The Big Rendering Question

[IceAged]

I've reached the stage where I clearly need more rendering power for stills and animations, and have two options. One is to construct 8 more computers, with quad core processors, 4Gb of RAM each and basic graphics, etc. The other option is to invest in a dedicated render 'server' to do the job.

eg: http://www.tyan.com/product_barebones_detail.aspx?pid=338

The first option would be pretty straightforward for me, and the second needs looking into in more depth. Does anyone have any experience using the Tyan for rendering, or a similar type of setup? Would it be more cost effective in terms of £ per processor, energy use, ease of use, ability to upgrade in the future, etc?

At the end of the day it mostly comes down to cost in the long term. Any thoughts? What would you do if you were in my situation?

[alfienoakes]

Do you have a budget??

 

Is space not an issue and the heat produced by multiple machines? Is this setup going to be at your home, or in an office away from your home?

 

Do you work on your own, ie you dont have a ready made network available to you?

 

Explain your situation to us in more detail. Just trying to narrow it down, you should get some more input then.

[chiquito]

Just out of curiosity, what would the pricing on a specification like the submitted be? trying to compare it against a rendering core

http://www.bellcomputer.com/render.htm

[IceAged]

OK some more details

My budget is loosely £8000, (16,000$), my initial plan was to build 8 quad core computers, and an extra computer for someone who is working alongside me. So in total, that's 10 computers including my own, giving me a "10 times faster" selling point.

Space could be better, but there is enough for the extra computers, since they will only be using one monitor/keyboard/mouse between them. I am concerned about heat distribution however, as I have no air conditioning and it can get quite hot in my office, (one room in the house), during the summer.

Basically I am in full control over the network, which consists of my main computer, a laptop, and several other stray computers throughout the house which I sometimes use for rendering.

I quite like the idea that the Tyan motherboards can accommodate 4 CPU's, meaning I won't need to buy 8 motherboards, power supplies, RAM, cases, etc etc.

[manta]

Well just for kicks i went to dell and configured this Octa-core system, I think it would be better to have 4 Octa-core, rather than 8 quad cores, less crap to deal with...anyway it came to $4,000 each...

[Wayne Harney]

Pretty pricey!

 

4 octocores @ $4000 each = $16,000.

 

8 quadcores (q6600) @ @1000 each = $8000

 

You might look at small form factor mobos and cases if space is an issue. Also if the computers are strictly render slaves with minimal hardware, then smaller power efficient power supplies will suffice and ease your electric bill. Also less heat and noise. Many people are OCing there q6600s to 3.0 or 3.2ghz with great success and minimal effort.

[manta]

Pretty pricey!

 

4 octocores @ $4000 each = $16,000.

 

8 quadcores (q6600) @ @1000 each = $8000

 

You might look at small form factor mobos and cases if space is an issue. Also if the computers are strictly render slaves with minimal hardware, then smaller power efficient power supplies will suffice and ease your electric bill. Also less heat and noise. Many people are OCing there q6600s to 3.0 or 3.2ghz with great success and minimal effort.

 

I just went and configured a quad Q6600 with 4Gb of ram and it came to $1,624

Where are you getting $1,000 from...

[luckytohaveher]

The ONLY WAY TO FLY!!!

 

40 CPU cores per system

 

http://www.tyan.com/newsroom_pressroom_detail.aspx?id=1183

 

T-650 Series Features:

 

1400 Watts max, plugs into standard wall outlet

Small form factor, portable

Low-noise, whisper quiet operation… less than 52dB.

Microsoft Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003

Linux Operating System

40 CPU cores per system

Up to 60 GB of RAM

 

Availability and Pricing:

The TyanPSC T-630 Series starts about $20,000 USD, available since January with dual-core processors.

The TyanPSC T-650 Series starts about $20,000 USD, now available with 50-watt quad-core processors.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/22/tyans-40-cpu-personal-supercomputer-now-shipping/

 

"Cost of having the most killer solution in the world... Priceless..."

