Which is the better option?

[3DImageWorks]

We are looking to get some new hardware to deal with our renders.

But not sure which option would suit us better.

 

Our workload is:

98% Still images

2% Animation

&

70% Exterior

30% Interior

 

Which of these 3 options do you think would suit us better?

 

OPTION 1 - CLUSTER

Microsoft Windows Computer Cluster

Max, vray

4x Tyan Mainboards

CPU(s) : 8x AMD Opteron 260 HE (Dual Core) - 2x 1.6GHz - 2x 1MB Cache (55W)

Memory : 16GB (4GB Per Node/board)

 

OPTION 2 - RENDER FARM

Max, vray + backburner

4x render nodes

(each node 2x AMD Opteron 260 HE (Dual Core) - 2x 1.6GHz)

(each node 4GB Ram)

 

OPTION 3 - 64bit machine

Windows 64

Max and Vray 64

32GB Ram

2x AMD Opteron 2x Series Processor(s) (3.0 GHz - 2MB Cache)

[AJLynn]

Why the Opterons? 4 cores of 1.6GHz Opteron 2xx isn't even that fast by today's standards, it's probably not faster than 2 cores of Core 2 Duo E6700, and that's before overclocking. If you can overclock, a well-built E6600 machine can do 2x3GHz at a cost of a bit over $400 US for the CPU+MB, and it would definitely be faster than 4x1.6GHz Opterons.

[Greg Hess]

Could you give us a budget estimate? It's kinda of hard to make recommendations when we don't have any idea what type of funds you're working with.

 

You would greatly exceed the power of those 4 opteron systems with 2 xeon 5160 3.0 ghz machines....and you'd also have an upgrade window, when the quad core xeon cpu's become available, to double your render power again.

 

Even though I love AMD to death...they really aren't the best solution at this time for maximum performance.

 

So in conclusion.

 

Option 4:

 

Two Dual Xeon 5160 Systems with 2-4 GB of ram. (Adding ram you won't use is a waste of funds).

[3DImageWorks]

Ignore the budget.

 

I'm not concerned with the budget or type of processor we go for in the end but rather:

for just rendering stills of architectural models which option would result in the quickest rendertimes?

- a cluster "supercomputer"

- a renderfarm (rendering in Backburner in strips)

- a 64bit machine than can utilize more than 4GB of ram

[AJLynn]

I don't think using a Microsoft cluster system gets you much of an advantage when you have few enough computers that it's practical to do systems management on them separately, aside from that feature I'm pretty sure with Max networking the clustered computers would be functionally the same as a normal farm, so it's farm vs. one monster of a computer.

 

There's some tradeoff - with Vray you can use distributed rendering (I've found it more efficient than Backburner strips but also more finicky) and get very good render times using a farm of several computers. However, having most of your power concentrated in one machine has its obvious advantages as well - everything you do will be faster, and farming test renders is often impractical. Either way with the new Intel stuff you can get a lot of power - e.g., a new line Intel dual chip at 3GHz is worth more than 10GHz of Pentium 4, and with Greg's dual-dual Xeon 5160 suggestion you're looking at over 20GHz P4 equivalent.

 

Take a look at the options and see how you can cram the most GHz of Core2 Duo or Xeon 5100 series into a feasible budget. If we're really ignoring the budget, what you want is multiple dual-5160 boxes with 4GB each and Windows 64 running Max9 64-bit with the latest Vray release, which supports all that. Put 4 of those in the space you were going to use for the 4 AMD boxes and you'll have more CPU power than you know what to do with (until you start animating).

[Cynthia Hansen]

So, if you needed it also for animation, are you saying that the 5160's wouldn't be enough?

[AJLynn]

I meant that if you start animating you'll be able to use 16 cores worth of 5160 pretty easily. Whether it would be "enough" would depend on how much animating you want to do and in what time frame. (Studios that do this stuff for Hollywood films can use hundreds of render farm nodes, but most architecture animation wouldn't require that.)

[Cynthia Hansen]

Wow!, thanks for the reply Andrew. That's what I was wanting to understand. My company wants me to research what we will need for new workstations as well as if necessary a render farm. It's an engineering firm that has setup a 3d viz division and although we've been doing stills so far, it looks like we'll be getting into animation with fairly large projects. We use Autodesk Land Desktop, 3ds Max, Vray , Photoshop, Illustrator now. We're looking at getting Premiere also. I work from home part of the time where I have a dual Xeon 5140 that has been wonderful so far but there is nothing at work that compares. I know nothing about setting up a render farm but need to find out what we need to do that if possible or if it would be more economically feasible to just use an online renderfarm. (Also,if I should have started a new thread please let me know.)

[AJLynn]

Looks like you need two things here:

 

-Workstations. Look at what they'll be used for and decide how to proceed. If they're for 3D division people, even with the render farm they'll need some power to do test renders. You're looking at fast Core 2 CPUs as a minimum, 2GB RAM minimum and good 3D cards. For people who aren't involved in rendering, lower end Core 2 machines will do.

 

-Render farm. Think about how much render work you'll be doing and how quickly you'll need to get it done, and compare costs of render farm services with costs of purchasing (and maintaining) your own. For animating, you're probably going to want multiple nodes with at least 4 cores and 4GB RAM, which is expensive, but compared to the cost of a service might save you a lot, depending on the volume of work you do. Make sure you have an understanding of how much CPU will be required to do your animations. If you haven't already, I recommend watching Chris Nichols' Global Illumination Exteriors DVD from Gnomon Workshop.

[MandelbrotJr]

The clear benefit of the "renderfarm" approach is being cost effective.

 

For example, the biggest baddest x86 machine money can buy right now is the Boxx APEXX 8 priced at about u$s 80.000 for the top of the line config (16 Core, 128GB RAM, 1.3TB HD, etc). With that amount of money you can buy a $5k more than decent primary workstation, and lets say 50 1.5K C2D nodes with enough RAM. The later approach will give you at least 30/40 times the performance of the single machine for the same price.

 

Of course this is an extreme example, but the point is the same, a lot of cheap machines is ALMOST ALWAYS faster than a single monster machine.

There is the matter of test renders, but a 3/4k machine will usually be more than enough for test renders.

 

just my 2 cents