Here’s a pretty nice photo-real render I recently created via SketchUp and V-Ray. I’m doing A LOT of testing at the minute in preparation for my new 3D courses on the SketchUp Hub which will include photo-real rendering (V-Ray). So I’m trying to establish a benchmark in terms of render time and hardware requirements.
This scene was rendered in one hour using my custom built PC. It has a dual Xeon processor (5 years old), and has a NVIDIA graphics card with 64GB of RAM. It’s a pretty impressive system.
I decided to render the same scene using my MacBook Pro i5 with 8GB of RAM and an Intel Iris graphics card. It took 7 hours. I was hoping for between 3-5 but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
I’m going to purchase a better spec laptop to do more tests because realistically, if my target audience is serious about creating high quality renders using V-Ray, I need to educate them when it comes to the sufficient spec. I always knew an i7 was the starting point anyway, but obviously you need to build the rest of the spec around this. I’m veering towards the DELL XPS 17 with the i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. This system also has a vapor chamber to enhance performance: something that’s crucial for rendering activities.
My question is this: is my custom built PC with dual Xeon processors comparable to the performance of this current XPS model? Will it achieve the same render times?
Thanks for your reply. I’ve trialled Enscape but prefer the realism of V-Ray. To try and work out whether the performance of the XPS 17 will be sufficient, I need to use comparisons with V-Ray and not a different rendering software application - they simply aren’t comparable.
I see some of your renders have some sort of globe lighting bouncing off the walls but no light source. This has an impact on realism. Try to reduce the urge to include artificial lighting all the time! Natural daylight provides a much more authentic appearance. Your bedroom renders are nice, though
some sort of globe lighting bouncing off the walls
I do what my boss/client want, I often have very little say in some things.
I get that VRay is better in the right hands but I currently have approx 16 projects queued up (I’ve never had less than 6/7) and speed has a higher value than absolute accuracy for us…. Saying that, your right, my lighting needs work
I am not very good at v-ray but an hour for the image sounds a lot. My night scene below is perhaps not as high-poly as yours, but it has glass, mirrors, polished metal, displacement and light emitting materials.
About 3.5 minutes in V-Ray, RTX render (RTX 2070 GFX) (reduced in size)
I’m delighted that business is going well for you that’s the most important thing. Removing those lights should also reduce render time further, although in Enscape, with those blazing render times, it’ll make little difference.
Anssi, a dark render like this is totally different to a daytime render. I’m happy with the one hour render to be fair. I’m more interested to know if the dual Xeon processors are comparable to the XPS 17. What processor and GB do you have?
I have an i7-9700KF, 16 GB of memory and a RTX 2070 graphics card with 16GB of graphics memory I used the graphics card to render.
What makes the Mac renders slow is that V-ray only supports GPU rendering with Nvidia graphics cards, so in the Mac it only renders using the CPU.
Your post title says ‘vray, let’s talk render times and IT spec’ so I assumed you were looking for speed/time comparisons on different spec hardware.
Without knowing the Xeon or Nvidia models it’s hard to tell but any laptop will thermal throttle (slow down) under heavy load (such as rendering for hours). A desktop won’t (or shouldn’t).
You mention the XPS has an i7 but not the generation of i7, is it a 9,10,11?
A 3060 only had 6GB on board, this may not be so critical in VRay but is (in my opinion) at the lowest end of what I’d deem usable, I’d see if you can get a 3070 or better with 8 or more.
Paul, I clearly asked at the bottom of my post if my current dual Xeon was comparable to the current DELL XPS (for V-Ray renders). I’m interested to know how well the XPS will cope if I spend over £2k on it. I understand the thermal throttle thing, which is why I’ve opted for the i7 and not the i9. Also, due to the vapor chamber, this laptop is definitely considered a desktop replacement. Which is why I’m considering it because my target audience use mostly laptops. It also has a small footprint, so it shouldn’t be a nightmare to transport, if needs be.
Thanks, I’m glad you like it It’s my first render using V-Ray. External renders are much faster to produce than interiors, though! I have made up my mind in terms of the rendering software! I’m sticking with V-Ray! Maybe my expectations are skewed in terms of me thinking 1 hour is a good render time, because I previously used Maxwell Render (which sometimes had to render for days!).
Maybe I need to tweak some of the V-Ray settings a little more. Thanks for your input.
It is for nerds. There is no “Render in Blender” button in SketchUp. Nobody models in Blender, at least none of the showcase images I have seen originate in it.
OMG!!! The same scene was rendered using my GPU in 26 minutes!!! That’s less than half the CPU render time! And my GPU is only a NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti - I’m so happy!!!
