Hi everyone,
I am very pleased to deliver some important - and hopefully very good - news from the RANCH
the guaranteed processing power per project has been increased by 25%. We now have 128 quad-nodes / 512 cores / 1536 GHz working on each project. To put things into perspective, a 3 hours render on the RANCH is equivalent to a two weeks render on a 64-bit Intel Quad-core running @ 3 GHz, or more than a full week on a high-end 8-core Mac Pro @ 3 GHz.
even more important are the new "Make Your Price!" formulas (you can see all the details on the
Price info page on the RANCH site).
We believe the "Make Your Price" (MYP) concept is a real revolution in renderfarming pricing, as each user can choose the formula best suited to his/her particular needs and budget. For low-budget works, nothing will beat the Sapphire formula ($0.12 per GHz-Hour, that is ~ 8.8 €-cents at the current exchange rate ). The other formulas Emerald ($0.14 per GHz-Hour), Ruby ($0.16) and Diamond ($0.18 ) each have a higher priority, so you can choose one or the other depending on your deadline and your budget.
You can even change from a low-priority to a higher-priority formula as long as your project is still in the waiting list. And when you use the cost estimator, it now tells you the estimated cost with each of these new formulas.
It may seem too good to be true, but there is no trick:
- there is no sharing, as usual: the full power of the farm is always allocated to each project
- the price only determines the priority of the project in the waiting list
- these are really Pay Per Project, metered prices!
And each RANCH user now has a "virtual Safe" which works with pay per project formulas. It is initially at $0.00, and you can refill it any time you want. Using your safe is very convenient, as you do not need to go through the payment process each time you send a project.
At the other end of the spectrum, for projects where deadlines are much more important than money, we have High-Priority prepaid packs at $0.19 per GHz-Hour - those have the highest priority of all our
formulas and are perfect for professionals who can't wait. And for pros who _can_ wait, our standard prepaid packs have higher discounts, up to 60% for big quantities.
The benchmarks and the PDF Renderfarm User Guide (RUG) have been updated to reflect these important changes. The RUG is now in two parts for better clarity and easier maintenance: Part I contains everything related to the RANCH general operations, and Part II is application-specific.
We hope you'll like all these innovations, so see you on the RANCH and happy rendering!
Fred
- By Mark Bell
- By Matteo Villa