Dual Monster or Farm

[Matt Sugden]

Hi folks, hope everyone's had a good xmas.

 

I'm about to upgrade, yippiee, but I've stubbled upon a bit of a dilema. For about the same price (approx £1800) I could get either a dual 3Ghz xeon with 3 gig or ram, OR 3x 3.4Ghz P4s with 2 gig of ram each. Obviously there is more bang for buck with farm option, but would people say it is more benficial to have the power in the one box rather than over multiple boxes. And also is network maintainace a major factor.....

 

Having said this I am yet to get max's distributed networking sorted, but I know it will happen eventually!!

[Jason Matthews]

Hey Matt. I could be wrong, but I think unless you are doing animations, a renderfarm would not be very useful. I think it would be better if you got the beast in the single box rather than the farm.

[Matt Sugden]

Well I can't rule out the possibilty of animations. As people always seem to want what they see on tv, and in england everyones watching grand designs which has a walk through each week.

 

Also far as I know brazil should support bucket network rendering. I guess my question is really a case of: does raw computing power always win outright, or will the complications of network rendering mean that i will only get a slight speed benefit for a lot more hassle?

 

It's a case of 10.2ghz 6g ram in 3 boxes or 6.4ghz 3g ram in one.

[Chad Warner]

Even if you are using plain old Max, you can network render a single image with backburner. In the case of large resolution images, more machines is always better.

 

The only downfall to buying 3 lesser machines Vs. one greater, is that when you are working on the model and doing test renders, the single faster machine will benefit you more.

[abicalho]

Well, you say you're using Brazil, are you factoring the license price in the render farm?

 

As Chad mentioned, MAX allows you to netrender splitting an image for free with the scanline, but if you're using a 3rd party render (including MR) you most likely will have to pay for those licenses. This is also true for the OS (which I believe you already factored in the price).

 

I probably would go for 2 systems, maybe getting a dual board to allow for a future processor, knowing I'd have to spend some cash on licenses of some sort for the farm, or to save some $$ for future purchases.

 

Alexander

[mbr]

The licensing issue is a very large factor. Not sure about Brazil, but if I recall correctly, you have to buy the 'bundle' to use several processors. MR is just ridiculously over priced (well over a grand for each additional license and Max only comes with one, which supports two processors - not sure how that works with single processor machines), imo, at least for arch viz. fR and Vray should support multiple machines without any extra cost.

 

One thing to consider, and this may just be for Final Render, but I doubt it. When I've used the distributed rendering for test frames, it usually is not faster to send the file to several machines (it takes a while to send the file, so the rendering time on 3 duals was equal to the rendering on one dual). This obviously changes dramatically for hi res images, where it's pretty cool watching 6 buckets pop up and start rendering ( with Final Render they are all different colors, so you know which machine is doing what - again, pretty cool to watch!).

 

Ideally, you'd want a dual to test with, but from there I am not sure which would be more advantageous (although I personally like the idea of less space and maintenance).

[Fernando Lino]

if you want a monster...buy a motherboard for 4 opterons, the price is about $300...and get 8GB ram o more

 

this is much better than 1 dual or 3 o 4 singles...and you'd run in 64-bit

[mbr]

Can Windows run that? That'd have to be set up as a server, right, so would that mean you need Windows Server (or whatever it's called)?

How about Max? Can it utilize processors like that, although I'd guess it could.

Certainly makes sense, at least for the future.

[Fernando Lino]

windows 64-bit can handle more memory per process .., I don't remember where i saw it (Office Max or Office Depot) ...but they have it!!!.. I have a dual opteron, but "4" ...this is a monter!!! I am trying to find a good excuse to but it (for my wife...she bothers me all the time when I want to buy new computer stuffs... women!! this is her full time job (24/7/365)!! complicate my life )

[abicalho]

First there's no official XP 64 yet. It's Beta. 2nd, MAX is a 32 bit app. In the best case scenario (it runs and works fine), it'll use up to 4GB of RAM, so 8 is a waste of RAM.

 

As for having it as a Quad system, I do not think mental ray would work on that using 4 processors - it was designed to work on 2 CPUs, if I am not wrong. As for other renderers, they may work on more than 2 CPUs, but they won't make much use of the other 2 CPUs. I'd rather build 2 duals than 1 Quad myself today.

 

I do not have any experience with other 3rd party renderers, though. I do know Radiosity supports 4 processors like a charm, with the exception of Skylight which is single threaded.

 

Alexander

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

vray would use all 4 processors. at the job i use a dual xeon 2ghz with hyperthreading enablesd. so basically it is like i am running 4 processors, and vray calculates 4 buckets at a time. not sure what max thinks of the 4 processors.

 

also, vray now has a spawner app which will allow you to use several different machines to render 1 frame. i have had really good luck with it so far, running about 10 machines, for one image. sweet.

 

also, vray does not charge fopr additional licenses for rendering machines. you only need multiple licenses if you are going to be running max and using vray at the same time on different machines.

 

as for what is better in your original quaestion. that is a tough one. i can not say for sure, but i would try to get the dual xeon, and maybe one of the other machines. i know2 that may not be an option, but hey, i didn't claim to have the answer anyway.

[Tim Nelson]

Twice the operating systems = twice the headaches, so I would definitely stick with the dual processor system. Even when adding additional rendering slaves I would still stick with dual proc. systems. Bascially it means doubling your processing power without doubling your hardware & monitors & energy consumption.

[Matt Sugden]

Thanks for your interesting views. Thinking about it some more, someone mentioned the point that obviously having a dual machine will speed up test renders as well, which is something I hadn't considered, and something that is very important in my production cycle. And for that reason alone i think I shall be going for the one box solution. I will still have my current 2.4 P4 and my laptop which is a 2.6, and so I'll continue to try and harness their power too once I get my new PC setup and I may even get some more ram for one of them.

 

Thanks for all your comments, it's been very helpful.

[luckytohaveher]

This is always a challenge.

 

Go with a dual operton (64bit) or two. The point here is that you are spending cash and you want a long-term benefit. 64bit will be here in force starting next year and having all that capability is great.

 

Why not buy a quad board and install daul CPUs. That way you can super-size the problem later with two additional (total of 4) cpus once windows 64 and max 64 are out. You also get the short-term benefit of a very fast machine today.

 

You will have to get windows server 2003 or similar for the short-term. That really shouldn't be much of a problem since you won't be using all of the back-of-house functions anyway and it can be optimized for workstation use.

 

Most of the products out there, Scanline, Brazil, VRay, etc., will use all of the processors on a system. There are specific limitations and diminishing returns of course.