GPU farm or CPU farm??

[morean]

Hi,

Quick question:

I'm planning to spend some money buying a render farm to make ArchViz (mainly animations). Here are my options:

- CPU option: 3x Dual Xeon Workstations (approx: 9-10K) with regular Graphic cards

or

- GPU option: the equivalent sum of money in a GPU render farm, meaning no Xeons and a simple processor and GTX Titan Z (12Gb) or similar


I need to make a decission soon. I was planning on going for the CPU version but then I got really excited with the improvements in VrayRT as a final frame tool (e.g.CONSTRUCT). I know that in the near future VrayRT will improve much more, but the CPU is now a more reliable solution (supported features).

Does make sense to take the risk now?



any help will be very much appreciated
thanks!
gonzalo

[eyepiz]

If you doing interior ArchViz RT GPU is no were near production ready for interior ArchViz. I have 4 Titans and have not been able to produce an interior renderings, to many missing features, and unsupported plug in's ect...RT hasn't had a decent update in a long time, broken stuff I reported last year is still broken!. Go for the Xeons!... That's how I roll..

[Neilg]

A lot of people these days are moving away from xeons to i7's - they're much cheaper than xeons so if you don't mind a few extra boxes sat around you'll get way more power for your money. maybe get smaller cases and skip the video card on a couple.

[morean]

Thanks guys,

It's clear then, no GPU farm for the time being . The decission between Xeons and i7 is a very good point, because I really don't mind having more or less boxes in the room (up to a certain limit, of course). I guess I will need to check the overall energy consumption and prices.

thanks again!