radioVOY Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Hi everyone, im starting to sell all my pcs and some stuff to build a new ones with the recent changes of hardware. So the question here is: What would you build or buy starting from zero? Lets supose that you need a main workstation and four render nodes. what could be the specs for the workstation and what for the rendernodes? Intel or AMD's? 533 or 667 DDRII? SCSI or SATAII? Higer Quadro or midrange? single-dual or dual-dual? Please post all the configurations that you like to do and dont stop by budget issues just post the configuration that fits your needs. That will give a lot of directions to how and what to buy, to me and other people that is thinking on buy some hardware. Thanks for your posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioVOY Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 BTW Im not a lazzy guy just waiting to get his problems fixed, im doing my own research and I'm going to post it when its ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Well in a perfect world, I would build a quad opteron (2 X dual core) workstation, and the rest amd X2's... A really good graphics card for the workstation, like a quadro 3000 or something, and you could do intergrated video on the nodes, make sure you don't skimp on your network, go gigabit, get fast HD's for the work station, regular 7200 for the nodes, 2 gigs of memory for all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioVOY Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 thats what i was thinking but isnt better to have more horsepower in the nodes than in the workstation?? in that way you can model and mapping in your workstation and finally render in the nodes , at this way you dont need huge proccessor power in the wrkstion and you free your wrkstion to do something else. may be im not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 If you have nodes, go with an AthlonX2. Opterons are expensive and a lot of what you do on a workstation doesn't even use 2 CPUs let alone 4. What's your budget here? I've got a P4 2.8 with 2 gigs, SATA RAID and FireGL 5100 and a small farm using Ebay and scrounged parts, and it works well for alarmingly little money. With a real budget, go dual-core and the video card depends on the complexity of your models, for most people anything over a Quadro 1400 is overkill. SATA RAID is great, there's no good reason for SCSI anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 I'd start with your workstation: Since you'll have rendernodes to dump renders to go with fast single core opterons 254's or wait for the 256's ~ would provide exellent GUI performance as well as outstanding performance in any application that is not smp-enabled (illustrator, autocad,...) dual Opteron 254 or 256's Tyan K8WE S2895 motherboard 4 gb reg ecc memory quadro 3450 or 4500 (4500 is a bit excessive but the performance of this card may be worth it for you) 2 - 74 gb raptors for OS and programs in RAID 0 for high perf a couple of larger slower drives for storage (sized according to however much you need) a great 550+ 12v eps power supply Rendernodes: don't rule out the idea of building nodes out of dual - dual core Opteron systems. Opteron 265's can be bought for $307 each and a node can be scraped together (with new components) for under $1300 if you shop around and for way less if you scavenge off E-bay or other forum for sale/trade threads. In the end, you'd save money (by purchasing less accessories... hd's, ram, psu's, case, optical drives, ... etc) with the dual-dual core system, have a system that scales better, is more future-proof. Also, logistically, the Opteron systems would take up less space, create less heat, and use less electricity. here is a post I started over at 2cpu.com regarding dual - dual core rendernodes... it may shed some light on the subject: http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=72785&highlight=dual+core+opteron+motherboard+list the specs of the system I ended up with: cd burner: LITE-ON Black IDE CD Burner Model SOHR-5239V BK RT - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16827106997 case: CHENMING CMUI-P-601AEB-0 Black 1.0mm SECC Server Computer Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16811125480 Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16822144102 Vid Card: SAPPHIRE 100945L-BK Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814102447 Motherboard: ASUS K8N-DL Dual Socket 940 NVIDIA nForce4 Professional http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16813131059 Power supply: AMS PP-5503EPS EPS12V 550W Power Supply - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817101108 HSF: Scythe FCS-50 Heatlane CPU Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16835185107 Memory (x2): CORSAIR 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) ECC Registered http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820145309 Alright ~ I got Lazy and Newegg'd everything... shop around (and e-baying) and you may be able to get for closer to $600: ----- $661 subtotal ----- $719 shipped above system w/ MSI K8T Master2-FAR7 and 20gh HD = closer to $626 subtotal cheap: Asus K8N-DL with 265 processors @ 307 each = 614 + 661 = $1275 cheapest: MSI K8T Master2-FAR7 with 20 gb hd and 265's @ 307 each = 614 + 626 = $1240 edit: changed RAID 1 config to RAID 0 for better HD performance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioVOY Posted March 6, 2006 Author Share Posted March 6, 2006 Great post I'll check all the links there's good tips on all. Thanks a lot!