Any recommendations for a good desktop pc for fractals?

[lycium]

Intel officially support overclocking, that's what the K in the model number denotes. To not take advantage of it (you just set a single number somewhere) is sort of like throwing money away, if you're paying for performance in the first place.

The only thing better than that CPU is either i7 5775C, or 6/8 core stuff, which is a little exotic and expensive etc.

[TheRedshiftRider]

Ive looked for some reviews of the i7 4790k and although it is better than the intel xeon e3 1231 v3 it still has a few drawbacks I think: It has a gpu which Im not sure I need it (if I can use it is a good deal) and in some reviews I read that the overclocking doesnt work correctly. So it will be a tough choice I think.

[lycium]

The iGPU on that thing is badass, very good for OpenCL computation for example The one on the 5775C is more than twice as powerful, and has a ridiculous 128MB L4 cache to boot (which benefits normal applications too). Good rendering programs ought to be able to take advantage of the iGPU (in addition to any other GPUs you might have), but I'm not aware of many that do; Chaotica will at least

That's sort of everything I have to say on the matter

[TheRedshiftRider]

Well, if that is everything I will have to decide which one I will use. The xeon (with separate gpu) or the 4790k (without the need of a gpu).

[lycium]

I hope you're not under the impression that you can't (or even shouldn't) use another GPU with any of these CPUs?

Regardless of which CPU, ideally get another GPU, AMD or NVIDIA, up to you; there is no real "waste" in having iGPU, in that there's nothing to gain from not having it.

[3dickulus]

I did this 7680x4320 deep dream http://3dickulus.deviantart.com/art/Medusa-Effect-547596579
on a 4core xeon and GeForce 760 in about 45 min

[TheRedshiftRider]

Quite an impressive image compare to the time. Thanks for the information. But if I want to be sure maybe I need an example from the 4790k with the intel graphics to compare. Lycium can you try something?

[TheRedshiftRider]

My father found a complete intel poweredge 1900 server case. It is two years old and contains two separate 3ghz cpus. He could take it for free, but it still needs to be cleaned though. Here are some of the specifications:
https://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/pedge/en/PE1900_Spec_Sheet_Quad.pdf


I guess this is good. (but it is very large)

[TheRedshiftRider]

I have done some more research and it does need a bit more power than a normal desktop but it is a decent choice for fractal computation. I still have to find out whether windows 7 can be runned on it.

I am planning on using it but I still need to ask whether my parents are ok with it.

[3dickulus]

a nice box for crunching fractals 

[OraliaRoda]

If I start to crunch the fractal, they become fractured
Also, I think that 4790k is good for our purpose.

[hobold]

After a long phase of relative stagnation, CPUs are currently making a jump from four cores to eight or more at upper mainstream prices. Thanks to AMD's "Ryzen" heavily undercutting Intel's offers, the market is in rapid motion.

With respect to GPUs, AMD is less of a driving force for Nvidia. While AMDs RX400 / RX500 series is a good competitor in mainstream and low end, Nvidia is free to dictate prices at the high end. It's not clear that AMD can change that with their upcoming "Vega" GPUs.

Within a few months, AMD will start selling quad-core Ryzen CPUs with an integrated midrange Vega GPU. Those are meant for laptop and all-in-one machines, but could end up with the highest overall combined compute performance per dollar. (AMDs new CPU cores are quite competitive with Intel's, and their on-chip GPUs are notably better at compute than Intel's integrated graphics.)

(Sorry for the emphasis on AMD. Both Intel and Nvidia also announced higher performance products. But IMHO it is AMDs pricing policy this round that will make a real difference for fractalists on a realistic budget.)

[TheRedshiftRider]

I totally forgot about this thread.
I have actually bought a desktop a month ago:

Msi Nightblade mi2c-062
i7 6700 cpu 3.4ghz
8gb of ddr4 ram
Nvidia geforce 960 gtx gpu with 4gb of memory

It performs really well, as far as I can tell (I have not worked on any other similar desktops). I got it relatively cheap but I would probably have done to get a desktop with a 4790k.

[Alef]

I think PC is so powerfull now that you can economy on then.  Unless you realy know that you need that power. My outdated ex office PC bought for 10 euros is quite good for 3D. Maybe it just need some graphic card for cuda.