Quick heads-up about CPUs

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:26 am

Some may know this already: Intel cut the price of their quad-core 2.4GHz Q6600 CPU by 50% yesterday, which makes this chip ridiculously good value for money (they can be had for about ?170 in the UK). Very useful for rendering!

Time to buy that new PC I've been promising myself...

By the way, does Kray work OK with the 64-bit edition of Windows XP?

Phil

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:02 pm

Actually, let me expand on this with another question:

I am seriously considering upgrading my PC to a quad core, and putting 4 gigs of RAM in it. I also want to stay with Windows XP rather than go to Vista (which would suck away lots of that nice new power).

I assume you need the 64-bit version of XP to make use of the whole 4 gigs of RAM? This being the case, WILL Kray work OK on 64-bit XP?

Phil

Post by **jure** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:24 pm

That makes us 3 already I guess. Me and Erwin had also been looking at upgrading our workstations with Quad cores.

Yes 64bit XP will adress all RAM and I don't think there are any issues with 64bit and kray.

NiGMa · Post by **NiGMa** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:22 am

I've been using kray on Win x64 for about 1-2yrs. I got 4gb ram and no problems, kray uses all the memory, although its still not enough sometimes, cant wait for the new version.

tiktane358 · Post by **tiktane358** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:00 am

Kray works great on octo CPU too !

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:02 am

Thanks for the confirmation on XP 64. Very useful information!

As for eight cores - that's just showing off!

(I bet it keeps the house warm in the winter too, eh?)

Phil

florian · Post by **florian** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:14 am

Its always great to know upfront when the next price cut will come. I also waited for this one to get another computer.

Florian

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:08 pm

Just built my new quad-core system. Confirming Kray runs fine under Win XP Pro x64 Edition.

Scenes that used to take 20 mins now render in about 3 mins. Blimey.

Phil

Post by **jure** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:29 am

Wow! great Phil!
I'm getting my new hardware today hopefully!

What hardware did you get besides Q6600 CPU?
I'm getting Asus P5K deluxe, 4GB 800MHZ DDR2 RAM, and GF XFX 8800GT.

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:35 am

Core 2 quad Q6600
4GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM in dual-channel mode
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R mobo
Inno3D GeForce 8800GTS

Post by **jure** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:36 am

Cool! We gotta do some benchmarks and compare when i get mine.

Haven1000 · Post by **Haven1000** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:01 am

jure wrote:Cool! We gotta do some benchmarks and compare when i get mine.

I'd be happy to post benchmarks with my 8-core MacPro. (rendering in Kray for Windows and not OS X , I wouldn't want to embarrass us Mac users with the disparity in performance between the two Kray versions

)

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:30 pm

I'm feeling like a kid in a sweetshop. Here's a comparison of render times between my old P4HT and my new Q6600. Nearly ten times faster! (Renders reduced to 50% of actual size).

Post by **jure** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:26 pm

That's great phil!

I just installed my new Quad and ran a this benchmark scene I created. Quad is about 2.75x the speed of my old AMD x2 4600.

I am posting the scene here also so you all can try it and please report your results.

Here it is: http://www.vizualizacije.com/temp/benchmark/

phile_forum · Post by **phile_forum** » Thu Aug 02, 2007 9:23 pm

jure wrote:I am posting the scene here also so you all can try it and please report your results.

Interesting... I just rendered your scene on my Q6600 and it took 9min 54 sec - twice as long as your Q6600...

You have a newer beta, of course. Has Grzegorz managed to speed it up that much? If so, I want it! Now!

If it's not down to the beta, then I'd better check my system over to make sure everything is running at its proper speed.

Phil

www.kraytracing.com