X4 Ray Tracing - Optimal CPU

[lbuttery]

Ian:

CA has stated many times that Chief derives no perceivable benefit from the Nvidia Quadro cards which are CAD based
especially in relation to the extra $$$

they recommend mid to high-end gaming cards

CA has never mentioned DirectX - it appears to have no relation with Chief

you may want to discuss directly with CA's sales team

Lew

[Ian Pellant]

Lew,

The topic of this thread is CPU choice for Ray Tracing.

Choices mostly being between AMD FX-8150 or Intel i7 2600 processors.

My need is to ray trace a lot of models in the shortest time possible.

The video card has nothing to do with ray tracing.

Chief Architect X4 uses OpenGL. Revit uses OpenGL.

AutoCAD used DirectX.

Much earlier versions of Chief used DirectX. Then ART moved it all to OpenGL.

Professional 3D modeling softwares generally use OpenGL. Not DirectX.

There are almost no off-the-shelf PC's to be bought that are optimised for OpenGL.

Microsoft pushed DirectX for it's X-Box which was aimed at home entertainment and gaming. Most Windows based games use DirectX. Most gaming PC's are optimised for DirectX.

At the consumer level, if the choice is between an "office / business workstation" with Intel Integrated Graphics or a "Gaming" computer with accelerated graphics then the gaming computer is the better choice.

Have you ever seen a computer on sale that is labelled: "Optimized for Chief Architect" ?

It is a sales dilema outside the context of this thread.

Cheers.

[lbuttery]

Ian:

just responding to your comment about "top gamers" in post #23

I know that raytrace doesn't use video card
but does use cpu and cores - lots of cores

renders use the video card and renders are also important to chief

thus a good/great chief PC would have a good gaming video card and
lots of cores with a fast cpu to cover both renders and rays

8 - 16 GB of cpu ram and 1 - 3 GB of video ram

Lew

[Ian Pellant]

Lew,

The question is:

Will an AMD FX-8150 with 8 cores ray trace quicker than an Intel i7 that has 4 cores?

Cheers.

[lbuttery]

Ian:

not a clue

good luck

Lew

[Ian Pellant]

Lew,

Me neither... I don't know which is quicker.

The test plan ray trace averages about 68 seconds on the i7.

AMD FX8150 still unknown.

Cheers.