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Zbrush and Keyshot are CPU based, yes ... but ...

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi,

So I know from a long time that if I want Zbrush & Keyshot to be very responsive, I need to buy a big CPU and fast RAM …

But with the line of new CPU from AMD and Intel, how does Zbrush scale with the number of cores ? linearly ?

I’m planning to buy a dul CPU workstation early next year ( until AMD Threadrippers/Epyc ironed out all the BIOS upgrades ) but is there a max number of cores where you will no longer see a difference with ZBrush ?

If we consider that no components will be a bottleneck, what would be the best approach for Zbrush ?

Option 1 :
1 CPU with 16 cores

Option 2
2 CPU with with 12 cores

Option 3
2 CPU with 16 cores ( very expensive, but it would be worth if Zbrush scales linearly )

Hope my question makes sense :o

Cheers
Vince

#2

I know there’s a diminishing return on core count. I know there’s a max core number beyond which Zbrush sees little appreciable gain. According to this thread, that number is 8 cores:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?3015-Benchmarking-in-Zbrush/page22

Take care not to overestimate cpu impact. More powerful CPUs are most useful in zbrush for crunching the long CPU intensive processes like decimation or projection. But Zbrush is designed to work pretty well and provide smooth brush performance on relatively modest hardware, with significant but not major increases from more powerful CPUs. Going overboard on a cpu designed only to be used for Zbrush may not provide performance justifying the investment.

Keyshot may be another matter.

#3

Thanks for the link & info :slight_smile: