DaVinci Resolve has long been known to greatly benefit from multiple GPUs, but is this still true or has the recent launch of Resolve 14 changed things?


DaVinci Resolve has long been known to greatly benefit from multiple GPUs, but is this still true or has the recent launch of Resolve 14 changed things?

While GPU performance is often the first thing that comes up when configuring a DaVinci Resolve workstation, the CPU is in many ways even more important. Modern CPUs from Intel and AMD can have up to 18 cores, but can DaVinci Resolve actually make use of them all?

The latest Core processors from Intel have launched: the 8th generation of this series, code named “Coffee Lake”. This brings with it the first six-core CPUs in Intel’s mainstream processor line, so we are taking a look at how they perform in Solidworks 2017. For comparison, we also have results from our previous recommendation for modeling and CAD: the Core i7 7700K “Kaby Lake” chip.

We’ve previously tested the new Hybrid Mode in V-Ray RT 3.6, which combines CPUs and GPUs in order to speed up rendering, on Intel’s Skylake X processors. This time around we are going to test on AMD’s Threadripper 1950X, and use even more powerful GPUs than before. We also take a look at GeForce GTX 1080 Ti vs Titan Xp performance.

Alongside a small frequency bump, the new Coffee Lake-S 8th Gen CPUs from Intel have also received a 50-100% increase in core count. On paper, this makes the new Core i7 8700K, i5 8600K, i3 8350K, and other 8th Gen CPUs much more powerful than their predecessors, but will this translate to improved performance for real-world Premiere Pro workloads?

Intel has launched their 8th generation of Core processors, code named “Coffee Lake”. This includes the first step beyond quad-core CPUs for Intel’s mainstream processor line. We are taking a look at how these new CPUs perform in Autodesk Revit 2018, compared to the previous 7th generation “Kaby Lake” Core i7 7700K and a couple of AMD’s Ryzen 7 chips.

For years, After Effects has struggled to utilize high CPU core counts to the point that a quad core CPU was the best you could get for raw performance. The new Coffee Lake-S 8th Gen CPUs from Intel have seen an increase in core count, but the question is whether After Effects will actually be able to make use of them.

Lightroom contains a few tasks that can utilize a higher number of CPU cores, but much of the application can only take advantage of a couple of cores. With the new Coffee Lake 8th Gen CPUs seeing an increase in core count, will Lightroom see a significant benefit?

With two more cores over the previous generation, the new Coffee Lake 8th Gen CPUs perform extremely well in certain applications. However, Photoshop has historically struggled with higher core counts so will the new CPUs actually be any faster?

New in V-Ray RT 3.6, Chaos Group has added Hybrid Rendering: the option to combine CPUs and GPUs in order to render images and animations even faster. We give an overview of how this works, and then explore the impact it can have on rendering speeds.