BOXX Apex7 Lease?

[Streetwise]

So I've got the new VFX workstation bug... Because of cashflow constraints to a one-man LLC, I'm thinking about leasing this time around. I specked out a really sweet 3970x Threadripper / RTX2080Ti workstation, but I want to know of any experiences out there with BOXX. It seems like Dell and HP do not offer AMD, but are there any other companies who do, AND lease? I know I could go build one for much less, but as I said, leasing seems the most attractive.

Lastly, I know how fast technology changes, but does a 48mo lease (or even 60) seem unreasonable if one STARTS with the latest/greatest? Incidentally, I'm on a 7 ½ yr. old HP Z820 that I bought used about 4 ½ years ago (just off of a lease I think). It has served me very well, but is getting tired.

Thanks.

Dave

[gadzooks]

IMHO Boxx Is VERY EXPENSIVE! Good machines but expensive.

[Streetwise]

IMHO Boxx Is VERY EXPENSIVE! Good machines but expensive.

Totally agree. I see that B&H Photo here in the states also leases, but they don't sell the 3970x (yet).

I've built systems in the past, but something on this scale seems rather daunting.

[gadzooks]

Check my post directly below this one. Im looking at Falcon Northwest for my next machine. I can't find a single negative thing about them. Don't know if they lease though. They have the newest AMD 3790X also but its 2,400.00 USD.

[Neilg]

I wouldnt buy any graphics cards until summer and the 30xx series is out.

You're on such an old machine already, dont go bleeding edge.

A 3950x saves you $1300 on the processor alone and is 3/4 of the performance. an rtx 2060 is $300 vs $1300. it'll be leagues faster than what you're currently on.

You can buy a machine thats well, well under half the price outright (or on low interest finance) and in a years time pick up a similar spec machine again as a render node for a lot more rendering power than this single machine could ever give you.
Having something sat next to you rendering during the day will always be better than something which prevents you from working while rendering.
CPU's have taken big jumps in the last 3 years. A very similar thing is about to happen with graphics cards, and we're not sure if the CPU advancements have slowed down yet. 5-6 years ago bleeding edge was a good deal as things were a little more stagnant but I wouldn't pay the premium to get that close to the edge with how current developments are going.

[glorybound]

BOXX is marked up higher than anyone, in my opinion. My Render Pro recently died and after two years, I can't say it has paid for itself, and I paid 1/2 price for it. Just take their specs and look online, it'll leave you scratching your head. I hear that they have a good warranty, which might make it worth the premium price, but I didn't get that, buying used.

[Streetwise]

Yes, but with BOXX, you get a T-Shirt !

Seriously, I appreciate the comments and will certainly try to spec something out to build myself. Neilg there's wisdom in what you said about a farm that is working during the day is better... I also appreciate the comments about being happy with non-bleeding edge. I hadn't realized that CPU's had changed all that much and certainly didn't realize that about GPU's and what's coming...

Does anyone know if an AMD workstation would play nice with a Xeon-based farm, specifically DR?

[Neilg]

We have mixed i7 and ryzen with no problems. I would assume xeons fare the same but I wont bet on it.

[100%indifferent]

Funny you should ask. I have 2 dual-xeon workstations & 5 Boxx RenderPro nodes which are also dual xeons. I've got the 2 previous workstations & the new threadripper machine through Puget Systems. Great service & really competitive prices. Cheaper than Falcon I believe for the guy above. Anuway, I just added my first AMD, the new 3990x 64 core threadripper. To answer your question, it mixes fine with DR, backburner, etc. I hadn't bought a new machine in 3 yrs & let me tell you, for a machine whose proc costs $4K, this thing delivers. A lot of the hardware system's integrators, like Puget & companies like Boxx, they're really pushing multi-GPU setups. If I was doing product renders or smaller scale scenes I would love to go that route, but I typically am working heavy interiors, large site animations & tons of displacement, none of which works well with the way the GPU stuff works right now. Good luck with whichever way you go.

[Streetwise]

100%indifferent Interesting stuff! I will certainly give Puget a look as it sounds like they are competitive with BOXX. Did you go with a custom build?

My work consists mainly of product renders (furniture) and interiors that depict such products. I do some interior room animations and want to join the world of simulations. I'm a bit confused about GPU not being a good solution for animations? I thought it was way faster that way than traditional CPU? Currently, an animation scene sent to my farm can take several days. The 3990x sounds interesting but beyond my budget right now.

[spencerrayfitch]

We have used BOXX at my company for all of our workstations and render nodes and they have been stellar. Our company doesnt mind spending a bit more money for the peace of mind of support etc. We have a good working relationship and the products have always been awesome.

[100%indifferent]

Yeah, custom build through Puget, which is up & running now & I'm really digging the speed.

As far as GPU rendering goes, the forums here have a lot of useful info & a lot of knowledgeable peeps & yes GPU rendering can be much, much faster. However, not all features that CPU rendering supports are supported by the GPU version of Vray. While I might be able to live with a few unsupported features, the real deal breaker for me is that your whole scene (geometry & textures) must fit into your avail vram. Since Nvidia will only allow some of their cards (the more expensive ones) to combine vram to give you a bigger footprint, the types of scenes I work with simply won't fit. I'm regularly working with 40-50 GB scenes.

Sounds like what you do (smaller scenes, product shots, etc) might be a perfect fit for the GPU pipeline. I have no doubt that things are trending that way, its just going to take some time for the heavier poly/texture type shots to be able to reliably use the GPU over the CPU.

[Streetwise]

I have no doubt that GPU is going to be the main thing at some point, but I keep going back to is how it's more efficient if I have to wait even 5 minutes to render out a product that I could have just sent to the farm and moved on to the next one. I have a corporate client I contract with who seems to think that they should be doing GPU rendering because someone told them to, but I'm not so sure. Neilg wisely said that having a machine (farm) sitting next to you working all day/night is way more efficient than tying up the workstation. Also, the in-house team struggles with their materials to begin with and I hear that GPU is a bit different when it comes to GI, bump maps, etc... Again, I feel like it would be very frustrating to them and I need to recommend against it at this point.

Another question I have is when it comes to animation.... Is a GPU pipeline more efficient with, say 2 2080Ti cards verses 5-6 dual Xeon Nodes on a farm using progressive and denoising? I keep going back to the bottleneck becoming the workstation... I guess at this point, I'm just trying to understand the workflow as to how I can keep the products flowing through the pipe.

[100%indifferent]

There's no doubt that's a great question, the 2 gpus vs the multiple xeon nodes & its a scenario that's been asked & sort of answered before on these forums. Though its not a an answer that applies evenly across the board. If you go the gpu route, your workflow will have to change a bit, you'll have to be aware of your poly/texture budget in a way that you might not have been before in a CPU pipeline. However, if your scenes fit in the vram footprint and you can change the way you work a bit & deal with the early adopter pains, the speed GPU offers is unmatched.
For me, the memory footprint issues alone will keep me on CPU until such time that the card manufacturers make it a bit easier with vram being additive across cards & get the price down, etc. That, coupled with Vray working the rough edges out of the GPU experience, nad I'm sure sooner rather than later I'll be able to switch over.

[Streetwise]

@100%indifferent Thanks for the reply. To help me understand better what the workflow looks like, and assuming we don't have a GPU farm to send jobs off to... and assuming I have a couple of dedicated GPU cards in my workstation, is it a deal where I could render a job via GPU, and work on something else while waiting? Or does it tie up the machine until it's done (like with CPU)?