The message title basically handles my general query. I have software that permits me to create and re-create my fractals with pixel dimensions up to 20,480 by 20,480. What I'd like to know is what is the best AMD based computer to achieve this goal without having to wait an inordinate amount of time for each frame to render and save?

Can a single chassis home type PC do the trick? I'd rather avoid networking multiple computers together if at all possible.

Also, what sort of computer will I need, preferably AMD-based, to convert .BMPs with a pixel resolution of 20,480 x 20,480 to another file format such as .JPG, .PNG, etc?

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

Are you looking for a pre-built system or are you planning to build it?

Is there a budget that you want to stay with in?

-------------------------
PII 1100T (Extinct)
Asus M4A78T-E (should be Extinct)
4Gb of Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz DDR3 (Going strong)
2x1GB 5850's (On their last lags)
Corsair HX850W (Awsome)
NZXT Phantom case (too ***** big)

First I am looking for answers. No sense assigning a budget to this until I know the costs. Either a pre-built or franken PC so long as I get the answer to my question.

Thanks

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

Allfractup:

It is presumed that your fractal-generating program is highly multithreaded.

Your best bet would be the AMD Phenom II x6 1090t CPU @ 3.2 GHz (Bulldozer FX-8120 is faster, but costs a lot more, because it's still so new).

With 20,480 x 20,480 pixel resolution per frame, you will need a considerable amount of RAM, for the sake of speed. Figure on 16 GB of RAM. Also, you should get an SSD drive (SATA3, one that can handle 500 MB/s reads & writes). 250 GB should suffice, for both the OS and the actual fractal program, as well as the system paging file (20 GB should be enough). OCZ Vertex 3 is a good one.

You should also consider getting a HUGE mechanical drive for archiving those huge images, say, 4 TB. Make sure that you do NOT use this drive in any way for rendering or paging for the OS, as it will be a catastrophic slow down for your system's fast job stream.

Edited: 12/07/2011 at 12:22 AM by Trevayne10

Thanks for helping out everyone!

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

What if the program were not multi-threaded? How does that change your hardware recommendations? I don't overclock by the way. Too risky for all the money I'd be spending and I need it to last many years before the next system upgrade.


Thanks,


Bruce

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

If the software isn't multithreaded, then you would want to focus on clock speed instead of the number of cores. Chances are that it will be though since generating fractals is something that scales very well.

-------------------------
Containment Breach

Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

I would say that today (and probably into Q2 2012), the cost/performance ratio is very much in the Phenom II 1090t's favor.

Your 2008-vintage AMD single core CPU was okay in its day, but 2012 is less than a month away. Time to freshen things up a bit. You will be staggered by the performance of a 1090t-based system.

Intel was the gold standard for SSD drives, especially in terms of reliability, but OCZ & others have caught up. Overall, OCZ performs better in R/W performance.

Also, the failure problems of SSD drives are largely a thing of the past. Some reputable industry testing firms say that there's no reason these drives can't last 30 years or longer. In other words, don't worry about it.

Hope this helps -

Edited: 12/09/2011 at 06:37 PM by Trevayne10

I agree with Trevayne10.
You get your self a good AM3+ mobo like Asus's sabertooth 990FX and sixteen Gb of DDR3 1600mhz ram and the 1090 or 1100T six core cpu then match it up with a good SSD, this thing will blow your mind.

It will handle anything you through at it and smile

-------------------------
PII 1100T (Extinct)
Asus M4A78T-E (should be Extinct)
4Gb of Corsair XMS3 1600Mhz DDR3 (Going strong)
2x1GB 5850's (On their last lags)
Corsair HX850W (Awsome)
NZXT Phantom case (too ***** big)

Thanks for all of the info :0)

I have been out of touch. So forgive the next questions.

Question 1: Does AMD have a Symmetrical Multi-Processor housed in a single chassis with 6 (or more) cores per CPU running at 4.0 GHz and 16 GBs RAM (or more) per CPU? Would said computer then have four (or more) identical CPUs running on the same motherboard?

Question 2: Are single chassis SBCs still made? It would seem ideal to have each Single Board Computer equipped with multiple CPUs (each with 2 or more cores at 4.0 GHz). I have a SBC capable 12 slot 10 bay server tower from the early 2000s and I was wondering if it would still be able to accommodate something along these lines. If not then what type of single chassis enclosure do you think would work best?

Question 3: I have never gotten a firm answer on the benefits of running CPUs with multiple cores. Some technicians have said a quad core is like running three distinct CPUs within a single CPU all at once. Others have sworn that a quad core CPU at 2 GHz is the same as getting a single CPU running at 8 GHz but with the flexibility to break up large jobs into smaller chunks. So far I have tried to figure this out on my own as none of the magazines or performance videos I have seen make any of this clear. What is your take on this matter?

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

Edited: 01/23/2012 at 04:36 AM by alllfractup

1. I don't think there's any CPUs available right now from either AMD or Intel with a base clock speed of 4.0ghz, but that's not really a big deal. Clock speed has taken a back seat in recent years to parallelism and reduced power consumption.

2. Yeah, you can still get dual or quad socket motherboards. If your case can fit an extended ATX board, then chances are good you'll be able to use it.

3. Having a quad core chip is the same as having four single core CPUs in the same system. Packing four cores into one chip is just a different way to get the same performance out of the system.

-------------------------
Containment Breach

Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

So a quad core running at 2 GHz is the equivalent of four 2 GHz CPUs all running at once?

Or does that mean the number of cores is a multiplier for the speed of the CPU? Take for example a quad core 2GHz CPU is equivalent to running a single core 8GHz CPU?

So having a SMP motherboard with four or more sockets each fitted with multicore CPUs would be one way to put lots of computing power in a single chassis. :0)

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*

It's the same as four 2ghz CPUs running at once. Some applications are more sensitive to clock speed than others, and will benefit more from increased clock speed than being split into a bunch of threads, but that's a slightly different deal. Each core of a 2ghz CPU runs at 2ghz, so there's no multiplication of clock speed.



Yes... it would. A quad socket board that has each socket filled with a six core chip could run 24 threads simultaneously. That's a lot of crunch power. You might need a server OS to support something like that. I believe the windows 7 kernel supports up to 256 hardware threads, but they usually disable most of those in the consumer OS to help separate it from the server builds.

-------------------------
Containment Breach

Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

Thank you for clearing that up for me. And thanks to everyone else too.

-------------------------
Bruce Berryhill
Fractal Artist & Animator
www.allfractup.com
Creator of nearly 100,000 fractal images
16,800 HD VJ Loops
300,000 fractal sounds*