Render node efficiency

[ryannelson]

Hey guys!

 

I'm hoping to get some feedback on a rendering solution i've come up with for the office I'm working at.

 

Currently I'm the primary person doing renderings (Rhino/Max + Vray, and some light Corona testing) and I'm really feeling like my primary workstation is drastically decreasing my productivity (Xeon E5-1620 @ 3.6GHz and 32gb ram). The problem lies with my station being tied up while rendering, which isn't the fastest to begin with. I've convinced my office to invest in some more power (budget TBD... probably in the 5-7k CDN range).

 

My proposed solution is to buy a new and FAST (dual Xeon 10c and 64gb ram kind of machine... budget permitting) single node to install in the server rack, as space in our new office is an issue, as our single and dedicated render node machine. I decided to go this route, instead of a new workstation, to keep as high of GHz/$ as possible also. No extra software needed (10 node support with our Vray license) other than windows, and no need for a GPU because I have no plans to begin testing GPU renders in the foreseeable future (if that happens, i'll buy a GOOD card to put in my workstation). Having it in on the network would allow others to use it for renders also.

 

My question is whether or not this is a good solution? Am i going to be losing a lot of CPU efficiency having it as a node? The micromanagement on a single node is a non-issue (i tried 10 pc's once... never again.) I feel that with all the pro's to having it in the rack, would make it a sure thing. What are your opinions?

 

We have a company that manages our IT and whatnot, and they have an excellent procurement officer to assemble the new rig. That being said, would going a dual Xeon route be the best option given that our budget is... indecisive. Basically, I want to have a strong argument for putting money into this and also an efficient direction for hardware.

 

Any tips, advice, and opinions is greatly appreciated!

 

Cheers!

[ryannelson]

I actually have another question too about output resolution. I'm aware of the differences between PPI/DPI etc and web/print resolutions...

 

I'm curious what you guys typically render out at? I find that anything lower than ~2000px on the long edge to have very little texture detail and always wind up looking flat and dull. It starts to look nice around ~3000px but I rarely go much higher than that. What do you guys typically do for say a multipurpose exterior render for web/small scale printing (11x17 range kind of thing)?