render node with AMD chips

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FakeShamus
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render node with AMD chips

Post by FakeShamus » Tue Jun 19, 2012 7:48 am

I know these types of questions come up rather often in the forums, but this is specific to the performance of AMD systems with Indigo. pricing out a serious workhorse server-node for rendering there are some very upgradeable AMD quad-socket barebones systems that you could potentially add up to four of the new 16-core opteron chips to. I think Indigo could handle all the threads no problem, but are there limitations to the performance of such a potential set-up? in terms of bang-for-buck it seems like you could build a monster machine compared to Xeons, but what other factors are there to consider for a system like that? does anyone have direct experience or comparison?

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galinette
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by galinette » Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:11 am

I'm interested by the answers and conclusions!
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lycium
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by lycium » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:12 am

AMD's recent Bulldozer architecture targets "server" applications[1], which translates into integer performance. Intel beat them on floating point performance and have a better memory subsystem[2], so they pretty much dominate in rendering applications. If you want to work out bang for buck in Indigo, you can probably do that with bidirectional samples per sec divided by best online price ;)

It's a total reversal from those Athlon 64 days, but apparently "Piledriver" will deliver important improvements...

[1] Bulldozer tech review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21813
[2] Ivy Bridge tech review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/22835/4

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galinette
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by galinette » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:17 am

Intel may beat on sps/CPU, maybe not on sps/$ !

I'm also quite convinced that the optimal config for a small cluster is not high end CPUs... Even if there is no doubt that Intel is better for a single machine.

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lycium
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by lycium » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:17 am

Ohhhhh you're fast Etienne, I was just editing my post to say something about that :lol:

FakeShamus
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by FakeShamus » Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:40 am

yeah I had read about the integer vs floating point thing and didn't quite know how that translated to Indigo performance. that makes it clearer.

but yes, I think Galinette's point is also what I was considering.
it's not a perfect comparison without actual benchmarks, I know, but just for example:

Opteron Interlagos 16-core @ 2.1 Ghz: ~$540.00
vs 8-core (16 with HT) Xeon Sandy-Bridge @ 2.2 Ghz: ~1330.00 each

the Xeon better be about 2.5 times faster to be worth it, right?
how closely would Cinebench scores indicate potential Indigo performance? there's a lot of data out there based on that for comparison.

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lycium
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by lycium » Tue Jun 19, 2012 10:11 am

Xeons and Opterons aren't on the optimal !/$ curve from the beginning, compared to normal desktop processors...

Back in 2008 I bought an i7 920 desktop CPU and overclocked it to 3.2GHz, it's still a kickass CPU :twisted: I'd say it was a close to optimal purchase in terms of rendering power at the time.

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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by FakeShamus » Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:01 am

yeah, point taken...
but if you're looking for more expandability/cores in one node, i7's are out of the question, no?

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lycium
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by lycium » Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:03 am

Depending on how much rendering you do, power efficiency comes into the picture, and here the i7s are unmatched due to Intel's superior manufacturing process (at 32nm and now even 22nm).

Again from that Ivy Bridge review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/22835/5

FakeShamus
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by FakeShamus » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:13 am

this is all really good feedback, thanks a bunch for your input!

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lycium
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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by lycium » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:18 am

No problem, though I feel a little "guilty" for being so pro-Intel right now on the CPU front. At least I get to be pro-AMD on the GPU front these days... ;)

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Re: render node with AMD chips

Post by FakeShamus » Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:59 am

thought I'd add a couple graphs I found to this thread, could be helpful:

not sure how directly this translates to Indigo results, but this seems like a very helpful breakdown of performance/cost:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/multi_cpu.html#cpuvalue

and these are Maxwell benchmarks, but I found it interesting particularly because of the relative AMD performance running on Linux vs Windows (see #1 and #32):
http://www.maxwellrender.com/index.php/benchwell

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