WTB: Render farm vs. New Workstation?

[Lightwave]

Okay, lets start with the basics. I'm an industrial design graduate, who's currently studying furniture design. I use Rhino with V-ray on a daily basis but no really compex models, lighting's also pretty basic but I'm getting more and more into interior visualization, but that will be far from my major design work.

I'm currently working solely on my Macbook (non-PRO). It serves the purpouse and has great portability, something that to this point has been my major priority. However, I'm becoming more and more based on CAD and I feel that it's time to step it up. I need a faster work-flow which means faster rendering.

I've been focused on getting a decent workstation to fill the need but I've recently stumbled onto some interesting ideas of building your own render farm. Here are the pro's and con's as I see it.

Render farm.

+ assumed more rendering power per $
+ get to keep the consistensy of a 13" screen (it's sufficient)
+ get to build something interesting and unusual
+ doesn't take up space on my desk @ home (mainly sketching)

+ get to poke every other designer for not having one! (oh, you DON'T have a render farm? really? oh, I'm sorry...)
+ my brother has a real farm, brings us closer together! (and mine's way "sheeper" than his)

Workstation.

+ faster realtime (shaded / rendered) view of model
+ less computer setup / hassle
+ big screen for graphic design work etc...

The examples below are similar in price (render farm actually cheaper)

LINK to picture instead of having it embedded, these forums are narrow
http://web.comhem.se/~u63807103/renderfarm.png


Tell me what you think!

[dalomar_cg]

Re: WTB: Render farm vs. New Workstation?

One thing that you should consider is how much maintenance you'll have to do on the farm. You'll have to make sure you've got a network that's up to snuff. You may have to spend some time figuring out that configuration. Also, remember that software updates have to happen across multiple computers. You should at least have some sort of gameplan for that.

Since this is really just for rendering, you should really know how many cores your going to get with one option over another. If you can get 16 cores with the render farm and only 4 or 8 with a new workstation, that's going to more valuable.

Looking at you're configurations there are a few things that I'll comment on. With the render nodes, you're going to want to squeeze in quad cores in there if you can. Some of the time it takes to use the render nodes are due to network transfer, so the more cores per node, then less transfers have to happen for the same number of cores. Quad cores will also decrease the amount of "other" hardware you have to buy for the same number of cores. If you have to go with 3 nodes instead of 4 you'd probably be better off doing that. Also for the render nodes you will want to have at least 2 gbs of RAM. Render nodes with low RAM are not too useful bc they may crash on some of those intense scenes. Also, you should look into a 64 bit operating system. In the long run it will be much better for your nodes.

On the Workstation side, 10k RPM drives are a good idea. I personally would ditch the quadro card for a good GeForce. Looks like for about the same price you could get a 9800 GT or a GTX260, both cards that have been well recommended by Jeff LaSor, the Rhino Display programmer.

[Lightwave]

Re: WTB: Render farm vs. New Workstation?

Hi dalomar and thanks for a great post. Alot of good tips in there.

For the moment I'm leaning towards the workstation. Including maintenance, setup and the actual build, a render farm is a little further down the line for me. Plus, the workstation supports other areas of computer related work.

Since I really want a workstation I was kinda hoping an investment in a CAD/3d oriented gfxcard would bring me better performance and make it less able to play games, although I have a girlfriend to somewhat keep me in check, the ability of a great rig might send me into more battles than I'd like pre-purchase

But if I'll get just as good performance from a "gamer"card like the GTX260 I'll go for that, a few matches of Battlefield ain't hurt nobody, I might get on IGN and se what I've missed out on these last years in games... study some strategies, no NO! See... it's already happening!

[dalomar_cg]

Re: WTB: Render farm vs. New Workstation?

I've never really had a problem with any of the "gamer" cards I've had in terms of running any 3d apps. They've performed fine for the kinds of cards they've been.

On the other hand I'm relatively disappointed with the Quadro 3500 that I put in a workstation just a few years ago. Its not that its performance has been bad, just that its performance hasn't really been up to what I expected for a VERY respectable workstation card that was a VERY pretty penny. Not worth the money I spent on it at all.

Besides, there are some driver mods that will allow you to access some of the features that are available in those quadro cards. I do not recommend them (I probably wouldn't do it to any card of mine), but they are out there.

As to the games issue. Most of the workstation cards can hold their own in a number of games. Its not going to be the smoothest game you've ever played, but it will certainly take care of your fix.