Render Farm

[glorybound]

I thought I would build a render farm. Here are my specs. They'll just be churning away BB strips or animations if needed. Do you see anything I should change? Is this the best route to go?

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 OEM (M17-7507)
MPN: ZAT-00115

4

$ 142.22

$568.88

Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB, 7200rpm, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM (TSD-500AAKS)
MPN: WD5000AAKS

4

$ 55.68

$222.72

Ultra LS600 Lifetime Series 600W Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, PCI-Express (ULT-LS600)
MPN: LS600

4

$ 32.45

$129.80

NZXT Tempest ATX Mid-Tower Case - Clear Sides, Front USB, eSATA Ports (A406-1101)
MPN: TEM-001BK

4

$ 91.95

$367.80

Intel Core i7 920 Processor BX80601920 - 2.66GHz, LGA 1366, 4.8GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, Quad-Core, HyperThreading, Bloomfield, Retail (CP1-I7-920)
MPN: BX80601920

4

$ 277.17

$1,108.68

Lite-ON IHAP422-08 DVD Burner - 22X DVD+R, 22X DVD-R, 8X DVD+R9, 8X DVD-R9, 12X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW, IDE, LightScribe (L12-1180)
MPN: IHAP422-08

4

$ 27.84

$111.36

OCZ Gold Tri Channel 12GB PC10666 DDR3 Memory - 1333MHz, 12288MB (6 x 2048MB), CL9 (O261-6102)
MPN: OCZ3G1333LV12GS

4

$ 170.33

$681.32

Asus P6T Motherboard - LGA 1366, Intel X58, SATA, SLI Ready, CrossFireX Ready, Triple Channel DDR3 support, RAID, Hyperthreading support (A455-286
MPN: P6T

4

$ 253.85

$1,015.40

XFX GeForce 9400 GT Video Card - 1024MB DDR2, PCI Express 2.0, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, VGA Support, Low Profile (P450-9404)
MPN: PVT94GZAH2

[sea2stars]

a few quick suggestions.

1) Nix the video card for something a lot cheaper
2) Is that motherboard a bit of overkill for a render node? Why pay extra for RAID, SLI, etc

[jujubee]

You don't need:

1. 500gb HD. 100 would even suffice imo as long as you have a main server to store images on.

2. No graphics card. Get a microatx motherboard for under $100 on Newegg that has onboard video.

3. Cheaper mobo. See above.

4. No need for dvd/cd drives. Just extract your software to a network folder and run installer from there or use a USB stick. But upon initial setup, have one dvd drive handy that you can swap out while cases are open for the initial OS install.

5. 600 watt PS is overkill. you should be able to do with less (450) without the graphics card while saving energy/electricity.

[glorybound]

Xeon

Any truth to this statement?

My two cents is that if they want to build a cluster or farm to utilize the Nehalem's power (Core i7/Xeon 55xx), I'd go with a dual socket setup consisting of two Xeon 5500 series on an Intel 5500 series motherboard because it will be cheaper and faster due to higher bandwidth given to the QPI (QuickPath) links on the Xeon 5500 series. The performance comparison of a dual socket setup will be very similar, if not faster than four separate Core i7 nodes while still costing less due to the higher QPI links despite the two socket (8 cores) penalty of the Xeon compared to four Core i7 nodes (16 cores).

[jujubee]

Who wrote that and what does that person do? I wouldn't know to be honest with you but it's an interesting thought.

[glorybound]

Render Farm

He is a friend of our I.T. manager. Our I.T. manager basically orders computers from Dell, that is about the extent of his knowledge, but he swears his friend is good.

[jujubee]

For two 5500s you're looking at $2,000. Plus a $300-400 motherboard. Then the ECC RAM you will spend $150-200. Case and PSU $150. Hard drive about $100. So $2700 without a graphics card.

With your method stripped of unnecessary components, the i7s would run $600 each.

So technically you could build 4 i7 computers for 1 strong Xeon 55xx server/workstation. 4 computers for a little less than that high-end price is going to be a lot more powerful than the 2 equivalent he mentioned.

But for a main workstation machine, that Xeon 55xx would be nice. But you'd also want to toss in a decent graphics card with that as well.

[zeronove]

2. No graphics card. Get a microatx motherboard for under $100 on Newegg that has onboard video.

3. Cheaper mobo. See above.

I totally agree with that; I'm just following the same path to build an additional rendernode

The main issue is that actually we don't have many options with I7 microatx mobo; I've found only an Asus Rampage II Gene (gamer mobo); anyone could suggest any other viable mobo model?

[jujubee]

Found three on Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e=&srchInDesc=

But they cost a little bit more money than I expected. Usually there's a ton of them for around $100.

[sea2stars]

Another option is to get a USB DVD enclosure; beats having to swap out hardware.

I snagged a used slim-slot-load DVD burner a while ago and popped it into a USB enclosure; whole thing isn't much larger than a jewel case. It reads/writes fine just using the USB cable only, but comes with a 2nd if additional power is needed.

[werticus]

get a decent cooler on the i7 and run it at 3.5+ghz No worries!

I'm running one 24/7 now for a week at 3.7ghz its taking 5mins a frame where the q6600's are taking 15+

[pskdude]

one system

yea im building one system for now and it seems that is the way to go (i7).

[werticus]

have two i7's now and pushed them both to 3.8ghz ... i was at 3.9 but had one crash so stuck with the rock solid 3.8... they then rendered for 24 hrs solid and no dramas... at least twice as fast as the old q6600's and often even faster than that!

[Morne]

I don't think I'll ever go the overclocking route. Hardware is just too expensive for me to "gamble" like that.