| Optimal workstation spec 2020 |
 Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2020 11:17 am |
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| stebadham |
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| Joined: 14 Jun 2007 |
| Posts: 7 |
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| I'm looking to invest in an upgrade to EASE 5 / Aura 4 shortly but will benefit from a computer upgrade and was looking for some feedback on specs. I asked the same question to support a couple of weeks ago but would like to get a more definitive reply if possible...
It seems like the gist of the reply is that more cores are better than higher clock speed, which would favour the latest AMD chips over Intel, unless there are any specific optimisations that would benefit the Intel products. Are there any?
If that's the case, can Aura take advantage of as many cores as you can provide, or is there a sweet spot? In other words, would a Threadripper 3970X (32C / 64T) really work more or less twice as quickly as a Ryzen 9 3950X (16C / 32T)? The 3970 is almost triple the price of the 3950 CPU.
Also, I understand that Aura 4 _can_ use all available RAM. Having said that, screenshots I've seen don't look like they're actually using ridiculous amounts of RAM. In the real world, if you need to model something like a stadium, what's a sensible amount for a machine to have? 32GB? 64GB? More? Don't want to put 128GB in and find it never uses more than 16!
Also, to confirm, neither EASE nor AURA would benefit from anything beyond the most basic of modern graphics cards? |
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| Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 11:20 am |
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| Tim |
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| Joined: 11 Feb 2008 |
| Posts: 61 |
| Location: Canberra ACT, Australia |
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| Firstly, I'm not a computer/IT person, so cannot help with your tech spec queries.
However, I can comment on running big renders. I'm regularly running very large project renders, including stadium projects with the AURAv4 module. AURAv4 has improved the calculation speeds - for which I am very thankful! The current computer spec is running 2.2GHz Xeon processors with 24C/48T, and 32GB RAM. Renders will reliably run with 100% CPU utilisation, often for many hours and occasionally into days duration. I'm typically seeing RAM utilsation of up to 25%.
Would I like more calculation threads? Yes
Could I use faster clock speeds? Yes
Can I afford it? 
Hope this helps |
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_________________
Tim Kuschel
GUZ BOX design + audio |
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:15 am |
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| ponte |
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| Joined: 18 Jun 2020 |
| Posts: 2 |
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| I was able to test a quite powerful AMD 3970x machine recently with Aura v4. Coming from a 4c/8t laptop the calculation speed using 64 threads is huge. The "bottleneck" was the writing speed of the data on disk (NVME Raid) which seems to be not optimized. Regarding RAM, I was not able to check usage, the machine boasted 256 GB which is a massive amount. Speaking with the IT guy who let me use the machine a balanced choice is 1 GB/thread.
Cheers,
Daniele |
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 11:00 am |
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| mixbyjm |
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| Joined: 05 Aug 2015 |
| Posts: 35 |
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| I'm following this thread.
I'm planning to build one for heavy calculation and rendering as well (VRAY Skecthup).
Just some questions in my head...
How EASE use processor for calculating? is it the CORE numbers? Logical Core numbers?
RAM? Is the VGA's DSP also will be used?
WHich one is most superior for calculating and rendering? AMD or INTEL?
Thank you |
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2020 2:47 pm |
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| mixbyjm |
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| Joined: 05 Aug 2015 |
| Posts: 35 |
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| [quote="ponte"]I was able to test a quite powerful AMD 3970x machine recently with Aura v4. Coming from a 4c/8t laptop the calculation speed using 64 threads is huge. The "bottleneck" was the writing speed of the data on disk (NVME Raid) which seems to be not optimized. Regarding RAM, I was not able to check usage, the machine boasted 256 GB which is a massive amount. Speaking with the IT guy who let me use the machine a balanced choice is 1 GB/thread.
Cheers,
Daniele[/quote]
Would you share what laptop it is, thank you |
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| Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 9:38 am |
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| mixbyjm |
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| Joined: 05 Aug 2015 |
| Posts: 35 |
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| Will I get benefit using Nvidia RTX card?
from their website
| Quote: | | NVIDIA GeForce™ RTX cards based on the latest Turing Architecture are the first graphics solutions to contain dedicated Ray Tracing cores |
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:35 am |
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| Ray tracing in EASE is executed in the CPU but not in the graphic card processor. |
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| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:45 am |
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| ponte |
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| Joined: 18 Jun 2020 |
| Posts: 2 |
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| [quote="mixbyjm"]
Would you share what laptop it is, thank you[/quote]
I am currently using Lenovo T480s.
Looks like this new laptop 8c/16t:
https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ROG-Zephyrus-G14/
has the potential to be a very good portable solution to run AURA.
Cheers,
Daniele |
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