[Seggy]

I wonder if anyone can help me.

I love Maxwell but need it to be much much quicker for quick turn around commercial hi-res stills work. My render setup is fast, but no where near the quality of Maxwell. I now want speed and photo-realism.

I think I have 2 options:
1) Build a really fast machine, 2 x 6 cores Xeons etc - this will be around 3-4 times quicker than my 2x4 core old xeon machine i work on
2) Create a small render farm with pretty fast machines

Has anyone got experience of the speed, efficiency and reliability of using network rendering to create hi-res still renders?

I saw on the benchwell tests some machines with 24cores... but considering the price they would cost, they seemed bad value for money when compared against the 2 x6 cores machines that were only a little slower.

I wondered what your experiences were?

Is anyone out there using Maxwell in a quick turn around environment?

Thanks for you help in advance

Regards

Seggy

[frosty_ramen]

i have a small farm that works pretty good,
3x i7 920's
64bit
windows 7

[JTB]

2x i7860/2.8GHz + 1 Quadcore 2.4... It is enough for me...

My advice... Never buy the TOP processor... much more expensive from the second in speed...

[Bubbaloo]

Network rendering in Maxwell2 has been very consistent for me. It's very reliable. I have a small renderfarm. You have to also consider the cost of additional software and licenses if you build a farm. The nice thing about a supercomputer with many cores is the licensing of software. You only need one. The nice thing about Maxwell is that there's no penalty in speed between using a farm or only a local machine. So it really comes down to prices of hardware to consider. Also think about RAM too. You have to load up with RAM in all of the computers in a farm.

At the office I use the renderfarm method, but at home I use one computer with high end components.

[Josephus Holt]

I'm holding off until the fall of 2010 as there will be some great options then with a more reasonably priced 6 core processor I quote: "In 2010 the world’s largest maker of microprocessor (Intel) plans to release another six-core Core i7-970 central processing unit that will run at 3.20GHz clock-speed and will cost lower compared to the older brother, sources familiar with Intel’s roadmap told X-bit labs". I've heard some rumors that the price point will be in the $500 to $600 range...so then you can buy TWO for the price of one Extreme version today.

Also look at this motherboard NOW available (look at those ram slots!!):

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/e ... otherboard

Besides what Bubaloo mentioned about the add'l ram and software costs for more machines, you might also want to consider the power consumption, heat generation, and noise from multiple machines running.

All that said, I'm currently running a single i7-920 at 3.8 Ghz and would LOVE to have three of these

[Seggy]

Thanks for the help so far.

Is anyone using say 3 high end machines working together on hi-res stills and getting 3 x the speed? Is the network rendering this effiecent?

I would want to use all the power I could even on test renders, because on many materials then you can not make a good judgement about the finer detail of them until you get upto higher sample levels.

So can you use a bank of computers and simply hit render and they all work together without any faffing around. (with them working together in the background)

I know the usual workflow is test locally and when you are happy submit to a render farm, but I want a mini farm level of power all the time I feel.

I know this is all possible, but was interested in your actual experiences if anyone is using maxwell in this way.

thanks!

[Bubbaloo]

I do small tests on my renderfarm all the time. When it's in low priority mode, I can still do other work with little noticeable slowdown. Also, the Max plugin has a handy button (send to net render). Click that, set a few settings, and you're good. Don't know about the other plugins.

[Bubbaloo]

Is the network rendering this effiecent?

BTW, yes it is.

[dmeyer]

Thanks for the help so far.

Is anyone using say 3 high end machines working together on hi-res stills and getting 3 x the speed? Is the network rendering this effiecent?

I would want to use all the power I could even on test renders, because on many materials then you can not make a good judgement about the finer detail of them until you get upto higher sample levels.

So can you use a bank of computers and simply hit render and they all work together without any faffing around. (with them working together in the background)

I know the usual workflow is test locally and when you are happy submit to a render farm, but I want a mini farm level of power all the time I feel.

I know this is all possible, but was interested in your actual experiences if anyone is using maxwell in this way.

thanks!

In order to use co-op mode you have to submit the MXS to the network manager. It works well for final renders where you know the SL you need for it to clear and you simply want to speed it up.

For interactive work, tuning shaders, previews, etc, a single faster machine would be better in my experience. That said, maxwell scales better than nearly anything out there so just get as many total Ghz as possible (Ghz x cores). Virtual Hyperthreaded cores count as about 90% of a real core in Maxwell.

Current fastest machines would be a dual Xeon X5680 or a quad opteron 6176.

[polynurb]

i have been thinking about the same .. cause i want to upgrade my hardware.

have been using netrender with 3 q6600 @ 3.4ghz for the last two years.

until now i would have suggested to get the dual xeon for workstation and single cpu for nodes...

what ever way u turn it you will get a cheaper&faster machine than getting a dual xeon, even if it means getting a node license more per cpu.

...but now that the EVGA sr-2 offers overclocking for xeons... you can get a 2,66 ghz 6 core xeon cpu for the same price as a 980 x (extreme i7 w. 6 cores @ 3.33ghz).. and save on the doubled ram and doubled node license and make a crazy dual cpu rendernode.. but it will still be expensive

for the smaller budget get a few i7 920 and decent air cooling clock it to 3,5 for 24h use and pay 1k per node + license.

..only problem is ram.. i7 has max 6 slot, so up to 12 gb price is ok (2gb module) .. but if you should ever need more.. you get in trouble.. 4gb modules are expensive as hell.. and even if you get them the fewest consumer motherboards work well
with 4gb in all 6 slots.. and you will run into trouble more easy if overclocking too..

..honestly.. after using maxwell for a time now.. and seeing how well it scales and what one can throw at it.. i'd rather go for 24 GB ram than for 12... cause the 8 i can fit in my old machines are too little by now..