Small Render Farm (3 stations) for $1600.

[Davidh373]

Hi guys! I'm looking at rendering a huge project from 3DS Max around the holiday season. The rendering is around 10 minutes of cinema quality 2k resolution animation and particle effects. I'd like to get 3 new computers at around $500 ($533.33 max budget) a pop to handle this workload. The problem is I'm at $569.88 per station right now, and I need to trim out about $60-$70 a piece, which I know will be hard at this budget. I feel that my choices as far as parts go are solid, but there are a few things that might be hard for the average person to bring into reason and consideration, though there are many people on here with knowledge that surpasses my own. First consideration is normally as far as rendering is concerned, the more cores the better, so I have chosen the Phenom II X6 for price/ performance for my task. Please keep in mind I know there are better processors out there, but for my task the Phenom II X6 provides the best performance in my budget range. These processors also run at 95W instead of the usual 125W the other Phenom II X6s use. This will keep temps and the energy bill down.
Second is the CPU cooler. Render farms can run up to months at a time at max CPU usage, so although I'm not planning to overclock, the cooler will ensure overheating is not an issue.
Third is the monitor. Although these will be unused most of the time, I still need to monitor the renders at times. I don't know if a single monitor with a 3-way KVM switch would be cheaper, but if so I will go that route.

Here are my parts:

Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352009

PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...corsair%20430w

Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157199

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103856

CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065

RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231253

HDD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136770

OS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116986

Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254037

 

[paperwastage]

might be able to get a 3-pack version of W7 for cheaper

how much space would it take? (looking at whether SSDs would be faster, or a one fileserver would be better)

 

[mnewsham]

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-inputs-ou.../dp/B0017R7260

 

[Ken g6]

might be able to get a 3-pack version of W7 for cheaper

Saves only $5, in total!

This bundle saves $15/build!

There do seem to be many KVM switches available. Using a PS/2 keyboard and mouse seems to save some money.

 

[Darknite39]

Get a cheaper case. The Antec 300 is only $35 shipped right now, for example. Saves $15/PC.

 

[Davidh373]

Get a cheaper case. The Antec 300 is only $35 shipped right now, for example. Saves $15/PC.

No room for that (as in space wise), and it will be back up to $60 by the holiday season, when I plan on getting them. The littler space they take up the better, but I still want the case to be of decent quality and have good ventilation. Remember, these will be running 100% CPU usage flat out for weeks at a time. So it's important they stay cool, but are still compact.

This bundle saves $15/build!

I'm going to hope that is still around during the holidays!

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-inputs-ou.../dp/B0017R7260

They make 3 port VGA/ DVI right? The motherboards only have those, and the monitor I have has VGA. Looks like they are pretty expensive (like $300+), and the monitors I have picked are only $70 shipped.

how much space would it take? (looking at whether SSDs would be faster, or a one fileserver would be better)

I considered one box as well. I fished around in Anandtech's bench tool, but it seems the only processors worth while are the 980X and one of those costs 8x that of the 6-core Phenom, and is only twice as powerful for my task. I also considered a dual Xeon or Opteron setup, but those motherboards are not cheap, and on top of that you need to buy 2 server processors, which would cost more than the 3 systems and only double the performance of the one Phenom.

If you can find me an SSD that can have Windows 7 (~25GB now) 3DS Max (4GB) and 10 minutes of uncompressed 2k footage and cost less than the $40 320GB HDD I have picked out, I would actually buy 6 of them to go in all of my computers

 

[mnewsham]

4 of these and this

AFAIK that should work and shave off your monitor costs for the 2nd and 3rd builds.

 

[mnewsham]

Okay so going out on a limb here, BUT would this work for you?

CD/DVD
Case
HDD
Monitor
PSU
AS5
RAM
Motherboard
OS
2x HSF
SSD
2x CPU

Total: $1,314.85

Few notes, you need the W7 pro because it is the cheapest version that supports 2 physical CPU's. If this build isnt powerful enough, or just wouldnt work for your needs feel free to ignore it!

 

[Ken g6]

I have a different limb for you to go out on. :sneaky:

What if, instead of buying 3 systems, you only bought 2? But what if, instead of Athlon X6's, you got i7 2600s? Anandtech has extensive 3DS Max benchmarks, and in the overall bench, the i7 is over 50% faster than the X6 1055T (which itself is 200MHz faster than your chosen processor.) But you'll have to compare all the benchmarks to be sure it's right for you.

