Pure GHZ of power from i7 3930K

[idata]

Hi all new to the forums.

I was hoping for some advice on what CPU to buy.

I'm a 3D artist and do a lot of rendering on my home PC which relies purely on ghz of power.

Currently I'm using a core 2 quad 2.4ghz

I'm not perfectly sure if I have this right but does that mean I have a total of 2.4ghz * 4 cores = 9.6ghz of power?

Anyway I've got around 500GBP to spend on my new CPU, I think I've decided on the i7 3930K

Which is 3.2ghz boosted to 3.8ghz in 6 cores with hyperthreading.

Does this then mean that I'd have 3.8ghz * 12 threads = 45.6ghz of power?

I know that some Xeons are designed more for rendering than the i7 however I think these are also over double the price.

Unless anyone can reccomend one for the same price that beats the raw power of the i7?

Cheers

Jay

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

3.8 GHz means that each core will be running at 3.8 GHz, so if for example you are running 4 different applications at the exact same time, it means that each application will be running at 3.8 GHz, but each core is independent of the other, so you cannot sum 3.8 + 3.8 + 3.8+ 3.8, since they are independent of each other.

However, if the 3D design application that you will be running is designed to take full advantage of the multi-core technology, then the system performance will be increased, however you need to contact the software developer so they can tell you if the software is capable of taking advantage of this feature.

[idata]

Hi, the software I use to render is autodesk Maya with Vray 2.0

The software actually has the option to choose how many cores/threads to use.

So I guess that means yes in total when rendering I will have 45.6GHz of power?

Take away a little for the power it's using to run windows..

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

Think about this scenario:

Since the software, in this case "Autodesk Maya", has the ability to select the number of cores to use, basically that the software do is to split the big task (rendering in this case), into smaller tasks, and send them to different cores, so each core will be processing the smaller task at 3.8 GHz, so every task will take the same speed / time (3.8 GHz).

If the processor will be processing 5 tasks (one on each core), those 5 tasks will be performed at the exact same time so it will take for example 1 second to process them.

Now, if the processor will be processing 8 tasks (one on each core), those 8 tasks will be performed at the exact same time so it will take the same 1 second to process them as on the above example.

So what I am trying to say is that the processor can perform more or less tasks at the same time (1 second on the example), but the speed will always be the same one (3.8 GHz) no matter the number of cores, so try not to sum the cores (45.6 GHz), you need to think about the cores as processors running independently of each other, not as a whole thing.

I hope the above example will help you understand how the multi-cores technology works.

[idata]

OK that helps,

But say my 1 render task takes 10 minutes on a single core 3GHz

Would it then take only 1 minute on a 10 core 3GHz.

Or would that be dependant on if the software could split the task into 10 cores?

I'm not saying there is a 10 core, just example.

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

That will depend on if the software can split the task in 10 cores, keep in mind that there are tasks that the software will be able to split and there are other tasks that the software will not be able to split into that many cores, so it basically depends on the task that the processor will be processing at a particular moment.

So in your example, I would say that the processor would take around 3-4 minutes processing the tasks (keep in mind this is an example).