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.
this should really be in the Take:5 section as its not a VRay question/problem
somebody please move this to off-topic.
Also could some1 answer the question as I’m also curious about the answer
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…
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.
What is the most ram you can have on the iCore7? I can only find motherboards that support 12MB.
My mobo is a evga S58 3x sli. It has a 12gb ram max.
12bg
Mine is 12GB too, but it there a motherboard that supports more?
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.
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.
ddr3
does anyone sell 4gb sticks of ddr3, which is what the i7 uses?
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.
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!
Aren’t the Nehalem-based 5500 series Xeons the Xeon equivalent?
yes they are
Asus sell a cool board for it - dont have a link to hand - google “Asus Z8NA D6”
are the i7 so good ?
i have some Q6600 @ 3Ghtz and they do 12k points on cinebench, and I saw that the i7 does 15k (no OC)
so it is bether, but if I have to change, I don’t find that i7 does it worth, am I wrong ?
could you please give me some feedback about i7 and may be compare it to Q6600 for those who had some ? 
Really apreciate 
Thanks
Stan
3lp Team
I have both in my renderfarm.
A rule of thumb is 2 Q6600 = 1 CoreI7
… i just switcht one machine to maximus II formula and Q9550 @4,0 GHZ and get a cinebench06 of about 20000. 8GB RAM installed. Air cooled and with full load about 60 Degree Celsius. The Q9550 is about 190 Euros so its interesting too .. i´d say