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I'm considering rendering a short film in Maxwell, and would like a bit more computing power - not
just for the final renders (which I may send to a larger render farm), but all the tests as well. I still need
to learn how to optimize my scenes a bit, but regardless, it seems the fastest way to reduce render time is to
throw more cpu's at it.

Anyone have experience putting together a small, say 5 or so, node render farm for Maxwell they
can share? Or other recommendations, (maybe boxx or other vendor)?

What kind of time reduction can one expect from something like this compared to a single machine?

Last day of 2011, I snapped up the special offer with 5 render nodes. Because of the current sweet spot (price vs. performance) regarding Intel processors, I ditched the Apple OSX stuff and built i7-2600K and i7-3930K PCs as render nodes, the latter doubling as workstation also.

i7-3930K PC was only € 1750 - Cinebench CPU ~12.2 OpenGL ~63.1 (auto oc'ed)
i7-2600K PC was just € 1050 - Cinebench CPU ~9.6 (auto oc'ed)

Works very well now after figuring out network rendering and these file path issues. As for time reduction, I can only say that rendering is faster than a single Mac Pro with Xeons at 1/3 the price(!), reason why I gave up Apple hardware. If you can afford it, you could get the i7-3960X - but that is not so very much faster than the i7-3930K and currently costs ~ € 900 versus ~€ 500.

Based on my own experience I wouldn't anticipate using the farm much for test renders - at least not the quick 2 minute ones. I find running those on a local machine is still most beneficial because running a network rendering involves extra steps, introduces potential problems, and doesn't give you an automatic preview. So keep that in mind as it may mean you'd want to spend extra money on your work computer.

Also based on my experience CPU power converts pretty linearly into speed. 2 computers with the same processor will reach a given SL twice as fast as 1 computer would. However, there's a corollary that the more speed you have at your finger tips, the higher you'll want your quality to be. So maybe a render will still take the same 4 hours it used to but now you'll be rendering it out twice as large and be using displacement and hair and other things that were unreasonable before.

-Brodie

Hey thanks for the feedback, looking into those cpu's.

Seems like your using multiple desktops, as opposed to rack mounted systems, which is what I was thinking of. Not sure what the price diff is on that,
but space (and heat, I imagine) would be less on the rack mount. I may take the advice on the more powerful workstation first - sss, disp., hair, etc,
is planned.

Any recommended hardware for connecting the nodes? or is a simple router hub adequate?

I Just put together a set of 6 using 2600k processors recently. It ended up being a bit under $1000/computer, which included windows and maxwell licenses. looking back I could've done it cheaper, especially with the new render node pricing...probably around $700/computer. Mine are desktop and not rackmounts. ANy specific questions, let me know.

BOXX systems and rack-mount equivalents were just way too expensive at the same speed and quality of components (in case of my budget).

When you connect "beheaded" (no screen, no graphics card) render nodes, a KVM switch is very handy for administration from your workstation (or you can get by using Windows 7's built-in Remote Desktop function). Then to network, just get a quality high speed router, possibly with WLAN so you can check your machines and renderings from your iPhone or similar; which is very practical.

thanks for the suggestions!