CPU or GPU for rendering?

[Anonymous]

hello,
i'm in the search for new notebook up to price 700 eur, and i have a dilemma which one to buy.
so, I have few questions:
1st: is it more important to have more cpu cores or better gpu for faster rendering in archicad, artlantis, lumion etc.
2nd: some i7 cpu comes with only 2cores and others with 4 cores. is there significant difference?
3rd: how important is number of threads, because i saw AMD cpus with 4 cores and 4 threads, unlike the i7 which has 4 cores and 8 threads

Thank You very much!

[Anonymous]

From what I can see, and from carefully selecting my GPU to run on artlantis in windows;

http://www.artlantis.com/en/support/faq/questions/show/1215

This link suggests that Artlantis 6 must use the GPU.

[Laszlo Nagy]

That link shows you only how to use the Dedicated GPU (NVidia or AMD card) instead of the integrated GPU (GPU on the Intel CPU - much less performance).
This does not mean that Artlantis is using the GPU instead of the CPU for rendering.

The application uses the GPU all the time to display stuff in 3D while you edit materials, change viewpoint, place lights, etc. That does not mean that it is using the GPU specifically when creating the Rendered image.
The application must be specifically written to use the GPU instead of the CPU. This usually results in "real-time" rendering.

For example, OctaneRender is using the GPU for rendering. Look what its wikipedia page says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_Render

Octane Render is a real-time 3D unbiased rendering application that was started by the New Zealand-based company Refractive Software, Ltd and OTOY took over on March 2012. The first non-beta stable version, v1.0, was released on 28 November 2012 and later versions of Octane Render continue to be deployed as a Web release software. It is the first commercially available unbiased renderer to work exclusively on the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and has the ability to work in real time. This allows users to modify materials, lighting and render settings “on the fly” because the rendering viewport updates immediately whenever a change is made. Octane Render runs exclusively on Nvidia's CUDA technology (which restricts it to running on video cards from Nvidia) although Octane Render 3.0 is planned to remove this restriction.

[Anonymous]

I feel like I wasted all that money on a top-spec graphics card.
I had a look at Octane, and while I love integration in ArchiCAD, I am not so keen on the interface or workflow.
Oh well, Artlantis really needs GPU-base. Now.

[Steve Jepson]

Maxwell Render 4 - coming very soon will render with GPU. Upgrades are for sale now.

[alemanda]

Lumion uses gpu so if you're going to use lumion you must have a fast Nvdia Gtx card.