Render Node Spec

[berty74]

hi, I'm a long time voyeur on this site, but not posted anything, nor built anything before (aside from add the odd bit of RAM).

I'm looking to build a small render node to assist me with my 3ds max rendering. I've learnt that cores and processing power are the key, and I've looked at the Boxx Render Pro and for what I would like (32gb RAM / Dual Xeon E5 2620v2 / 120Gb SSD) would cost about $5000. that to me seems a lot, so I looked at getting a couple of shuttle PC's instead.

I priced an i7-4930 / 32Gb RAM / 120GB sdd & the shuttle SX79R5, and without windows 7 and a basic graphics card it was about half the price of the boxx render pro.

I'm not well up on these things, and I don't know how to calculate bang for your buck - but would the 2 shuttle boxes outperform the boxx system at rendering, and are they reliable enough to be used for hours, or even days on end?

it's a minefield and right now all the options are confusing me no end so therefore I would massively appreciate any help or advice on this, and even any suggestions that an old blade server might be better (I've seen some on ebay for $5000).

thanks in advance, bert

 

[eodeo]

If you skip the i5 4570 for lack of HT, it should be noted that i7 4770 is the best bang for the buck for CPU intensive renderers like mental ray and vray. 6 core CPUs do not add nearly enough performance per $. You can buy 2x 4770 for the price of a single 4930, effectively obtaining 8 cores for the price of 6.
Next up is system cost overall. A single LGA 2011 motherboard will cost you at least 2x the LGA 1150, so no difference there. The biggest difference comes from RAM. Doubling the system doubles the RAM cost. RAM speed is negligent as the slowest DDR2 is not perceivably slower for rendering then the fastest DDR3, RAM price is minimal as 32gb (4x8gb) costs your roughly 300$. Case+PSU+HDD add another ~200$.

The biggest price is surely physical space required for these machines.

You should not worry yourself with endurance of long work hours as you do get 3 year warranty no matter what. With that said, optimal cooling is obviously a must. With a 12cm intake and another 12cm outtake fan per system case, you should be fine in a well air-conditioned room.

SSD does nothing for rendering and any benefit provided will be negligible compared to regular HDD. SSD is a nice luxury for user when actually using computer.

Lastly, you should consider GPU rendering engines like iray and vray RT. Getting dedicated GPU cards and bundling them is (by far) the cheapest way to get rendering speed. It does mean fitting your entire scene into 3gb of video RAM and learning the ins and outs of a GPU based renderer, but the speed benefits are notable. You could easily stack 4x gtx 780ti for unparalleled rendering speed- but only in GPU based renderers.

Personally, I'm not that keen on CUDA based GPU renderers like iray. I love quicksilver as it gives MR level quality at fraction of render time. With all that said, I think that a i7 4770 (non k if you dont plan to OC) makes most sense as a render node. Do not go overboard with RAM too. I mentioned 32gb above, but you may be fine with just 16gb. Max is very conservative when it comes to RAM needs- as the only app running on your render node- this is naturally 100% dependent on your scene/workload.

Good luck!

 

[berty74]

Thanks for your swift reply Eodeo, it's much appreciated.

I've not been too impressed with gpu rendering so far, but then I guess I haven't had the kit to give it a chance. I currently have a firepro 7000 card, and I heard that I could install a tesla card along side it and beef up the gpu rendering that way? I like the idea of that as space is already tight, and it would no doubt work out cheaper but then I am a bit stuck in my ways and only really know cpu rendering .

As I say space is a big problem and a couple of small cases like the shuttles, or one full size machine would be all I could realistically house for the time being. That said, would I be better off going for dual Xeon cpu's in a full size case to up my core count but keep space down? The i7-4770's only have 4 cores, so over 2 machines would only give me 8. Of course they are cheaper processors but I'd have to buy more of all the other components to up my cores. I guess this is why I liked the small form factor of the boxx render pro, even tho it was quite expensive.

I'm really confused now as I think I need to look into gpu rendering some more...

 

[eodeo]

What sort of work do you do? It may give a more clear answer on what type of rendering to aim for.

 

[eodeo]

This may be interesting to look over:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2013/-26-3DS-Max-2012,3161.html

 

[berty74]

I am solely using 3ds max and vray. I don't use my pc for gaming, just modelling and rendering.

I haven't had much experience of gpu rendering - I know it's the way forward but I just haven't been too impressed with it so far (I'm sure that will change in time).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I will certainly head towards gpu rendering, but in the meantime I think I will need to build a couple of small render nodes just to help me out when I'm busy. then at a later date possibly fit those same nodes with decent gpu rendering cards. the boxx render pro is far too expensive, so I think the shuttle pc fits the bill for the time being.

 

[eodeo]

GPU rendering may or may not the be the way forward. Looking solely at specs, it's clear that it should be the future, but as it is- it's still not. If nothing else, then for the sake of RAM. The highest end and the latest quadro k6000 has 12gb of ram. This is impressive considering that the one before it had only 6gb of ram. Still, in context of 32gb render node, 12gb fades in comparison.

This is why I asked what sort of work do you do. For arch & car viz you need not look further than GPU rendering as you have minimal moving parts, no weigh blended moving vertices and all the geometry can (likely) neatly fit into a single GB of ram. When physical space is a concern, GPU rendering is a clear choice. http://www.colfax-intl.com/new_jlp/nvidia/pics/CXT5000-Internals.gif

You can imagine each of those cards as an 8 core CPU- on average.

If you can fit your entire scene into 3gb of RAM, gaming cards like gtx 780ti is the way to go as its notably faster than the fastest quadro. If however you need more RAM, quadro is the only way to go. Speed advantage of gaming card pales in comparison of not using a GPU for rendering because you don't have enough video RAM.

For everything else (a tad over generalization, but usually true) CPU rendering is the way to go- for now. This is why its fairly hard to give a general advice.

 

[berty74]

I think you've helped me make up my mind. an i7 render node will do the job for now, and it can certainly be of use later on if I decide to go the gpu route.

I appreciate your advice. thanks again.