Best render node...again!!

[RSF]

Sorry for dropping the question and leaving
Back again!

I'm confused about the opteron 275 benchmarks relative to the 4400.
I have a 4400 and probably I would get a 10 x 4200 renderfarm but...I'm evaluating the opterons possibility.

These are some times taken from the "updated benchmark" topic
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...er=asc&start=0

athlon x2 4200 -> 5:22
Dual Opteron 275 (Win x64) -> 3:08

DaForce said "Check out the scores of the opterons in the benchmark thread their render times are far quicker. atleast half the time of the x2's"

My question is....Dual Opteren 275 means 2 dualcore cpus?

If this is the case one 275 cpu performs worst than one 4200
One 275 would have 6:16

Could someone correct me please!
Thanks

[arobbert]

It looks to me like this is the case or it's very close which is odd considering the price difference. It's to bad we can't get dual x2's. It was always more cost effective to buy dual's until now.

[Tom B]

I can't believe how cheap the Opteron 265s (dual core) are now. They are much cheaper than X2s! Plus you can get 24 GB RAM on the motherboards. And there are mobos that can take 4 or 8 Opterons too! I think it must be cheaper to build one of those than 4 or 8 X2 machines, but would the performance be the same?

[arobbert]

Yeah the lower price makes them more feasable. I just priced a system out and a dual 265 was about $250 dollars less than 2 X2 4200's. But I bet the 2 4200's would be faster as render nodes.

[mike.edel]

for larger render farms you should take maintainability into account
less machines (being more powerful) are favorable over lots of slower nodes

just imagine the increased possibility of hardware failure (increases with each additional machine)
if one hdd has a mtbf of 50000 hours the chance of failure doubles for two of them (effectively lowering the mtbf to 25000 hours)

other factors include cooling, power consumption (at least over here electricity is getting more expensive all the time), noise and network devices (switches, cabling)

[arobbert]

I agree, but on the other hand if a hard drive goes you would only lose one processor instead of two. Earlier in this thread I posted some information regarding power use of the two options.

"In terms of power consumption, GamePC's benchmarks show the Opteron systems consume 282 Watts under full load, while the X2 only consumes 181 Watts. A 3-system Opteron farm is 846 Watts, while the 5-system X2 farm is 905 Watts. Thus, the Opteron farm will cost about 7% less to operate, which is also about a wash."

7% is not insignificant but it would take a while to recover the extra cost. I also agree there will be a little more heat but the cooling requirements would not be that different between the two options. I'm sure for bigger companies with larger needs and more money duals are a better way to go. In fact that's what I've always baught.

It's important to note that these particular machines are as fast or faster than many of the dual machines on the market right now especially the affordable ones. Even now the only thing close price wise is the 265 and I still think two X2 4200's would be more Powerful.

[mike.edel]

it's not only the power the cpus eat
you have to add memory (10-20W for 2 Gigs),
ineffective power supplys (their degree of efficiency is 80% at best - so they use up 20-30% on top of their currently supplied energy just for heating the case)
Graphics Cards (up to 100W)
Hdd (25-30W)
Mainboard(25W)

Every additional component gets multiplied by the number of computers you have instead of a more or less fixed value for a multi-processor system

especially gigabit switches get extremely expensive if you go past the 8-port number of connections (i was surprised how dirt cheap some of the 8-port ones have become)

regarding the cooling: i was mainly refering to cooling requirements for the room itself (which scales up the more seperate machines you have)

in our old office we never had to turn on the heating with only about 8-10 (single-cpu) machines running

if you have a small room, maybe even without windows (not to forget a hot summer like the last one) you really might have to invest in air conditioning

[arobbert]

That all makes sense. But it seems like 2 gigs of ram would use about the same amount of power whether it's in one computer or two. I used a lower watt power supply (350 watt) it seems like most duals use at least 500. I suppose it comes down to how much each component draws and how efficient your power supply is. I'm using onboard video so there's no video card although I don't doubt power is used. I'm sure the additional hard drives will use more power but I bet a dual motherboard uses more power than a single. The question is how much each component draws and what it all adds up to.

At any rate I wonder how long it would take to make up the difference in price with saved electricity. There doesn't appear to be significant speed increases for the duals considering the additional cost. I guess that's the bottom line since you would be paying in advance and would have to reach the break even point to start realizing the savings.

