Hey there,

I am looking at getting a new system and am curious to see what you guys would recommend for CPUs.

I'm currently leaning towards the Ryzen 9 7950x (3d version maybe?), but don't know if its the best bet compared to the other options.

I have been trying to wrap my head around all the different technical specs comparing CPUs and haven't been able to very clearly see a "winner". Does anyone know how AMD's 16 cores compares with Houdini sims against an Intel i9-14900k with its different core structure? On paper the AMD's 16 "performance" cores should beat out the intel performance /efficiency cores right?

But I've seen a handful of speed performance graphs where intel wins in single and multi core jobs. A comment on vfxArabia attached below has this Houdini benchmark showcasing some stats where last years intel is beating out the current 7950x.

Is an entry level ThreadRipper 7960x / EPYC / Xeon setup worth the extra cash? I'm not sure how well utilized the additional cores will be and how having a lower clock speed affects the overall Houdini experience. Or if its even worth the headache getting into the server side of PCs.


Thanks!

I did some more digging and I put together these graphics i found on gamersnexus [gamersnexus.net] that compares the threadrippers, i9-14900k, and 9 7950x... They dont benchmark houdini specifically, but based on the results found from other simulation benchmarks it looks like the Intel CPU might actually be better?

It seems AMD new cpus is not to far far away.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Insane-AMD-Zen-5-single-core-performance-bump-on-cards-as-leaked-Cinebench-R23-result-blasts-Ryzen-9-7950X.804679.0.html [www.notebookcheck.net]

If these rumors are true, big improvement comming.

Purely personal POV but I've been super impressed with my Threadrippers. Main workstation I've had a few years has always felt insanely fast, and that's a relatively old Threadripper now. Bought another cheap old one (like, really cheap - mbd + TR1920, 12/24 core for £300 total) to use as a render node the other day - it flies through cooks/sims. Their huge number of PCI lanes makes multiple GPU setups quick and simple to set up, and I've found a lot of my work lends itself to multithreading (forced me to get my head round Compile Blocks...) You get a good bit of bang for your buck with them. Not sure I'll ever want to go back to Intel. Apple Silicon and Threadrippers seem the way forward for my needs.

YMMV of course; depends on the sort of work you do (within both Houdini and the other apps you use) whether tons of cores will work better for you than single-core speed. In Houdini specifically I find multicore speed to be the most important factor as it defines how long I have to wait for cooks/sims; I sorta feel like that part of work has the most impact on my overall productivity - how long I have to wait before I can carry on clicking - but it'd be interesting to hear from others on this.

And at the risk of sounding like generic advice - even for a new machine, chances are you'll get significantly more value from your money if you buy previous generation, rather than the latest and greatest