Mini farm build, need advice

[Morbid Angel]

Hey guys,

I want to get some input on a farm build. I am expanding the studio a bit and need to get more render nodes. Here are some problems I'm faced with: my space is low on power, so I can't get power hungry machines, I don't have a sound proof room so the machines have to be quiet, I don't have much space in the server room so I need size efficient machines. What are my options? I was considering few custom builds but they are over my head, as some people end up fitting two mobo's in one box but I can't do it my self.

Any advice would be welcome!

Thanks and happy weekend!

[super gnu]

that would have been me with the 2 mobos 1 box (and one psu)

to be honest im not sure id recommend it in retrospect. yes i get a lot of power in a small space, and much cheaper than a proper dual cpu, (not to mention much more overclockable) plus i can shut down a whole half of the machine if i dont need it. it also uses marginally less power than 2 boxes, due to the efficiency of only one psu.., but downsides are:

* booting can be an issue.. im not sure running 2 mobos from one psu was in the designers minds when they did the bios. often ill have to restart the main mobo before booting the second.. a bit annoying if im in the middle of a job and want to do a test render, but not a show stopper.

* putting lots of power in a small space means noise! i have a pair of corsair h80's crammed in there, but they both have to run full tilt. only for rendering with both boards really, but annoyingly the speed selector of the cosair's just gives a small range of speed change for a given setting.. id love it if they really slowed right down when not needed, and sped up to max when its hot, but i cant do this.. i tried running the fans directly from the mobo, but i think i need different fans for my mobo speed control to work (4 pin connector instead of 3) as it is if im not rendering and want quiet, i have to open the case and hit the button on each cooler.

* im using microatx boards.. the ram slots are fully populated with 32gb of ram each.. if and when that isnt enough, ill have to replace all 64gb.


the problem with your requirements as i see it are you basically need something custom.

* compact powerful and quiet dont really go together...

* the really low-power options ( atom/arm etc) are not suited for 3d rendering.. the most energy efficient option for our line of work, appears to be some of the most power hungry chips, but less of them. on a side note, gpus are better in this regard, but tend to be noisy, and limit what you can do.

* to get quiet, you really need decent watercooling, or massive fans. youll still have the same amount of heat in your room whatever, unless you dump it somewhere else. i was originally planning to use a house radiator, outside on the shaded side of the house to dissipate heat passively, but was warned that it wouldnt work as well as id want, especially as the ambient air temps here can reach near 40 degrees in summer.

i do have one odd idea to solve my noise and heat issues.. i have a concrete rainwater tank under my house.. has about 25000 litres of water sitting in it.. nice and cool., and not used, as we have another much larger outside. if i use a beefy watercooling pump, and just drop a long coiled hose in the water tank, i could run my coolant through it and have an almost silent system. i dont know how many cpus it would take to significantly warm 25 tons of water, with the losses through the concrete into the earth, but a lot. just have to get round to it. one concern i have is that nice slightly warm tube in the water might well engourage all sorts of nasties to grow in the tank.


best i can recommend without anything custom would be a few dual cpu systems, in -big- boxes, with the largest slowest fans you can get. forget racks or blades (unless again, watercooled) , they make an absolutely dreadful noise.

basically there are loads of cool things you can do custom, that youd never get from dell, but you need to get your hands dirty, or find someone who can do it for you.

i was thinking i should go into the custom renderfarm business myself, as i have a few ready baked designs.. id love it, but the idea of providing guarantees puts me off..!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

I think ur options are quite limited... so I would go for maxed out dual 8 core xeon(16 cores in total) and corsair hydro. Yes it will take a little space. But they will be 85% silent and give u a lot more power than if you were going with single cpu/mobo. You are looking at 3£+ per rig. If you were to get power efficient xeons it will be even quite power efficient. Let me know if you want more details I'll help u more.

[Morbid Angel]

Thanks for the posts guys!

Super gnu, I hear ya. I don't have enough knowledge to put dual mobo's but otherwise I think it would be a good solution.

DaDal I guess I could put in 3 more dual xeons in there, my problem is their cost. 3930 can perform faster then my current dual six core xeon and costs 1/4th of it.

Did you guys think about getting a very powerful laptop to get help with rendering? Would it be crazy to get a bunch of them as a farm? I mean, most modern cpu like i7 4900mq is nearly as fast as 3930, but I'm afraid they will burn hot and burn out too fast.

I really hope gpus were up to shnazz with proper rendering for production, that would be a no brainer. Problem I have is I rarely can fit a single project in to 16 gb of ram...so even most modern card (besides k6000) probably won't be able to handle it. Not to mention wide array of plugins which for some reason I always end up using, like fur...and its not simple fur either, so gpu just falls right off the map.