6 core render node for $480? component advice please

[rajs]

Hi, i use 3DS Max and Vray and i want to build a render node to assist my macbook pro during distributed rendering only. I have priced the parts on newegg and the total is $480 I would like advice about whether you think this set up will work because this is my first attempt to custom build a pc.

 

It will be built around the 6 core AMD Phenom II 1090T with 4GB ram. I have stripped back everything to the bare essentials and discarded any unnecessary parts for me to get my work done pretty fast, at the LOWEST price! I want the box to be discrete so I am considering a micro ATX motherboard and small case.

 

The main questions I have are:

- The motherboard has an integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 so would it be fine to not have an additional graphics card as my laptop will deal with graphics? (also i'm not interested in GPU rendering)

- Using the small form factor motherboard and case will probably trap more heat inside but the case has 2 fans. If I just turn this on for distributed rendering & maybe take the side panel off, will I have major overheating problems? (it has a 500W power supply)

- Any other problems with using a micro motherboard as opposed to the standard size mobo?

 

here are the links:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145218

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157192

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144140

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118040

Many thanks

Rajs

[AJLynn]

At $200 I'm a big fan of that CPU. The case would be my concern as well. I don't know MicroATX very well so my advice would be to find one that gets good reviews on gaming web sites. Gaming also run up a lot of heat. If you can't find one you've got confidence in, just go up to regular ATX. This is a good inexpensive option: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129065 and if you can't find a good deal on an ATX motherboard you can actually mount a Micro ATX in it.

 

Don't worry about video cards for render nodes.

[rajs]

Thanks Andrew. If I can get away with a small micro ATX case that would be ideal as I want it to be fairly portable and out of sight. Good to know i don't need another graphics card, that really helps bring the cost down.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Hey rajs.. I'm prepping to get myself some $500 nodes but I will be going down the sandy bridge route. Just waiting for the new versions w/out the bug to come out. I'm going down the MicroATX form too, ordered these cases: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108065

[rajs]

interesting, that mircoATX case has a 300W power supply, I read somewhere that 500W is required, do you know anything about this? maybe 500W is for workstation rather than node?

 

so you're thinking that the sandy bridge will have better bang for the buck than AMD Phenom II 1090T?

[Jonathan Sanchez]

I think it's worth the extra money.. good performance, hyperthreading provides 8 render buckets, and real low energy use. I think 300 watts should be sufficient given that the nodes won't have a video card, no cd drive, only one HD and a very efficient 95 watt CPU

Edited February 22, 2011 by sancheuz

[Tommy L]

Hey rajs.. I'm prepping to get myself some $500 nodes but I will be going down the sandy bridge route. Just waiting for the new versions w/out the bug to come out. I'm going down the MicroATX form too, ordered these cases: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108065

 

Hello Jonathon,

Im looking to upgrade the farm...just wondered if you could share the full build of the $500 node?

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Hello Jonathon,

Im looking to upgrade the farm...just wondered if you could share the full build of the $500 node?

 

 

Sure Tommy, it comes closer to $550.. bought some parts from Newegg.. some from other shops that were cheaper

 

I7-2600: $300

8 GB DDR3: $80

500 GB HD: $35

MicroATX MB: $80 (limited availability now because of sandy bridge bug)

MicroATX Case: $50 (already included Power Supply)

 

Will be running these through Remote Desktop, no keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, and the sandy bridge platform has the integrated graphics so no need for video card either. One more expense to consider would be the OS too.

[Craig Ramsay]

I'm planning on building a bunch of i7 Sandybridge render slaves too. Are you going to run stock coolers or are you going for aftermarket ones?

 

I have seen some Sandybridge kits overclocked to a supposed stable 4.6 GHz (http://bit.ly/fittcj). Do you guys overclock or run the CPU at the default speed?

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Just got all my parts yesterday.. running fine so far with the stock cooler.. Real nice and quiet. Still in the process of installing all the software. Can't wait to test!

[rajs]

Jonathan, do you plan to overclock? also what software will you be testing, Vray & 3DSMax?

 

I cannot find a motherboard for sandy bridge CPU online because of the bug recall, anyone know of links to online stockists in USA?

 

Hi Craig, i think the i7-2600K is a little bit pricier but allows you to overclock it yourself as opposed to the i7-2600. I hear sandy bridge OC's very well. I will probably use the stock cooler.

[AJLynn]

Don't buy an 1155 board until the replacements show up. Even when they do there are going to be less than optimal dealers selling off the old ones, so basically, wait a couple weeks then buy your boards from a reliable dealer that is currently not selling any. I recommend Newegg.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Don't buy an 1155 board until the replacements show up. Even when they do there are going to be less than optimal dealers selling off the old ones, so basically, wait a couple weeks then buy your boards from a reliable dealer that is currently not selling any. I recommend Newegg.

 

Yeah.. and there is very little availability right now which makes retailers bump up price. I myself don't mind the bug because I won't be affected, each of my nodes will only have one hard drive connected to the SATA 6.0 port which isn't affected. That is why I went ahead and bought them.

