Render farm

[skare]

Hey guys, i would like to "build" render farm, and im looking for good balance between price and power. Its going to be MAX/Vray farm. Was wonder if Xeon is much better in some way compare to i7 processors, is 4x processor MBs better solution than more 2x MBs, and if 1U or regular desktops. Basically what hardware ill need. I bet U have more experience with that than me

[renderfarmer]

With respect to Vray rendering previous gen Xeons are pretty much on par clock for clock with current and previous gen i7s.

i7's are clocked much higher for the same money but Xeons have the advantage of being dual socket compatible which means you can cram more GHz in a tighter space - at a higher cost per GHz of course. Price-wise i7 systems offer more bang for your buck, but they take up more space and can't run as fast overall as a dual socket Xeon machine. Remember that the more machines you have the more time you'll be spending managing them as opposed to creating cool images.

Whatever you do, DON'T get a quad socket system for Vray. Directly from Vlado in this thread:

Whatever you decide, just make sure you *do not* get a quad-processor AMD machine, they do not have a good performance for rendering at the moment. Single or dual-processor is ok, as far as we could test here.

Best regards,
Vlado

I'd say 4 or less machines and desktops are simpler to build/buy, won't require the added cost and space of a rack, and are generally cheaper. More than 4 I think you're better off with a rack. 2U's are easier to keep cool and are significantly quieter than 1Us - this is a big issue if you don't have a dedicated room to keep your servers in. But if say you're aiming for 10 servers or more then 1U will save you a lot of space and potentially save you from having to re-enforce your floor because of the added weight of 2U's.

Best of luck.