PRO100 is known for never requiring powerful machines to operate. However, the introduction of 3D solid import in popular formats caused our Users’ projects to swell – sometimes project files are in the gigabyte range! While a single cabinet or even an entire kitchen take up very little space, a bush modeled to the last leaf or a long-haired carpet can take up 99% of the project size. And PRO100 and Kray have to load, process and display all these hairs and leaves, which requires a lot of computing power.
1. PRO100 The basis is a graphics card. The faster it is, the better, although spending huge amounts of money on the latest top-shelf model is rather pointless – PRO100 is not a game, the increase in performance will be imperceptible. Specifically: any card from the first hundred of the list at https://bit.ly/2LHI5Nf will handle most projects with flying colors. The second hundred should be enough to work smoothly with projects not overloaded with imported meshes. The third is probably not worth considering.
2. Kray The most important thing is the processor; the faster it is, the faster we will get the finished render. The performance of processors in rendering is best measured by the Cinebench program, and the result of this test (more precisely: Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64Bit) translates into rendering time in a simple way: a processor with twice the Cinebench score will render the scene twice as fast. The processor list can be found at: https://bit.ly/2kE6SYs , or: https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r15_multi_core-8 . Currently (May 2020) the fastest, non-server processors achieve results of over 8000 Cinebench points, and the most popular, more pocket-friendly models reach 1000 Cb.
What is the cheapest way to buy the relatively most powerful unit? This is where price-to-performance comparisons come in handy, like this one: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html#xy_scatter_graph . How do you read it? The vertical axis is price, the horizontal – performance. The processors with the best price-to-performance ratio will be on the bottom right, the worst – on the top left. This makes it much easier to make a decision – but remember that the prices of the units in this comparison are valid in the United States, it will be a bit more expensive here.
The Ryzen 5 3600 offers the power of the i7-9800X for less than a third of its price
3. Laptop or desktop? If you plan to visit clients, it is worth investing in a portable computer; if it is your only computer – there is no room for compromise. However, if you have both a laptop and a desktop computer, the graphics card will be more important in the laptop – because while you can easily make corrections to the project in PRO100 in front of the client, you probably will not be making further renderings with it. On a desktop computer, it is worth investing in a more powerful processor, which will complete renders faster in KRAY.
4. RAM In every computer, the project must be loaded into memory to work on it. This means that 4GB is definitely not enough. It is worth considering 8GB, and for large projects even 16GB of memory. A computer that does not have enough free RAM cannot use either the processor or the graphics card – most of its time is spent using the hard drive as the missing memory.
5. A few final remarks There are issues such as the screen diagonal in the case of laptops (the larger it is, the greater the comfort of work, but the greater the weight of the equipment and the less mobility), whether the workstation housing is sufficiently quiet, disk space, or the number of USB ports. They do not affect the performance in PRO100/KRAY, but it is worth considering them before buying!
6. If you still have doubts – show this article to the salesperson at the computer store. Based on it, they will advise you on the right computer!
