3ds max and ssd

Hi I'm a bit confused about whether or not to invest in an ssd.

I'm a 3d artist primarily using 3ds max and zbrush. Can anyone give me an idea as to what sort of improvement I would experience?

I'm on the large-ish end of data use, I use models up to about 3gb and textures of about 150mb.

I was expecting, certainly, improvements in loading times (although I wouldn't shell out any money if this is all there was) and possibly/hopefully some improvement in the responsiveness during use (because of faster virtual memory and stuff???). What I definitely didn't expect was any increase in rendering time but then I came across this video.

http://www.intel.com...s-max-demo.html

and then everything I thought I knew about how ssds and 3ds max worked disappeared into a puff of confusion.

Have I gone mad?

very little

3ds max would start faster, but that is it

checking you current build, i suggest an upgrade to either an amd hexacore OR an intel i7-2600K (four cores is poor for 3dsmax)

and... get more memory 16GB+, of atleast 1600MHz+

then, will you see the difference....... adding an SSD to your current rig would be a sin

Yeah memory is definitely next on my list, the only question was whether to get an ssd as well.

incidentally I'v heard that the effect memory speed has on max is marginal.

After that I'll be jumping the amd ship in favour of intel. Either the 3770K or I'm tempted by the 3930 (but I've only just bought a Noctua d14 which won't fit a 2011). So I might just wait to see what the nextset of intel hex core look like.

oh, and what do you think that video from intel is all about?

tmcthree said:

oh, and what do you think that video from intel is all about?

Click to expand...

basically, 3dsmax caches all the assets (meshes and materials) needed for the scene.

a cache is not in memory, but an allotted amount of storage space

and.... that video is a cheat....

1... the SSD uses all the sataIII bandwidth, while the HDD could never (not even RAID'd)

2... at the start of a render session ALL assets are cached... the video clearly shows that they can crippled the caching on the HDD rig (if both rigs are truely the same)

3... if (2) is not the reason for the slow rendering, then the SSD rig's CPU must be clocked at a higher speed

the video is: intel trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, in order to sell hardware.

as an autodesk assessor and beta tester, i can see through their wool