best machine to renderer?

johanjohan · Post by **johanjohan** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:28 pm

Hi all!

Perhaps a day I will to buy a supercomputer, but what is the best?

a server :
Sun T1000 with 6 or 8 core with 4 or 8 Go Ram
http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/specs.xml

a mac pro:
Quad Xeon with 4Go Ram

or many PC as Renderfarm (x 2 or more)
many Core 2 duo with 4Go Ram

thanks for regards
Johan

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:09 pm

Best thing (for me) is to build your own beowulf multicluster with linux, you can add all types of hardware to it. Just google up Beowulf Multicluster or Beowulf Linux, you can even make the cabinet with some MDF, would be fun.....

EDIT:

Here some links:
http://www.beowulf.org/
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/bookshelf/a ... uster.html
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/tut ... lding.html
http://fscked.org/writings/clusters/cluster.html

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:58 pm

Also think about an 4 CPU Mainboard to put 4 Quad Cores on dude!
Thats the way I'll go in the future... AMD is interesting here because of the nice control over your CPU clocks... running 4 Quads at full power only to read some eMail and surf the Web is Madness!

Stinkie · Post by **Stinkie** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:39 pm

As far as "out of the box" desktops go: a Mac Pro octo core. Thanks to Boot Camp you'll be able to enjoy the best of both Mac OS and Windows.

Terribly expensive, though ... which is why I talked my employer into getting me one.

Frank, if you're reading this: why stop at one?

johanjohan · Post by **johanjohan** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:05 pm

okok

but there are many problems : the price and the electric watt :
for more 3000 euros
the serveur Sun T1000 have 6 core and 8 Go ram with 200 watt

but 4500 euros
4 x QuadCore with 4Go Ram >16 core but 400 watt each computer >1600 watt

kadajawi · Post by **kadajawi** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 6:43 am

But will the Sun perform well in Indigo? Will Indigo run at all?

Out of the box I would say the Mac Pro is about as good as it gets, though Dell etc. might offer better workstations. I would say you need one as the main machine to do the modelling, gaming etc. on. Maybe another box for saving electricity, maybe a Asus Eee PC + external monitor, keyboard and mouse. Install XP and you have a nice PC for going online etc., and you can always take it with you. And for pure rendering power... build lots of dual or quad core systems. You´ll have to look what works better, a cheap E2160 or so overclocked to hell and back might be better than spending a lot on quadcores, not sure though. Always go for the cheapest CPU in a family though, saves lots of cash and with a bit OC it will probably perform pretty well. Run XP on these boxes and run them as network slaves. Maybe they don´t even need HDDs, maybe they can boot of a network server, or a USB stick. That´s what I would do.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:10 am

I just built a Linux microwulf for about $900.00 US. I did have some parts that I used from my old computer. Basically the system consists of three nodes, each with a AMD 4000+ X2 dual core processor. I purchased motherboards with a AM2 CPU slot so I could upgrade to the quad cores when they come down in price. I have 4 Gigs of memory in the head node and 2 Gigs in each of the two compute nodes. I'm running Fedora 8 because it supports the hardware perfectly. I also have the nodes connected to each other through a Gigabit switch. My cores only run at 2.1 Ghertz, but in the end, with six of them it doesn't matter much and I was going for cheap anyway. Sense I have the cost of each node down to below $300.00 I can save up and add them over time. And they are getting cheaper every day.

Grimm

kadajawi · Post by **kadajawi** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:40 am

OC that X2s! My 3800+ makes 2,6 GHz easily.

Grimm · Post by **Grimm** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:15 am

I was thinking about doing that, but every time I try to change the bios settings I end up mucking it up somehow. If you have any tips or a site I could go to that would be great.

Grimm

eman7613 · Post by **eman7613** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:07 am

kadajawi wrote:But will the Sun perform well in Indigo? Will Indigo run at all?

Solaris has wine builds, so should run on it just like on linux

ave · Post by **ave** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 4:35 am

Hi guys, I have a similar question on which kind of system would be better for top-speed rendering with Indigo.
My budget is around 10000 euros (I am a lucky guy

).
This is for a newborn company. So keep in mind that:
- there is hardly time to build a cluster (and to find someone able to do it)
- windows would be better then everything else for easiness of use
- we want speed, speed SPEED!

