2010 MP 6 Core, Need Faster CGI Renders | Where Is My Bottle Neck? Upgrade Options?

[JulianBoolean]

Hi All,

Situation : I’m a CGI Artist & Photo Retoucher, currently on a 2010 MP (see specs below). I’m utilizing modo for modeling and renders. No motion, strictly high resolution stills for print advertising… product shots, cars, etc. Most of my renders are 1-2 hours each, which is fairly workable, but some of my scenes with high poly count and lots of lights are taking 12 hours to render. My previews are really slow too, so it’s difficult to see incremental change as I’m building up the image. I’d love to get quicker CGI renders. Need help understanding where I’d get most bang for the buck, and where I go from here given the current tech landscape.

Issue : Because I don’t know where my current bottle neck is, I don’t know what to upgrade/alter. Is it my clock speed? Number of cores? Video Card? Something Else?

Current:
Mac Pro 5.1 Tower, 3.33 Ghz 6-Core (2010 Westmere)
RAM : 32 GB
OS : Sierra 10.12.6
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Boot Drive : OWC 480GB RAID0 PCIe SSD
Work Drives : 3x 6TB HDs, In RAID5
Monitor : Two 30” Apple Cinema
Back Up : Two OWC QX2 External RAID Boxes For 3 Time Machines (1 offsite), 4th Internal HD as Boot Clone
Primary Software : Modo 902, Photoshop

Please chime in on any of these options, or something I’m overlooking:
A. Keep my 2010 MP, Buy Better Video Card
B. Keep my 2010 MP, Two Better Video Cards
C. Keep my 2010 MP, Max Out My Ram (Up From 32GB To 48GB)
D. Buy a 2012 MP … Upgrading to12 Cores and 3.46 GHz, Add Max Ram + Good Card.
E. Buy a 2016 nMP… Add Max Ram + Good Card.
F. Buy a December 2017, 18 core iMac Pro
G. Wait to get details on the 2018 Mac Pro

Stuff I know I don't know:
H. Octane Render
I. Rent offsite render farms

Note : Feel free to mention windows or custom build options if you must, but I’m likely to pass on those perfectly good choices. I’ve been doing post-production work on Macs since 1990, and while I understand the usual price/value arguments, I’d prefer to stay in my comfort zone.

Thanks!

 

[leon771]

I'd never heard of modo before.
Had a look and it seems like it is a CPU renderer and not a GPU renderer.

I would look at getting a 5,1 dual CPU board and upgrading to dual hex core 3.33 or 3.46GHz.

You might actually be better served building a multi core windows machine.

From what I've read, GPU isn't utilized in modo so don't bother upgrading it.

As I stated I don't know modo other than a few minutes of google/reading up about it. So anyone please correct me.

 

[carpsafari]

I can confirm 3D apps mostly never use GPU acceleration, so your best bet is 12 cores, for now.
The nMP is no option as the 12 core cmp is equally fast.(and will probably not cope)
iMac I don't believe they will fix the throttling, its not a Pro machine.
New Mac Pro, well when you got $12/15.000 to spare...that's what I expect a 16-24 cores to cost.