[Hazdaz]

At the level you guys are talking about, wouldn't something like ATi's new technology which uses GPU-like parellel processing (and Nvidia has something similar) be lots more useful than essentially cramming 32 miniature PCs into one enclosure?

 

If you think about it, it's quite silly to have to basically build a shrunken down renderfarm - with all the wasteful overhead inherent with running an OS and such. It's like a brute-force method, when something that is specifically made to process 3D images could be used instead. I honestly do not know how mature and how usable the ATi/Nvdia technologies are, but they would seem like such a better solution if they actually work.

 

Sorry for posting something off on a tangent, I just see people trying to throw more CPU-cycles at a problem, when a better answer could be to use GPU-like-cycles instead. (if the technology is ready for prime time, of course).

[manta]

At the level you guys are talking about, wouldn't something like ATi's new technology which uses GPU-like parellel processing (and Nvidia has something similar) be lots more useful than essentially cramming 32 miniature PCs into one enclosure?

 

If you think about it, it's quite silly to have to basically build a shrunken down renderfarm - with all the wasteful overhead inherent with running an OS and such. It's like a brute-force method, when something that is specifically made to process 3D images could be used instead. I honestly do not know how mature and how usable the ATi/Nvdia technologies are, but they would seem like such a better solution if they actually work.

 

Sorry for posting something off on a tangent, I just see people trying to throw more CPU-cycles at a problem, when a better answer could be to use GPU-like-cycles instead. (if the technology is ready for prime time, of course).

 

It is a good idea...but at this time not at all possible, the process is neither mature or usable ...so you must go with something that will work NOW...which is throwing more CPU's at the problem...and thank god its sooooo cheap....think back only a few years and how expensive it was just to have a dual Xeon workstation...it was like $5,000...now you can easily have an Octo-workstation for less than that...

[Tamir]

It is only partly true – what William is saying about GP-GPU.

The process is not mature yet; but it is usable already.

 

GP-GPU is undoubtedly the future, and HPC hardware is already available for the public:

See the Tesla at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_gpu_processor.html

And the Quadro-Plex at: http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html

Not to mention ATI/AMD with their own proposed version of GP-GPU, “Close to the Metal”, as well as Intel’s Larrabee.

The point is; yes it’s true, that no CPU-based rendering software manufacturer has harnessed the power of GP-GPU for off-line rendering yet;

But!

Many HPC applications are already available on the market (targeted towards scientific calculations at the moment), and current GP-GPU power can be harnessed by using a GPU based software (and you’d be surprised at how many of them there are) for rendering.

When price is considered, GP-GPU offers orders of magnitude more value. An entry level Tesla is about $20,000 and is capable of generating about 500 Giga Flops of computing power (to put this in understandable terms; current CPU based engines can achieve interactive rendering speeds if they can make use of around 3 Tera-Flops of computing power) in other words; 6 Teslas can give you interactive Radiosity and Ray-Tracing.

Clearly, the current CPU based software code would have to be rewritten to be able to work in a GP-GPU environment, which means a complete re-write of the code, and evidence for this shift are not visible yet;

But!

It will happen soon!

How?

It will not come from the main players in the market (mainstream software companies are yet to see what will become the preferred programming language of market before they even attempt at a code re-write) but rather from small “Machinima” and “Game” studios that are already on the cutting edge of GPU rendering.

by harnessing the power of GP-GPU to its full extent the new generation of hardware-renderers can offer the exact same quality now available in CPU based engines - through physics based GI computations - only doing so in Real-Time.

In other words; Thomas, sub-out your work to a professional render farm, for another 2-4 years:( and then get your-self a single Tesla machine:D and enjoy the benefits of real-time rendering.

[Wayne Harney]

Anyway, back on topic.