Assuming it is fast enough, here's the money math:

Take each $570/workstation.
Add 300-140 = $160 for the processor.
Swap in an H61 motherboard for about the same price as your motherboard. (Eggsample.)

Total: $730/workstation, or $1460 total!

If necessary for the budget, you can remove the HSF - Sandy Bridge processors run fine at full speed even on their stock HSF.

Or if this isn't fast enough, and you can find enough bundles and discounts to add about $130 to your total budget, you could get two 2600K's with P67 or Z68 motherboards, and overclock them past 4GHz!

 

[mnewsham]

I have a different limb for you to go out on. :sneaky:

What if, instead of buying 3 systems, you only bought 2? But what if, instead of Athlon X6's, you got i7 2600s? Anandtech has extensive 3DS Max benchmarks, and in the overall bench, the i7 is over 50% faster than the X6 1055T (which itself is 200MHz faster than your chosen processor.) But you'll have to compare all the benchmarks to be sure it's right for you.

Assuming it is fast enough, here's the money math:

Take each $570/workstation.
Add 300-140 = $160 for the processor.
Swap in an H61 motherboard for about the same price as your motherboard. (Eggsample.)

Total: $730/workstation, or $1460 total!

If necessary for the budget, you can remove the HSF - Sandy Bridge processors run fine at full speed even on their stock HSF.

Or if this isn't fast enough, and you can find enough bundles and discounts to add about $130 to your total budget, you could get two 2600K's with P67 or Z68 motherboards, and overclock them past 4GHz!

with a 200 dollar budget extension he could also build two C32 machines with 16 cores total lowest i could get that was around $1780 or so.

 

[Ken g6]

Technically, I meant $130 over my total, not his budget, for a total of $1590 if he wants to overclock. That's in his budget. It also doesn't count savings from a KVM or the like.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Converting fro 3.3 GHz down to 2.6 GHz, the X6 will render at 11.42 FPS vs. 17.4 for an i5-2500K and 20.1 for an i7-2600K.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/17

Load power should be the same or less:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21

3 - x6 = 34.2 fps
2 - i7 = 40.2 fps
3 - i5 = 52.2 fps

So 2x i7-2600K would be faster than 3x of those x6 CPUs, and 3x i5-2500K would be much faster.

x6 = $170 w/HSF
i5 = $220 (or non-K version for $210)
i7 = $315 (but only 2 of them)
Both the i5 and i7 come with a good stock cooler so a third-party one is not needed.

The 2xi7 offers better price, performance and power use for this application than the 3x x6. If you increased your budget, 3x i5-2500 would beat 3x x6 1100T while using ~100 watts less load power.

Edit: This TomsHardware benchmark doesn't have the i5 and i7 outperforming a 3.3 GHz X6 by the same margin, in fact the i5 is slower (The i5/i7 are still using ~30 watts less under load than the x6 3.3 GHz though):
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-15.html

2x - i7-2600k = 1:17
3x - x6-2.6 GHz = 1:10 = 9% faster than the 2 x i7 (but costing more and using ~160 watts more)

 

[mfenn]

You've gotten good alternatives from everyone in this thread so far. I particularly like the idea of getting two i7's if possible in the budget.

One thing that applies to all of these builds though is that you don't really need a monitor at all. Use your existing one to install the OS, etc. and then just use VNC (no RDP server on HP) to connect to the consoles.

EDIT: $582 i7 build
i7 2600 + Windows 7 HP $385
ASRock H61M-VS $55
DDR3 1333 4GB $20
Seagate 500GB $40
Seasonic 350W $42
Fractal Core 1000 $40

If you can scrounge up cheap copies of Windows (.edu?), then you could actually just barely do 3 of these for $1500.

 

[Davidh373]

What if, instead of buying 3 systems, you only bought 2?

The only thing wrong with this is the processors would be better than my workstation

EDIT: $582 i7 build
i7 2600 + Windows 7 HP $385
ASRock H61M-VS $55
DDR3 1333 4GB $20
Seagate 500GB $40
Seasonic 350W $42
Fractal Core 1000 $40

One thing that applies to all of these builds though is that you don't really need a monitor at all. Use your existing one to install the OS, etc. and then just use VNC (no RDP server on HP) to connect to the consoles.

