Questions from a student

[epelj1]

Alright, so I'm a senior architecture student. I'm getting very heavily involved with rendering - big scenes, and animations.

 

My only option for rendering is my HP laptop that I have for classes. With overheating issues which are fairly common in the dv9000's, I've been looking at other options.

 

My first option is a new quad core desktop. Nothing extremely high end, I'm a student. I'm looking at roughly $500-$600.

 

My second option with only occurred to me recently is something of this nature, used strictly as a render slave. (cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=110321124406 - sorry it wouldn't let me post this as a link)

 

I know computers, desktops and laptops, but servers are out of my comfort zone, so I thought I'd go to where people are who would know. So, here I am, asking your guys' opinions!

 

So, am I an idiot for thinking of the second option? How would something like that server measure up to a quad core desktop, or even my 2.0 ghz Core 2 HP laptop?

 

Thanks! Please excuse my ignorance!

[AJLynn]

The Ebay page doesn't work for me. But the thing is, it doesn't matter whether they call it a server or a PC, what matters is how powerful it is. Unless it's high end, a server is just a PC with different marketing. If it's for rendering and you won't do much modeling on it, look for the fastest quad with 4GB RAM that fits your budget. If you also want to do modeling you'll want it with a half decent video card (the kind that sells for under $100 on Newegg but not the kind with "HyperMemory" or "TurboCache").

[epelj1]

Thanks for the input guys.

 

The ebay link was for an old server that had 8 pentium 4 (?) xeon processors with 6 gigs of ram.

 

With the quad core option, I've already priced a Q6600, motherboard, 4 gigs of ram, decent hard drive with an 'ok' video card through newegg for right around $550. I would be building it myself, like I said, I know computers a bit. I have a case from a previous build, as well as monitor, so that will save some cash.

[epelj1]

Hm, that's weird, I'm looking at it right now.

 

Anyhow, the headline for it is:

 

"IBM xSeries 445 Eight P4 Xeon MP 2.2GHZ 6144mb server"

 

Some of the others I was looking at were 4 of the same cpus with only 4 gigs, but you get the gist of it.

[AJLynn]

Those old Xeons aren't very worthwhile. 8 cores worth of them at 2.2GHz is less powerful than a Q6600 while using an assload of power, taking up space and probably not utilizing the threads as efficiently - not to mention that anything you do on it that's not multithreaded would be painfully slow.

 

We're still in the holiday sale season and there are still some mail in rebates floating around so you should be able to pull this off. For example, here's most of a computer:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130095

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227199

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130397

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118024

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152052

 

for $585.

[Slinger]

Jason,

 

Where do you go to school? Is there not a lab with machines you could use for the time being? Check and see if you school has any educational incentive programs with any businesses, such as Dell.

 

For your budget, building a system may be your best route.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Jason,

 

Where do you go to school? Is there not a lab with machines you could use for the time being? Check and see if you school has any educational incentive programs with any businesses, such as Dell.

 

For your budget, building a system may be your best route.

 

Labs tend to be open only certain hours; kick you off after a certain time; uncomfortable places to work; hard to install your own stuff on; hard to install your own stuff on the next machine you have to sit at tomorrow; vandalized; not open to snacks... I try hard to not have to do serious work in a school lab.

 

Without looking at the server post, I'd worry that you'd be getting a machine tuned to doing something else very well. Yes, servers tend towards big beefy powerful machines... that excell at shoving data from disk out the wire.

[Slinger]

All labs are not the same. I did my architectural undergrad at Texas A&M and the lab there was great. It was open till midnight 5 days a week and till 2am on Saturday. We had every program imaginable at are finger-tips. I knew the people who worked there( student workers) so i got hooked up with free prints on the plotters...30x40 glossy, canvas etc.

 

This is why I asked what school he went to. If they had a lab or a hardware/software educational buying program.