Best slave for the money

[CCS]

I know this is a perennial topic, but I'll post it anyway.

I've drooled over the x2 posts and all the other new toys that come out, but I have a fundamental question. For a render slave, what is the best use of my money?

I could stack Shuttles for a reasonable price and save lots of space. Or I could pick up abandoned "gamer systems". Either way, I could easily get AMD Athlons 2200-3000 with 1GB RAM for $200-300 each. Sure, I know a dual will get better performance, and an x2 will smoke that. But at 5x-10x the price, do I gain 5x-10x the performance?

Another benefit is that I could add these "lower-end" machines on a fairly regular basis as opposed to saving up until I can get a primo machine. Plus, with a top machine, I'm going to pay a premium for the technology which will be much cheaper in a matter of months.

To take this to an extreme, I could load up on K7s, Pentiums, Celerons, or whatever for next to nothing, but gain very little from their performance. So what is the mid-point where it is more cost effective?

(BTW, I know people are going to bring up issues like support, warranty, etc., but those are next to worthless to me. For render slaves, I'd rather have machines cheap enough to fix, throw away, or give to my kids. Main workstations are another story.)

[Da_elf]

well one of my work systems is a dual amd 2600+ with 2gb ram. when i originally bought it it cost alot however that was about 3 or 4 years ago. i assume that a tyan tiger mobo, 2x 2600+MP amd chips and 2gb ram wouldnt cost that much these days.

[CCS]

Right. But to use your example, would a dual 2600 machine with 1GB have double the performance of 2 single processor machines (all else being equal) ???

There are a whole lot of single proc machines looking for homes, but not so many duals.

My main question is whether the performance ratio between the two machines is equal to or greater than the cost ratio.

[Da_elf]

this is where i used to buy my stuff from. let me know if any of these prices look decent to you http://www.shoprbc.com/ca/shop/?cid=347 (all canadian prices)

[CCS]

I appreciate the referral, but does anyone have any opinion on my main question?

Lemme try to rephrase a smidge:
What machine offers the best costerformance?

Entirely fictional example. Assume all following machines have the same RAM, network, HD, etc. Also assume that each scenario offers the same computing power from a render slave point of view.

(3) AMD x2
(5) Dual AMD 3000s
( Shuttles with single AMD 2600
(12) AMD 2200s
(350) 486s

Option 1 might cost 3 x $2000 or $6,000 (new machines obviously)
Option 2 might cost 5 x $1600 or $8,000 (new)
Option 3 might cost 8 x $600 or $4,000 (used)
Option 4 might cost 12 x $300 or $3,600 (used)
Option 5 might cost 350 x $10 or $3,500 (used - obviously)

So... with my made-up numbers, Option 5 is cheapest. But, when you consider electricity usage, storage space, routers and cables, etc., Option 3 looks like the better choice, followed by option #1, then Option #4 or #2.

The only problem is I made up everything! Does anyone have any input on what offers the best cost-to-performance in real life?

[percydaman]

ive always told people to purchase the best computer they can afford. So figure out the max your willing to spend, divide that by the # of computers you would like to purchase and THEN start part hunting...

[CCS]

I've done the same for workstations. I'm thinking that may not be the best value for render slaves though. For example, if I can get used Shuttles (AMD 2400 or 2600) for $200 a piece, can you tell me that I'll get more performance for my money in a dual x2 ?

[DaForce]

It wil work out cheaper for you if you go for slightly older technology and get more of them i think.

Have a look thru some of the benchmark threads, and there are a few renders on older machine.

For instance my AMD64 3000+ rendered the benchmark scene in 14m30s or something.
My X2 4400 rendered it in 5m50s
So the 3000+ is 2.75 times slower then the X2 or thereabouts.
So you would need 3 single cpu 3000+ machines to match an X2 ... or slightly beat it.
You have the shuttles with 2600 in them, they would be even slower again.
So given all that you would need 8.25 athlon64 3000+ cpus to match 3 X2's

Networking, running cables, suppling power..etc..etc.. will all be rather easy as your still not talking huge numbers of machines here. Except for the 486 options, but ..well.. thats just plain stupid.

[CCS]

So...what? I should cancel the order?

[Da_elf]

can i get fries with that order?

[DaForce]

CCS:
Just make sure you get the 486 DX2 66mhz not the 33mhz... hahaha

Da_elf:
You have recieved +10 Experience... LEVEL UP
You have achieved rank of Lord of the pointless posts

[Da_elf]

whoo hoo. does that mean i can supersize my fries? hehe. actually i tend to wonder if there would be a way of networking tonnes of 486 chips. i remember a tale about how the space shuttle was still running on 486 chips

[DaForce]

As part of your level up you received a Supersize fries +5

Mmm that space shuttle wasnt by any chance the Challenger was it..

[tricky]

We made a conscious decision to spec our render slaves pretty much the same as our workstations - dual Xeons, same RAM, same motherboard. The main reason for this was simplicity of maintenance and, when we are setting up an animation, we know how long renders will take on all machines: for example, we wouldn't have the scenario where our workstations are doing 10 minutes per frame, and on that basis we estimate that the total time for rendering will be, say, 4 days, only to find that our mish-mash of renderslaves turns out to render the frames at 35-56 minutes per frame.

Also, if a problem crops up on one machine, we can work out what that issue is quicker when all machines are same spec.

[DaForce]

On another note, the thread title should be change to "Best Render slave for the money"
To make things a bit more politically correct... otherwise who knows where this thread might end up