Thanks for your help!

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 6:09 am

hey ave...

The simplest way is to use consumer computer parts as cheep as possible with most GHz for your money!

Check out the Helmer Project for some concept of building a cheap cluster of computers. You still can put small ultra cheep HDDs on it and install Windows, and manage them via remotely from your main workstation. But basically this systems would have a Indigo
slave start cmd in the autostart and connect to any master they find in the network by them self

For Indigo the pure GHz power is most important, so you really can try doing some math what hardware combination will give you the most Ghz for your money!

**edit**
HyperThreading works fine for Indigo too... afaik each Hyperthreaded Core brings around 50% to add for the Ghz power. A Core i7 with with 4x2.66Ghz would have around 16Ghz of computing power for Indigo if compared to other CPUs!
It seems HT pushes performance for 13% on Cinebench10 64bit and in Indigo a performance gain of 26% is been benchmarked.

The problem about the Core i7 is the high cost for a Mainboard and DDR3 triple channel RAM, so maybe if you spend 10000€ you get more total Ghz for some cheaper AMD systems...

Anyway, spending so much money for your renderfarm there is one thing I would realy take care of: upgradeability!!!

Go for AMD Phenom II on AM3 boards or a Core i7 system, simply because its just state-of-the-art and you can upgrade your renderfarm in 2010 by just buying new CPUs!
AMD follows the policy to keep a mainboard architecture as long comatible to new CPUs as possible, not like Intel who loves to throw out new CPU specs, so your hardware upgrade also needs a mainboard changed...

I hope this helped!

Jambert · Post by **Jambert** » Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:48 pm

An another way is to buy render time to a render farm and just buy a q6600 or other for preview, it's not realy expensive, it's a good way to render professionnal stuff in 5 or 10 minutes.. With multiple threading, first in 2 or 3 year you will need (or want) to upgrade as ZomB says, then there is no way to do animation, very large rendering, only if you work on another computer during a week...

No ZomB

Quads at full power only to read some eMail and surf the Web is Madness!

+1

to me you won't need to render everyday, don't need 16 cores to model..

Zom-B · Post by **Zom-B** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:28 am

yes Jambert, I see your point

transferring your renderings to a renderfarm is a interesting idea! You save energy, working time to maintain the renderfarm and actually the hardware it self

The Rench Renderfarm provides Indigo rendering for a very low price of 12 US$ per Ghz hour, with a full computing power of 1536 GHz!

But Jambert, I think you missed the point, that this isn't about a renderfarm for a single person rendering for fun!

Ave asked about advice for a newborn company!

Lets say a small company doing maybe archviz using Indigo with 3 Employees doing the dirty work of modeling and rendering.

They will sit 5 days a week and using Indigo all the day for testing shaders, light and doing preview renderings!

This is the point where a own renderfarm speeds up the internal workflow and the productivity of your Team!

Doing testrenders via the Ranch Renderfarm for 10 US$ each using the BLITZ! formula at maximum of 1024x1024 would be a interesting possibility!
But to do some math:
3 employees rendering 20 test renderings a day 5 days a week would cost ya 1000 US$ a week! O.o

Renderfarms are a good option for short deadlines or high res complicated (animation) projects.... but thats it!

Buying a 4 nodes q6600 based helmer renderfarm like carbon did for under 1700€ is much better with 43Ghz.

You simply can see your renderings directly, after some seconds, not after file upload, rendering, file merging, downloading...

carbon · Post by **carbon** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:57 am

Buying a 4 nodes q6600 based helmer renderfarm like carbon did for under 1700€ is much better with 43Ghz.

CPUs for slaves was bought through eBay similar service for 1/2 money

also the total cost was calculated without tools we needed to buy for cuting, drilling and so on, just hardware

The problem about the Core i7 is the high cost for a Mainboard and DDR3 triple channel RAM, so maybe if you spend 10000€ you get more total Ghz for some cheaper AMD systems...

also aside of cost, there are no microATX boards for i7, only top of the line full sized ones
we took Intel chips because they are cooler which is very important in helmer-like project..

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