When i'm home sleeping it is good time to put some stuff to tapes or external drives depending on a project budget and data amount need storing.

Maybe i'm off on my ideas and do not see all the details but for now it seems reasonable for me as if i get to linux in 2 years or so then the current linux setup stuff is old already. I consider usable modern computer life to be 2 years tops. It can work sure for 6 but it is not nearly cutting edge any more then.

[Michael Tebinka]

Interesting choice.

I have looked at the same Asus WS mb as well but also the USB3.1 + TB adapter chip as my external storage runs on a Promise 32TB with Thunderbolt. In a similar way as you describe the M2 (for OS) + potentially Intel's PCI-e storage solution (×2) is something I have considered. No final decision here. 

Also in my case it is a question of making the machine avialable for most aspects of the post chain and not limited to only grading. 

I know the conversation has been brought up many times but what is your take between Titan's and/or 1080's? Also, is there a particular CPU that meet your requrements for (enough) cpu lanes/pci-e lanes that match the intended GPU(s) and other PCI-e cards?

[Margus Voll]

I have considered now i7 10 cored (extreme) model as it should be ok for now. I'm pretty sure it will leave my mac pro in dust in comparison. So only not the core speed but data lane speed to ram is also a thing to think of and thus the ram speed is also important bit to a degree.

On Titan to 1080 it seems that some users get better results with NR and this is a thing that matters to me as well.

For the media i think of LSI i16 raid now till i get any other or better information on raid's

[Michael Tebinka]

This is the case I have considered, not so much focus on internal storage apart from OS + work disc, the rest will be external.

http://www.coolerkit.se/shop/cooltek-w2-black-4563p.html