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 Well the reason I would have 4 cpu's on my workstation, is because I'll be doing alot of test renders on it, as thats going on I might want to scrub some video at the same time, the quadro 3000 isn't exactly state of the art either its pretty old now in "graphic card years" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Great post I'll check all the links there's good tips on all. Thanks a lot!! no problem : ) cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Well the reason I would have 4 cpu's on my workstation, is because I'll be doing alot of test renders on it, as thats going on I might want to scrub some video at the same time, the quadro 3000 isn't exactly state of the art either its pretty old now in "graphic card years" Wouldn't the farm be for the test renders... then you could use either all 4 or 2 cores of your workstation for scrubbing video Yeah, the quadroFX 3000 is now 2 generations old, but still delivers solid performance. Note: you must have an AGP 8x motherboard to run this specific card. Assuming one has such a motherboard and wants to pinch pennies... an FX3000 could be snagged for less than $300 from ebay : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Wouldn't the farm be for the test renders... then you could use either all 4 or 2 cores of your workstation for scrubbing video Yeah, the quadroFX 3000 is now 2 generations old, but still delivers solid performance. Note: you must have an AGP 8x motherboard to run this specific card. Assuming one has such a motherboard and wants to pinch pennies... an FX3000 could be snagged for less than $300 from ebay : ) No, I rarely farm out my test renders, only when I'm ready for a final do I set up all that,( I use light cache, can pretty much tell how its going to look in a couple minutes), and I was just being a smart *ss by saying I was going to scrub video at the same time I'm rendering, because someone said 4 cpu's was overkill, and as for the quadro 3000, I was the one who suggested it, and someone said it was overkill also... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 No, I rarely farm out my test renders, only when I'm ready for a final do I set up all that,( I use light cache, can pretty much tell how its going to look in a couple minutes), and I was just being a smart *ss by saying I was going to scrub video at the same time I'm rendering, because someone said 4 cpu's was overkill, and as for the quadro 3000, I was the one who suggested it, and someone said it was overkill also... sorry, . . . I couldn't pick up on your sarcasm : ( I highly respect AJLynn's advice but everyone has a specific workflow. I, personally, favor having a little more muscle under the hood (assuming it can be afforded) due to the fact that if you ever need it - it's there. I've entertained the thought of upgrading to a quadro 4500 due to the fact that I don't have much time to model and when I do, I need highly detailed models to move quickly and as effortlessly as possible. I must admit that not everyone's needs are the same so if you can get by with a 1400 or a Geforce 6800 series card... obviously save the money and put it into a rendernode or ram or . . . beer : ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 One thing to consider about vray lightcache is that it is multithreaded. So the more cpu's on your main system the faster it will calculate. In 1.5 they are saying that it will also be DR capable. Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 sorry, . . . I couldn't pick up on your sarcasm : ( I highly respect AJLynn's advice but everyone has a specific workflow. I, personally, favor having a little more muscle under the hood (assuming it can be afforded) due to the fact that if you ever need it - it's there. I've entertained the thought of upgrading to a quadro 4500 due to the fact that I don't have much time to model and when I do, I need highly detailed models to move quickly and as effortlessly as possible. I must admit that not everyone's needs are the same so if you can get by with a 1400 or a Geforce 6800 series card... obviously save the money and put it into a rendernode or ram or . . . beer : ) Don't get me wrong, sometimes only a quad-core system will do, I was just responding to Ever's needs. He said a workstation and four nodes - with a farm like that, CPU power in the main workstation isn't as important, and you can spend the money elsewhere. I've also seen a lot of his work and IIRC it's not incredibly high poly, so the cost/benefit between a Quadro 1400 and a 4500 wouldn't be good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecton3d Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 Don't get me wrong, sometimes only a quad-core system will do, I was just responding to Ever's needs. He said a workstation and four nodes - with a farm like that, CPU power in the main workstation isn't as important, and you can spend the money elsewhere. ~ I absolutely agree! That's why I suggested earlier in this thread to go for a dual proc system with faster, single core processors (2 - opteron 254's or 256's) instead of a 4 core workstation. Hell, maybe even an FX57 system would be best - a single 2.8ghz system without the added cost of reg + ecc ram and a server motherboard, which, if decent runs upwards of $400! I've also seen a lot of his work and IIRC it's not incredibly high poly, so the cost/benefit between a Quadro 1400 and a 4500 wouldn't be good. ... yep, you could nearly get another node out of the cost diff between the two and if he's not poly heavy then there's no question about it : ) cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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