Ellis_3 :
I want to build a dirt cheap 3d rendering machine for school. We use rhino 5 and the quad core i5's dont cut it when I am rendering large objects with advanced materials. I believe that I could build a system with dual E5645s and either 8 or 16 gb of ram for around 260$.
Also i wouldnt need a good graphics card because fps isn't important and i would only be using it to render the projects not create the projects.
Would this work?
Thanks
Ellis_3,
A dual Xeon E5645 system could be a good dedicated rendering engine. If you're using VRay for Rhino, there are multiple options to use CPU, Open CL, or CUDA for rendering. I've had the best results (VRay fro Sketchup) with CPU-based rendering- better gradients, particles, reflections, shadows, but GPU is undeniably fast, fast, fast- 3180 X 1964 in 6-7 minutes.
It's possible to buy an HP z600 or z800 with dual E5645 for as little as $200 and I would suggest buying a system rather than building. The individual parts will total more and there is all the fuss of researching, ordering, assembling, wiring and testing etc. Have a 120GB or so SSD.
As an alternative, if the budget could be a bit over $300, you might consider a used Dell Precison T3600 for about $180 and adding a Xeon E5-2670 8-core @ 2.6 /3.3GHz as these are selling for as little as $50-60. On Passmark, a single CPU averages a CPU mark of 12502 and a pair average 18459. The single-threaded rating is 1620. This compares to the E5645 6-core @ 2.4 / 2.7GHz which averages a CPU mark of 10542 and a single-threaded rating of 1075. That means the single 8-core is getting through 20% more cycles per second than the 2X E5645 with 12 cores.
Having the T3600 I think could be useful over a longer period as the single threaded rating of 1620 with a reasonable GPU is high enough to use for mid-level modeling. I've done a lot of 3D modeling on X5680 with a single thread rating of 1465 and a X5677 which is 1520. The T3600 will be using DDR3-1600 instead of 1333, the disk system is SATAIII- 6GB/s instead of 3GB/s, and there USB 3 instead of USB 2. If the budget can be stretched $30-$40, the CPU can be an E5-2680 (8-core @ 2.7 /3.5GHz) averaging 13410 and single-threaded of 1709. With a good GPU and disk setup, that system could be a general use workstation.
In some ways, when on a strict budget, it may be better to put everything into a single system and with renderings, just set up a queue that can run them over night.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
Modeling:
1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555]
[Passmark V9.0 Beta Rating = 5019.1 > CPU= 14206 / 2D= 779 / 3D= 5032 / Mem= 2707 / Disk= 4760] 3.31.16
[Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15
Rendering:
2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6-core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)
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