I'm interested in learning more about power supply efficiency. It might be interesting to do a comparison between different machines under load. This could be a significant issue for render farms. I've just got a watt meter that I'm going to connect to my studio that will give me a reading of how much energy I'm using at any time. It even tells me how much it's costing so I could measure the differences between different machines. I can watch it surge when I hit the render button! I'm designing a cooling rack that will force the hot air from my render farm into my house for heat and I'm in a fairly cool climate so that will be good for 7.5 months of the year. In the summer it will be directed outside. I do feel guilty about all the electricity I use for my work. Me and my wife are concerned. We run very few lights at night and try to be efficient in our electrical use. That's why I got that meter so I can separate our personal use from business.

[mike.edel]

I suppose it comes down to how much each component draws and how efficient your power supply is.

I'm using onboard video so there's no video card although I don't doubt power is used. I'm sure the additional hard drives will use more power but I bet a dual motherboard uses more power than a single. The question is how much each component draws and what it all adds up to.

At any rate I wonder how long it would take to make up the difference in price with saved electricity. There doesn't appear to be significant speed increases for the duals considering the additional cost. I guess that's the bottom line since you would be paying in advance and would have to reach the break even point to start realizing the savings.

I'm interested in learning more about power supply efficiency. It might be interesting to do a comparison between different machines under load. This could be a significant issue for render farms. I've just got a watt meter that I'm going to connect to my studio that will give me a reading of how much energy I'm using at any time. It even tells me how much it's costing so I could measure the differences between different machines. I can watch it surge when I hit the render button! I'm designing a cooling rack that will force the hot air from my render farm into my house for heat and I'm in a fairly cool climate so that will be good for 7.5 months of the year. In the summer it will be directed outside. I do feel guilty about all the electricity I use for my work. Me and my wife are concerned. We run very few lights at night and try to be efficient in our electrical use. That's why I got that meter so I can separate our personal use from business.

i have a recent review where they were measuring the efficiency of some testet power supplys at different wattage loads
there are vast differences between different brands
f.e. a coba vb-500x has an efficiency of about 65% at 100Watts, increasing to about 73% at 350W and going down when going to 500W
(it is the worst supply in terms of efficiency)

quick scan:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2963/chart6be.jpg

nice idea to use the air for heating your house
a shame this only works if your office is close...
a lot of people living in low-energy houses have heat exchangers nowadays - i really wonder if one could water cool the computers and use the water to help heating and saving gas/oil

[arobbert]

Thanks for the link Mike. I'm going to educate myself on this. I bet you could use that heat to warm water as well. Mabye design it such that the water cools your farm and then feeds the hot water heater. I want to wring every cent out of that electricity.

[mike.edel]

well, typical solar thermal collectors just heat up water in a closed circuit on the roof (to about 40°C) and use heat exchangers to transfer the energy to the houses internal water circuit (heating, warmwater)
i bet the temperature of a render-farm's cooling circuit would be higher than 40°C in average. (and also even when the sun doesn't shine)

btw: these systems are used in zero-energy houses (i.e. they normally don't use anything else to produce warm water/air)

ps: the exact power-supply's names for the chart were given in the article (which was in german):

Be quiet! BQT P6-520W (won the test, 120€)
Ultron UN-550 PFC (budget recommendation, 80€, 30-45dB(A))

Amacrox Frei Erde 550W (best efficiency, very loud even at low watt usage - 35-45dB(A)!!, 100€)
Coba VB-500X (low efficiency, 65€,)
Sinan-Power VP-530W (35€, loud, lowest efficiency)

[paulison]

we got some more intel 840D's from Dell. Good value, easy to get and no need to go to some small dodgy cornerstore. The dell machines are also very quiet and in a small room without aircon, 12 of them barely heats it up. The older AMD machines in there are like electric heaters and are very loud in comparison

I know the X2's are better but its about availablity where you live and selection of companies you can get the machine from. In our case we stuck with dell because of leasing agreements and other discounts etc but they only make intel machines...

anyway hope that adds a couple more things to consider beyond pure performance.

[mike.edel]

there are (probably established) rumors that dell is going to offer amd dual core machines, too

[Da_elf]

well they are in a super tight contract with intel to only sell intell machines. so if their contract is up then we can see some amd, but untill its over there wont be an amd dell at all

[andrius]

Sorry to switch gears here but will XP Pro64 run all the apps like maya, rhino, photoshop, illustrator, after effects... Or do I need to upgrade those to a special 64bit version?