Most cost effective render farm?

[Mats_O]

Just about to buy some new render nodes. What is the most costeffective setup today: two i7 on two eparate motherboards, or dual xeon on single motherboard? Pros and cons? Which setup would be the fastest? Looking at getting the most costeffective rendering speed only.

[jacksc02]

this should really be in the Take:5 section as its not a VRay question/problem

[Morne]

somebody please move this to off-topic.
Also could some1 answer the question as I'm also curious about the answer

[stevesideas]

I would probably recommend the i7's. The 920's are very capable of being overclocked to faster than the 940's.

Also, the i7 920 is almost as fast as a dual xeon 5355 setup I have, plus everything is cheaper to purchase. For me it's a no brainer...

[Donald2B]

I have come to the same conclusions as Steve. I can build a iCore7 920 render box for under $1k. Dual Xeon machines of the same generation are going to be MUCH more expensive...power in numbers always works for me.

[glorybound]

What is the most ram you can have on the iCore7? I can only find motherboards that support 12MB.

[stevesideas]

My mobo is a evga S58 3x sli. It has a 12gb ram max.

[glorybound]

12bg

Mine is 12GB too, but it there a motherboard that supports more?

[stevesideas]

Who knows...i was just letting you know what mobo I had Sorry, dont know why I didnt put some more info. I dont think I have found one on my searches through the mobo jungle. You may be able to get one from MSI, but I dont know if they support the i7 cpus yet.

[Joost Ink]

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 X58 , supports 24, but for a rendernode i doubt if you ever need more that 6 or 8.

also, new question: is there a motherboard out that support a dual i7? That would be cool.

[glorybound]

ddr3

does anyone sell 4gb sticks of ddr3, which is what the i7 uses?

[tricky]

I would have thought dual boards are the way to go. Less componants. Less plug sockets. Less to go wrong. Less electrickery used. Less heat.

[Donald2B]

As far as I know...only the Xeon line of CPUs are capable of running more than 1 physical CPU. Supposedly the new Xeons coming out later this year are going to be based on iCore7 Technology. I am anxiously awaiting their arrival!

[arobbert]

Aren't the Nehalem-based 5500 series Xeons the Xeon equivalent?

[QuakeMarine1]

yes they are
Asus sell a cool board for it - dont have a link to hand - google "Asus Z8NA D6"