Server boxes as render node.

[Tommy L]

Whats to stop me using something like this as a render machine? I dont know much about hardware, but this looks like it can seat plenty of ram and has 4 fairly quick processors. These seem to proliferate second hand....am i missing something obvious?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-PowerEdge-6850-Quad-Xeon-3-66GHz-4GB-RAID_W0QQitemZ270138068636QQihZ017QQcategoryZ51229QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[AJLynn]

Sure, you can use that to render. It's industrial strength but it's a Netburst system, and not as fast as a Core2 Quad. A new Quad box is probably cheaper, and definitely cheaper after these much-anticipated price drops we're supposed to see this month.

[Matt McDonald]

And if I'm not mistaken you'd have to put a server operating system on it (due to the number of processors) which is a good bit more money than XP.

[Tommy L]

And if I'm not mistaken you'd have to put a server operating system on it (due to the number of processors) which is a good bit more money than XP.

 

Hmmmmn, had a quick look at windows server 2003 64, a staggering $3920.

 

Maybe not.

[David Crawford]

Well, as far as the OS goes, it all depends on what software you're running. If you're running LW then there is a LINUX screamernet client. And...Linux is free. But if you have to run Windows then maybe you should look into running windows 2000 server instead of 2003. You also would have to think about power. The newer servers use alot more power than the ones made in 2001, about three times more, so that means three times the electric bill. I am currently setting up a mini renderfarm for students and studios with a mini budget. It currently consist of 100 cpu's....anyone interested?