 

Dells are pricey and overkill for a render slave. I did a quick search on amazon and found these. The 1st one is only $860.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-M8120N-Desktop-Processor-Premium/dp/B000RNG3WO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1195581985&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.com/Pavilion-A6152N-Desktop-Processor-Premium/dp/B000S6O03E/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1195581985&sr=1-7

http://www.amazon.com/Core-Quad-Q6600-4GB-250GB/dp/B000UF76N4/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1195581985&sr=1-8

 

I'm looking at getting this from mwave.com. It's small form factor (about the size of a shoe box). Total $838 w/ XP 64

 

# SHUTTLE SG31G2B INTEL G31 CHIPSET CORE 2 DUO BARE SYSTEM (Retail)(*Regular $251.50- $10 Mwave Instant Discount = $241.50, While Supplies Last!)CORE 2 QUAD Q6600 2.4G (1066Mhz)

# CRUCIAL 4GB DDR2 667

# (2GB x 2)

$657.50 $657.50

SKU:BA24258 -BA23383 -BA24150 -BA24150 - -TEST1

 

# SEAGATE 80GB ST380815AS/380817AS SATA300 7200RPM 8MB 8.5MS (Bare drive)

$45.90 $45.90

SKU:AA21510 - - -

 

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL X64 ZAT-00007 (OEM)

$134.90 $134.90

SKU:AA34610

 

Total $838.30

 

Here's the base system link http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?&scriteria=BA24258

[Simon Moir]

We use some pretty zippy dual quad workstations from Armari for all our stills, we're very happy with them. We thought about a render farm for animation, but tried www.rendernation.com and haven't looked back. They are very helpful and lightning quick. We buy them a beer every now and then but that beats having 10 computers humming away in the background (We charge most of their time straight to the client as well).

[IceAged]

Thanks guys, I hadn't noticed all these replies otherwise I really would have posted back sooner.....

Some good examples here, and quite varied. GPU rendering might well be the way forward, but of course that isn't the case right now. None of the rendering software I'm using supports it in any way, and probably won't do for some time... and 4 years is quite a long time to wait!

A lot of the rendering we do is unbiased rendering whilst designing 'on-the-fly', so outsourcing to render farm companies isn't an option other than for final presentation images, (though I am surprised at how little it costs these days)!

I like the look of the Tyan 'Supercomputer', which contains 10 Quad CPU's and is fairly portable. Though at £10,000 it's not something I would want to leave in the back of a car.

The 'build 10 Quad core computers approach' seems cheaper, but for the extra £2000 give-or-take, the Tyan seems the better option for; size, power consumption, 'portability', ease of maintenance, ability to upgrade, and presumably noise levels as well?

[luckytohaveher]

Think about the maintenance, support, operational, and upgrade costs associated with a rack of individual machines. Do not forget all the extra routers, cables, heat, and power.

 

Look to total cost of ownership and work backwards. Remember, every second of maintenance and support is a net negative at your billing rate -- or more over time away from your family or the pub!

[Rendermedia]

I have a small office and wondered whether I should go down the Blade route for render servers, but the cost is just too much.

 

I opted in the end on 3 Quadcore machines, another 3 in Jan, 6 in total from ebuyer.com each came in at £450 each Inc VAT and delivery. I have distributed net rendering in Mental Ray and including my workstation will have 28 buckets working away. Not bad for just under 3k.

 

My main workstation is a Dell Precision 650 "ex captain Scarlet CGI". and it was fast in its day, £2500 3 years ago, it has 2GB RAM and 2x 2.8 xeons, my single Quads, are only Q600 processors, 2GB RAM and they are between 3 - 4 times faster than my Dual Xeon depending on what’s rendering.

 

Also to bear in mind, what’s going to be easier to sell, single computers to home users, or a render box that only the 3d community will pick up on

 

I just sold one of my dual Xeons for £200, and for a further £250 I can get another Quad that is going to be up to 3 times faster, so processor per pound I am up!

 

Another thing, Can you do distributed net rendering on the 40 core box, will Mental RAY, or V-Ray etc, see the box as one computer or as single boxes in one chassis, if it see's the box as seveal machines you have to pay for extra licences’. over a certain amount for distributed net rendering, (but not backburner renders, unlimited liscences)

 

If however you dont have to Pay the extra licenses' then work out whether the extra for the 40 corebox outweights you buying extra MR liscenes on 10 single quad machines

 

Regards

Mark