That is excellent! I might just get two of these and bump them up to 8GB RAM, nicer mobos, and swap the seagates for something like a Samsung f3. I don't need 3 of them since the 2600K bests 3 of the Phenom II X6s.

If you can scrounge up cheap copies of Windows (.edu?), then you could actually just barely do 3 of these for $1500.

I would not want education licenses as I may use them for rendering on non-edu software I have at some point in the future. I might boost my budget up to $1800 to have 3 of these, but the savings on both energy and money might be nice.

CD/DVD
Case
HDD
Monitor
PSU
AS5
RAM
Motherboard
OS
2x HSF
SSD
2x CPU

This would if I had a little more money, but as far as cost effectiveness goes, I'd get more out of 3 Phenom II X6s (or the 2-3 i7 2600ks) I decided on before. I think the Opterons get like a 5% boost or something over the consumer products right? I've never looked at a benchmark closely enough.

 

[Ken g6]

I might boost my budget up to $1800 to have 3 of these

Well, let's see if I can save you some money again. Have you looked at the Intel Xeon E3-1235? If it were a regular consumer processor, I'd name it the "i7 2400". It's still hyper-threaded; it's just a little slower than the 2600. The biggest problem with it is that it doesn't do bundles. That and I'm not absolutely, entirely sure that it comes with a HSF - can someone confirm? Edit: Feedback says the 1230 has one, so this must too.

You might be able to save even more by getting the E3-1230 instead, and playing what I'm coining "graphics card roulette". See, that processor doesn't include onboard graphics, for $25 less. So, if you get three random, low-end graphics cards from three different companies, if all their mail-in rebates come through, you might get the graphics for $15-$20 each. Or scrounge up any old cheap graphics cards and save even more.

Edit2: Can one boot Win7 HP without a graphics card at all? I'm not sure.

 

[Ken g6]

One more money-saving idea: If you have time between now and when you buy, why not install a version of Linux with Wubi or in a VM, and try 3DS Max in Linux with Wine? It might or might not work well enough for you; but all you'd waste trying it is time.

 

[paperwastage]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/17

yeah, 3DS Max shines on the Sandy Bridge Architecture....

as for the Windows licenses, was thinking of the 3-pack upgrade. not sure about the ethics/EULA about using an upgrade license when you originally don't have any license at the first place...

Well, let's see if I can save you some money again. Have you looked at the Intel Xeon E3-1235? If it were a regular consumer processor, I'd name it the "i7 2400". It's still hyper-threaded; it's just a little slower than the 2600. The biggest problem with it is that it doesn't do bundles. That and I'm not absolutely, entirely sure that it comes with a HSF - can someone confirm? Edit: Feedback says the 1230 has one, so this must too.

You might be able to save even more by getting the E3-1230 instead, and playing what I'm coining "graphics card roulette". See, that processor doesn't include onboard graphics, for $25 less. So, if you get three random, low-end graphics cards from three different companies, if all their mail-in rebates come through, you might get the graphics for $15-$20 each. Or scrounge up any old cheap graphics cards and save even more.

Edit2: Can one boot Win7 HP without a graphics card at all? I'm not sure.

*just a warning/note*, do make sure the E3-1230/E3-1235 is compatible with whatever consumer-mobo you find... and there is no overclocking on these... E3-1235 HAS IGP, but i'm not sure whether it's compatible with the H67/H61/Z68 chipset... a xeon mobo starts at $150, way more expensive than any H61/H67/P67/Z68 mobo, so you're better off with a xeon cpu in a consumer mobo

but yeah, I was surprised to see the E3-1230 so much cheaper than the 2600 or 2600k when I was doing research for another thread

One more money-saving idea: If you have time between now and when you buy, why not install a version of Linux with Wubi or in a VM, and try 3DS Max in Linux with Wine? It might or might not work well enough for you; but all you'd waste trying it is time.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=343

says V2 is gold on 0.9.51, but not the latest ones

I wouldn't try to save money trying to run things on WINE, especially if that's the sole purpose of the computer(ok if you just want to run MS Office on wine)... you will get unexpected results