X4 Ray Tracing - Optimal CPU

[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.