 

Rajs.. I don't plan to overclock.. These processors are fast enough as they are.. plus I didn't want to spend the extra cash on the 2600k version for OC, had a tight budget. I bought my MB from neobits.com... but they recently jacked up the price of the mb above 100, I bought mines for under. But like AJLyn said above, if you can wait for revised versions would be better. Only consider getting them now if you will be running your hd from SATA 6, and don't forget if you plan on installing a CD drive, they also need to go to the SATA 6. I don't have a cd drive on any of my nodes... just one HD

Edited February 25, 2011 by sancheuz

[Tommy L]

Let us know a cinebench when you get time.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Let us know a cinebench when you get time.

 

prelim 3ds tests have me rendering a low qual. image that before would take me ~15 mins at ~2 mins. You can see my setup here(just scroll down): http://forums.cgarchitect.com/64695-cloning-disk-across-render-nodes.html#post325671

Edited February 28, 2011 by sancheuz

[rajs]

very impressive Jonathan, what was your previous set up that took 15 minutes?

[Jonathan Sanchez]

Hey Rajs

Sorry I haven't had time to respond nor fully test. I've been bogged down by a deadline. My main workstation is an i7-860. Apples to apples, one i7-2600 vs my old 860, I've been reliably and constantly seeing around a 25% decrease in rendering time. In other words, the 2600 has been 25-30% faster. Although these have been quick tests I've done, just grabbed an old scene, and rendered on both cpus to see rendering time. All my units working together though make a huge difference compared to when I worked just with my workstation. I couldn't be happier.

[AJLynn]

It's probably using less power too.

[krimson2580]

Hello,

 

I'm planning to build something similar to Jonathan

 

I’m planning to set up the following:

Case: supermicro CSE-512F-260

(not decided yet)

Asus P8H67 revB3

or should i go for supermicro like jonathan?

Processor: intel I-7 2600K, 3,4GHZ 4cores/8threads

Cooler: ??? need advice on this one

Ram: DDR3 non ECC 1333 – 2x4GB

should i go for 4x4GB?

HD: western digital caviar blue SATA 7200rpm 500GB

Simple DVD

Win 7 pro 64 bit eng oem

TOTAL: aprox. 790 euros incl. VAT x 3 makes 2370 euros incl VAT.

 

My current system:

Dual intel xeon E5620 2,4GHZ – 24GB RAM – nvidia quadro fx 3800 - win7 64bit

Running 3dsmax 2011 with mentalray as renderer.

 

Is this the right way to go?

Are these the maximum cores for metal ray satellite with distributed bucked rendering?

Will this mean I can render at (2X2.4GHZ)+(3x3.4GHZ)= 15GHZ?

Will I be able to use my main workstation fully while the 3 nodes render in the mean while?

Will I be able to put GPU graphic cards in the nodes in the future and use them for gpu based rendering like iray?

Also i'm still looking for a very small nice looking case.

 

All information and advice welcome.

 

I’m really new at this and the info on the internet is I’m so fragmented losing my way here.

 

Thanks.

[rajs]

Hi, i think your set-up looks good, sorry I am not familiar with mental ray so cannot advise about distributed rendering.

I highly recommend this website below which provides the best up-to-date buying guide for workstations (you can then tweak the components to make cheaper render nodes).

http://www.3datstech.com

 

Good luck

Rajs

[AJLynn]

Thanks Rajs

 

Krimson, your dual Xeon has 8 total cores at 2.4GHz - but you can't compare the previous generation to the new one by GHz, because the new Sandy Bridge CPUs are faster, per GHz, than the previous generation. The render nodes you describe should each render almost as quickly as your Xeon box.

 

The configs look fine. I'd say just get the Asus and the 2x4GB. Keep the box the memory came in and if you want to upgrade to 8GB later try to get the same thing.

[mzex]

You could read this article to see how powerfull are those new intel i7 2600k.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-2600k-990x.html

much cheaper than those 6core and just a 20% slower.

 

if you are planning to overclock then I would go for aftermarket cooler.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/thermalright-archon.html

but this cooler is big, so you have to pick wider case.

[krimson2580]

Thanks Andrew and Marko!

 

Marko,

I'm planning to use a AOpen H340A - Desktop - 1x 5,25"extern - 1x 3,5" extern - 1x 3,5" intern - µATX – Black as a case.

You think that cooler can fit in it?

 

Andrew,

Does this mean when i use one rendernode my rendertime will be 2x as fast a second rendernode 3X and a third 4x as fast?

Or does is it degresive? Any idea what to expect on rendertime?

 

Thanks again.

 

Best Wishes

[AJLynn]

Depends how you do it. Distributed buckets rendering (several machines working on 1 image) seems a bit less efficient than Backburner (several machines working on one image each, usually) and there's a bit of a render time penalty from having to transfer the files between the computers on the network, but once they start going you should be able to get very good numbers - close to 4x when using 3 nodes and a workstation.

[Jonathan Sanchez]

after i boutht my 4 extra nodes.. I'm pretty much getting 4x the speed..if not more since my nodes are actually faster then my main workstation. I have a 1Ghz network so files are transfered very quickly.