I had my computers stolen last weekend during a home robbery which pushed my timetable for replacing 4year tech to NOW. I was just resigning myself to buying a boxx workstation ($6k+) or a precision T7610 ($7k+) with a dual Xeon e52680v2-similar to what I have at work, after my computers were stolen during a home-robbery this weekend.
I was researching any posts on Boxx's renderpro and came across dtolios' site regarding a home renderbox, and after an evening of reading through the threads, have come up with this setup. Im an architecture professor and freelance in design so I do heavy rhino/grasshopper, 3ds max with MR and Maxwell, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, occasionally AE & Premiere (for video) and some sound design with Reason. I would love your feedback on getting this setup:
it's obviously less than an amazing Boxx setup, but at 1/4 the price, I could build an armada of render-nodes to handle renders.
Workstation
Processor Intel i7-4790K Quad Core 4.0GHz overclocked to 4.5
Motherboard Asus Z97-A
Cooling Stock
GPU Asus STRIX GTX970 4GB
Memory Kingston HyperX Fury 1866 4×8 – 32GB
System Drive Samsung 850EVO Pro-Series 512GB
Storage Drive WD Black 1 TB 7200rpm SATA
Case Fractal Design Define R5
Power Supply Cooler Master V550 80+ Gold
Operating System Windows 7 pro 64
2 of these render-nodes
Processor intel Xeon E3-1245V3 – 3.4GHz.
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H
Cooling Stock
GPU Onboard
Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB Kit (8GBx4) DDR3 1600 (PC3-12800)
System Drive Samsung 850EVO -Series 250GB
Case Rosewill Slim MicroATX Case with ATX12V Flex 300W PSU
Power Supply Cooler Master V550 80+ Gold
Operating System Windows 7 pro 64
If I understand Dimitrios' reasoning (max and rhino being primarily single-threaded for modeling), am I losing that much power (at under $3k total) for a freelance workstation + render (while i continue working) vs going with the vendor? I've built every one of my desktops since 2001.
