X4 Ray Tracing - Optimal CPU

[Ian Pellant]

Thanks James,

That's want I want to hear... ray tracing down to 10 minutes.

It currently takes 2 to 4 hours on my old Intel. From what I've seen on a new Intel i-7 machine, it's not that much faster than the old box. I would have expected it to be at least 3 times faster.

My hopes are that AMD have produced a good workstation / CAD class processor range with the FX 8 series. I suspect Intel i7s to be more tuned to the Microsoft Office workstation than CAD / 3D modelling.

For the last 6 years, my preferred video cards have been ATI FireGL for Revit and Chief. They are CAD specialist OpenGL power cards. I have yet to use an NVIDIA card that comes near the FirePros. Besides render speed, the FirePro cards have very good text and vector line display that present a sharp image when zooming in and out. NVIDIA cards have generally been fuzzy with text in Revit. Also ATI Hydravision is very good at multi monitor display handling... NVIDIA just hasn't bothered with niceties like fill child windows to monitor. Both Chief and Revit are MDI (Multi Document Interface) applications so a good software tool like Hydravision is really handy. (ATI Radeon cards are very poor cousins to the FirePros... so please don't think Radeon. Radeons chase the gamers market.)

... money saved on the base system and CPU can go into a more upscale FirePro video card.

I'll put a simple test Plan together for benchmarking if anyone is interested.

Cheers.