CGTalk - Rendering machines

rgolub

11-19-2006, 03:24 AM

I am curious about folks thoughts on render farms (or at least a backyard plot). Mostly I render high detail stills on a dual 2.8 Ghz Xeon which isn't as fast as I had hoped....

I have an old Dell workstation (dual 1.8 Ghz Xeons w/ 512 mb RAM) that I am considering hooking up to the network as a rendering node. Perhaps some more RAM, perhaps another machine or two? What are you all using for dedicated render machines? Especially cheap ones. I'm not averse to building them myself if need be.

Vernimator

11-21-2006, 12:54 AM

Well I have a lovely "Render Garden" full of inexpensive but very powerfull AMD processors...

My Main Workstation is an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard running an AMD Athlon 64 4800+ X2 Dual Core Processor, 2 gig of Corsair Ram, Dual NVidia 6200 GT's with 256 meg each, 80 gig WD Raptor SATA, 200 Gig WD Caviar SATA hard drives all in a Silverstone Case and dual 17in NEC flat panal displays. It ROCK's!!! Render times are extremely fast for a system that cost less then $1700.

Then add my 3 Primary Render Nodes. They are all the same, an Asus A8N-VM CSM Motherboard with built in GForce 6150 video, running an AMD Athlon 64 4600+ X2 Dual Core Processor, 1 gig Corsair Ram, and 80 gig WD Caviar SATA hard drive. Each system cost less then $700 each and they are practically as fast as the Main Workstation.

Then I have 7 other AMD Athlon based systems, a 2800+, a 2600+, a 2500+ Laptop, 2 2400+, a 1.4 gig and last and very much least a 1.33 gig.

Production times are drastically reduced when you have sufficient power to drive forward with. The less time you spend rendering the more time you spend in production. The Dual Core processors are a Godsend for the 3D Artist. Coupled with an inexpensive motherboard with built in everything, a cheap case and hard drive and you have a perfect render system.

Just my thoughts...

Vern

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