render machines; one powerhouse or 4 smaller ones

[fingerindustries]

I'm looking to buy some new render servers. There are many possibly permutations BUT would it be best to go for 1 powerhouse server or 4 smaller slower ones?
For example I could get a 2 x 8 core 2.5ghz E5 for approx £4200 - OR - 1 x 4 core 2ghz for £1000 (even less if I shop around). There are loads of variations, amount of RAM, exact chips, but bearing in mind loading the Max files, pre-passes etc what would be quicker... I just can't believe one machine could do 4 frames in the time a slower machine could do one.

[joconnell]

4 smaller - if one breaks you still have 75% of your rendering power.

[fingerindustries]

Good point

[RockinAkin]

Just remember from a financial standpoint - you'll need more render licences if there are more machines. Not to mention electricity bill.

[Neilg]

I just can't believe one machine could do 4 frames in the time a slower machine could do one.

It cant. If you're looking at getting 6+ powerhouse machines or 24 slower ones though it becomes much more worthwhile. nobody wants to build 24 boxes by themselves and deal with those licenses and power and space issues. If you've got that kind of money, you get a rack wheeled in and maintained by someone else.

4 is no big deal though and you'll get more power for your money. boxx machines and the like are not really single purchases, they only make sense if you're getting a few.

[tricky]

I tend to build render machines in clusters of about 3 or 4. Sometimes, they are easy and everything just works. Other times, I build 3 identical machines and one or two of them are just flakey. When that happens, I wish I'd just built 1 machine. Less to troubleshoot. less to install. One OS license etc etc. Our best machines so far are the i7 6-core machines. Seem reasonably solid stability wise. Worst lot I built are some recent i7 4-core. I cannot get one of them to be stable at all and can't pin down where the problem is. Just breathing on it can make it blue screen/power down (literally!). The other two are 'ok'.

Next time I might just go for some Dell refurbished machines.

[Morbid Angel]

There is a saying it goes like this: one is not a warrior in a field of battle. It works well in such principal, where if you have to render many many frames, then many slow machines are better then one very fast machine

Best to have all of them very fast

[tricky]

There is a saying it goes like this: one is not a warrior in a field of battle.

There is another saying that says "Wax on. Wax off". I'm not sure how it relates to render machines but I like to try and use it whenever I can

[fingerindustries]

All good advice folks, thanks - our regular use of the servers is for 30 secs to 3 mins of animation (750-4500) and usually fairly intensive; our current commercial is taking 90 mins+ a frame and is taking agggeeeesss...
Anyway, wise points on OS and node costs plus more machines take longer to install, maintain and troubleshoot BUT if one does break at least you have others to fall back on. Ok. Plenty to think about before spending our hard earned money...
Thanks

[joconnell]

Take a look into a disk imaging solution like norton ghost, I think there might be a thread on the forum about drive cloning software which would allow you to install one machine, make an image of the installed drive and then just clone that on to the remaining machines if they've got the same specs.

[Preisler]

I would choose 4 nodes - and you should be able to get much larger machines for £1000 if you build them yourself. I can find the specs from the last i7 build that we have if you want?

And as Joconnell writes so be sure that they are built with exactly the same components if you want to use disk cloning. (Dell do not necessarily use the same components inside on the same type of machines - had a bad experience with that!)

[glorybound]

One thing you need to make sure of is, that all the machines have the same amount of RAM. In my case, my main workstation has 32GB, but my slaves have 12. So, I really can only utilize 8 or so, on my main workstation, because if I set VRAY to use to much, the slaves never join the render.

[cheerioboy]

I went the multi-machine route, built 5 i7 machines w/12gb ram, ssd's, etc.
It works well but you quickly abuse the power and soon you're cranking your settings/resolution up for better images that then still take hours to render

[glorybound]

what did you spend, if you don't mind me asking? About 5 years ago I build my 5 i7 machines w 12/gb ram, for about 4 grand. I went with stock video and SATA drives.

I went the multi-machine route, built 5 i7 machines w/12gb ram, ssd's, etc.
It works well but you quickly abuse the power and soon you're cranking your settings/resolution up for better images that then still take hours to render

[cheerioboy]

that sounds about right; I think around $700 per node?
I guess the prices haven't dropped much - the processors might be slightly faster, more energy efficient, and cheaper SSD's now...

what did you spend, if you don't mind me asking? About 5 years ago I build my 5 i7 machines w 12/gb ram, for about 4 grand. I went with stock video and SATA drives.