[DrMerman]

Hey guys,

I've just received £450 which I'm going to put towards a nice little render-farm setup. Initially, I didn't think this would be possible, but lo and behold, it kinda is

With my one license, and my plus one license, I currently (until an announcement that may state otherwise) have enough for 8cores. I've just been shopping around and found that I can get 3 Athlon 64 X2 +4400 chipsets (the same that I'm currently running) and 3 cheap motherboards for about £365 including VAT. Which, with the two cores I have, makes 8 - hooray for maths!

What I'm wondering is - is this the best way to go? I've had a look at going the dual-dual core route, but found nothing. Is there something I'm missing somewhere along the line?

Any help and advice would be awesome

Cheers,
Dr Merman

(p.s. this also means that I've lost a LOT of money in the last year. Damn technology...)

[Maxer]

What I'm wondering is - is this the best way to go? I've had a look at going the dual-dual core route, but found nothing. Is there something I'm missing somewhere along the line?

I don't think you have enough money for a dual dual core machine but it doesn’t really matter if you have 4 single core machines or 2 dual core machines your going to get the same performance when network rendering. Just make sure you have enough ram, I suggest a minimum of 2 Gigs but 4 is better.

[DrMerman]

Thanks for the advice Maxer Looks like I'm going to be picking up 2 new dual-core machines, which should really help lighten the load on my already struggling PC.

Cheers,
Dr Merman

[numerobis]

what about the memory (3x 2 or 3x 4gb), cases, psu, gfx and hdd? is this all included in your calculation? (x2 ~110€; mb w/ video ~60€; 2gb ~120€; hdd ~50€; case+psu 400w (very cheap) ~40€... ~380€ = ~ £257 ... x 3= ...and maybe +3x windows?
(don't know if the prices for pc parts are the same in uk )

if it should be cheap i would recommend 2x e6400 on asus p5b and clock it up to 3ghz+ ...instead of 3 athlons
(cpu ~170€; mb ~90€; cheap video card ~30€; the rest is the same... ~500€ = ~£338

...and with 4gb ram ...

same or better performance - better noise level, energie consumption, administration ...and less mxi's to merge...

if you compare the values then an oced core2duo is the best choice i think
(~68 min for a e6400@3ghz and 100 min for a x2 4400 - x2 oced to 2,5ghz ~90min )
( http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=19437 )

...and in a few months you can simply replace the duos with a q6600 or a q6400 and double the performance ...in july/august the q6600 price will drop to something around $250-$300 or (but then you should already buy quadcore-ready coolers for the Allendales )

[DrMerman]

Hey numerobis

I've basically got a lot of bits and pieces lying around, so what I WAS looking for was really just the mobo and processor. I say 'was' because I'm liking the look of your suggestion. Upgradability (is that a word?....upgradableness? ) would be great. I'll look into some pricings and post my results, along with an AMD version, if I can find anything suitable.

Thanks for the advice, mate
Dr Merman

[oz42]

DrMerman, I'm looking into a small render farm as well and would really appreciate you posting your findings, thanks.

[DrMerman]

No problem, oz42 I'm currently trying to find the cheapest systems possible, and then I'll tweak them from there.

Here's what I'm looking at so far :

Casecom KL-700ATX Black Midi Tower Case - With a 350W PSU - £14.54 incVAT
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=90874
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (Same chip I'm currently running) - £78.42 incVAT
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... uid=125197
ECS KV2 Lite Socket 939 Mobo - £24.95 incVAT
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... uid=100512
6x 1GB DDR Ram - £150 + about £15 p+p
Ebay. I know. But it's probably the cheapest option

I've got a few 20GB hard drives and a few old graphics cards lying about that I can throw into these things, so I think that pretty much sets me up to run 2 nice linux boxes, for a grand total of £415. Not bad for a 4-core purchase (Or, saying that, a 6-core purchase for around £525, as long as 2GB per box is enough.)

I'm going to be doing a little bit more research into this, to make sure that everything will run smoothly. Initially I was abit worried about the PSU only being 350w, but I've been told that that'd be plenty if I'm not too worried about a really powerful graphics card, or powering alot of peripherals.

If I'm going wrong somewhere, please let me know! I won't be buying for a week or two, but it'd be nice to get everything sorted

Cheers,
Dr Merman

[numerobis]

...new quadcore prices:

q6600....... ~490€ or ~$550
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a217708.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115017

Xeon X3210, 4x2.13....... ~400€
http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a238093.html

now it gets interesting...

[DrMerman]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!

<Goes to investigate>

So, with AMD in trouble, prices are really dropping pretty fast. As present I don't have enough for quad cores (both in terms of buying the equipment, and buying the licenses, although the second problem might hopefully be getting resolved ) so the key thing is upgradabilityness. I'm going to try and find a board which'll run dualcore AND, when I choose to upgrade, quadcore. My distinct lack of knowledge tells me that this is definitely possible

Cheers,
Dr Merman

[numerobis]

Hi,

i have found another interesting alternative for cheap renderslaves...

the new core2duo E2140/E2160 look very promissing in case of the "biggest bang for the buck"

100% overclock on a ~70€ proc from 1,6 up to 3,2 ghz on air...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=145328

the e21xx have only 1mb cache but as the cinebench values show this doesn't matter for pure rendering.

so this chip combined with a
- good cheap mainboard: asus p5b ~85€
- 2gb ddr2 800 ram ~70€
- a semi good aircooler ~20€
- a cheap videocard ~25€
- hdd ~40€
- a case with acceptable psu with 400W ~60€

= ~370€ for a 3ghz+ dualcore box... not bad