[Anders Peter Amsnæs]

Hi,

I use FormZ for Mac and Maxwell 2.0 for rendering. Currently I have 2.5 year old quad Mac Pro standing by for rendering jobs. I am thinking it's time to replace it with something a bit faster!

While I would prefer a Mac, an eight core Mac Pro is a bit pricey.

1. Would using my work Mac (a MacBook) as a render manager and having a Win/PC as a second render node (my current Mac Pro as the other one) work all right?

2. ...and what PC do I choose for best performance! (in the not $3500+ Mac Pro price range)

Best,
Anders

[Anders Peter Amsnæs]

I hope somebody can help out. I have no experience buying PC's. I have been looking at Dells website. Are these good choices - which has the best Maxwell performance?

Precision T7500
One Intel® Xeon® E5620(2.4GHz,5.86GT/s,12MB,4C)-Memory runs at 1066MHz

Studio XPS 8100
Studio XPS 8100 - Intel Core i5-processor 650 (3,20 GHz, 4 MB)

Thanks,
Anders

[numerobis]

The i5 650 is only a dual core... useless

The E5620 is ok,but not the fastest - it's a 32nm Xeon Quad core with 2,4GHz, only useful if you plan to overclock it - otherwise the cheapest i7 (i7 920) with 2,67GHz will be faster.
I don't know the price for this system, but i think an i7 sys will be less expensive...

some benches...

http://www.benchwell.com/

[Anders Peter Amsnæs]

It seems that the i7 920 has the best price/performance ratio. Found this one on a danish webstore http://www.computercity.dk/Products/Pro ... id=4003898

It's about $1750

An ok choice?

[Half Life]

I built a i7 920 rig on a Supermicro workstation motherboard with 3Gb memory for less than $1000 (monitor not included) a year ago -- I'd consider that a good baseline price/performance ratio.

But if I was willing to spend on higher-end I'd build a system around something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131652

Best,
Jason.

[numerobis]

It seems that the i7 920 has the best price/performance ratio. Found this one on a danish webstore http://www.computercity.dk/Products/Pro ... id=4003898

It's about $1750

An ok choice?

• Intel Core i7-920 processor 2,66 GHz
  12288 MB DDR3 ram
  1TB Sata harddisk 7200 rpm.
  Super Multi DVD-Brænder
  ATI Radeon HD5750 1024/2431 MB
  WLAN 802.11b/g/n, LAN 10/100/1000
  Kortlæser, 8 * USB 2.0, 2 * Firewire
  Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Yes, looks ok but too expensive for a rendernode! ~1350€, right?!?

- If you only want a rendernode you don't need a HD5750 (~120€) you can use the cheapest passive pci-e card (~20€)
- Better use a win 7 Professional 64bit
- no need for a dvd burner, card reader and wlan

as an example (sorry, only euro prices)

i7 920...........................200€
board...........................150€
RAM 12 gb DDR3-1333........320€
1 tb hdd 7200rpm ..............60€
video card.......................20€
dvd rom..........................15€
case, 500w psu .................80€
win7 pro x64....................120€

total..............................965€

The best bang for the buck is a i7 920 or 930 system overclocked to 3,5-4GHz. You would need a better cpu cooler, a good board (200-230€) and maybe faster RAM (DDR3-1600)

[dmeyer]

Better use a win 7 Professional 64bit

Win 7 Home Premium is generally fine for CG on a single socket system. Pro or Ultimate is required for dual socket.

[numerobis]

as far as I remember Home Premium can be used with 2 CPUs but it

...can't use more than 16GB RAM.
...has no Remote Desktop.
...has no Windows XP Mode.
...can't join network domains
...has no network backup function (ok... not neccessary but maybe useful)

if you don't need these functions, you can take home premium, but the 16gb limit would be enough
for me to go professional...