render station ideal settings ..

[alejandro_m1]

First the options you are giving are a bit different in costs, the dual opteron 270 with 4 gb ram could cost as much as 3 render nodes with X2 4200+

For a render farm I would recommend to go for a higher number of nodes instead of just a single powerful dual dual core.

What are the important things in a render node? First the processor, the more powerful the better, but in a budget I would advice to buy the X2s or better go for a dual core 1xx opteron, they are dual core (two processors in one) they are powerful, stable and one thing really important for having many render nodes: not expensive.

The next thing would be memory, you don´t need to have a lot of memory in a render node, just go for 2 gb and all your work should render perfectly, most apps doesn´t even use above 2 gb right now and since you will only render with them that should be more than enough (my render nodes have 1gb ram and they can render millions of polys without a hassle, but still I would advice for 2gb if you have huge scenes)

Disk storage is one of those things you don´t really need in a render node (well except for the space you need to install programs and the OS of course), go for something small here 40gb should be more than enough, IMO Western Digital or Maxtor work like a charm and get SATA.

For the motherboard get something that comes with internal video and audio since you don´t need a powerful video card in there, you just need Maya to be able to open and then leave everything to the processor, you don´t even need sound just that it usually comes with the motherboard. Again I have to give advice on my experience, MSI K8NGM2-L comes with all you could need including Gigabit Ethernet that is a most. Also it is Micro ATX so you could put it inside a SFF case to save some space. Get a good case though since they will be on and rendering most of the time, so you want low temps there.

[oneczech]

VERY WELL ... Thank you Alejandro ... good piece of advice there:-)

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