cheap rendernodes

[klangbild]

Hey,

a simple question to all of those, who need some local renderpower for their 3d work. In the last weeks I've built a small renderfarm, based on oc'ed i7 cpus. I've come to a powerful and cheap solution with a stylish black Lian Li mini-ITX case. They get about 9-9.5pts. in Cinebench R11.5 (thats the score of a current Mac Pro) and run absolutely stable. Hardware costs are about 500-600 euros per node. Thats nearly 1/10th of the price for a comparable professional rack-mount node. Power Consumption is 100-110W. If someone is interested, I would share a detailed guide to build up these nodes or, and thats the point where I need your opinion, I would sell these nodes for a very fair price (including support, warranty, etc.).

So whats going on out there, do you people need something like that?

Regards
KB

[brasco]

Sounds great, I would personaly build my own as well, so any guide would be most appreciated. I've been looking into it a lot recently and was leaning towards i72600k based nodes, are yours sandybridge based?

I bet you'd be able to find people interested in buying your nodes, especially freelancers and smaller studios who can't afford the rackmounts, and a cinebench of +9 is really respectable for 600 euros..


cheers
brasc

[dermesut]

Hey,

a simple question to all of those, who need some local renderpower for their 3d work. In the last weeks I've built a small renderfarm, based on oc'ed i7 cpus. I've come to a powerful and cheap solution with a stylish black Lian Li mini-ITX case. They get about 9-9.5pts. in Cinebench R11.5 (thats the score of a current Mac Pro) and run absolutely stable. Hardware costs are about 500-600 euros per node. Thats nearly 1/10th of the price for a comparable professional rack-mount node. Power Consumption is 100-110W. If someone is interested, I would share a detailed guide to build up these nodes or, and thats the point where I need your opinion, I would sell these nodes for a very fair price (including support, warranty, etc.).

So whats going on out there, do you people need something like that?

Regards
KB

sounds great.
i'm interested in reading more about your setups more specifically.
also the purchase-option sounds interesting... but one would need more details about that too...

[hibb]

yes please share...im goin to build a small renderfarm soon

[choppir]

Sounds good! I'm definitely interested.

[miohn129]

Hi,

I'm also interested!

Beside my MacPro I bought 2 new PCs (2600 Sandbridge with 20 Gig RAM)
this year for rendering (each about 950,- Euros)

They're rendering well ...

but now I have 2 different "big" and "ugly" towers standing there and
thinking about putting them into a Mini ITX- Gehäuse just for
optical and space-reasons. (what a luxury! - anyway)


My first question:
Is there a Mini-Mainboard available for this "2600" prozessor?
And, is there a software rendering solution available like f.e. the "Farmizer directly
from my MacPro instead of copying the c4d-project-files to each node by hand?

thanks
Mike

[dermesut]

...
Hardware costs are about 500-600 euros per node. Thats nearly 1/10th of the price for a comparable professional rack-mount node. ...

while you're not reacting, let me have an additional question asked:
how do you do your math, when it's 1/10th of the price for something comparable?
that would mean, one would have to pay 5000-6000€ for a system that reaches a cb-score of around 9. i seriously doubt that. unless you put your weight on the words "professional rack-mount". from your first description i don't get the impression you made some racks, but instead you put the hardware into a normal pc-case - which would make the comparison to a rack-system obsolet. a comparison to a normal pc-system (with all it's "quslities" like heat and so on...) would be more valid.
one can buy quite cheap i7 processors, overclock them and make them run at a cb-score of 9. lots of "cheap" i7-systems around. but still 500-600€ would be a way better price - if one could only learn about your ingredients, to be able to decide, if it's a safe buy or something, that's gonne blow up in pieces after rendering 48hrs on 100%.
is your system complete? hd, network, power supply, graphics, os, anything/nothing? what about cooling? are we takling about: completely ready for direct usage?

it really would help, if you could dive back into your own thread again :)

[Mor4us]

can't imagine you run the i7 2600k to CB 9 or even higher, only you oc'ed to 5ghz but then you don't want to guarantee your clients a 24/7 safety ;)

I'm still really interested in your tech specs!

[klangbild]

Hey,

of course you can't compare theses systems with professional rack-mount nodes, when it comes to things like 24/7 usage, hardware lifetime..but that was never my intention. We are talking about cheap rendernodes, not high-end server-hardware. For those of you, who can afford a rack-mount solution, its definitely the better and safer way. For those who can't, just like me, its the better way to get 10 cheap machines and take the risk that one or two of them get broken after a year and have to be replaced.

For my nodes I used:
Lian Li miniITX Cases
Asus P8P67-M / P8H67-M (Z68 when they come) - microATX
i7 2600K oc'ed to 4.8 Ghz (running stable for 48h on Prime at 65°C-70°C)
Scythe Big Shuriken with 1500rpm Scythe Fans
1TB Samsung F3 (or WD Caviar Black)
8GB RAM (Corsair XMS3)
450W Corsair PSU

OS is not included, but the system is ready to take any OS it needs.

I don't want to claim, that these systems are better than a rackmount solution, they are definitely not. They are just a cheaper solution for some freelance artists or small studios that can't afford the really great nodes, that are out there.

Regards

[zbus]

from my experience, doesnt matter how good and expensive are your components. They simply cant keep up with technology and will be out of date. Its always cheaper to get whatever best you can get out of your current equipment and replace them when needed.
(in both private and corporate practice)

[dermesut]

Hey,

of course you can't compare theses systems with professional rack-mount nodes, when it comes to things like 24/7 usage, hardware lifetime..but that was never my intention. We are talking about cheap rendernodes, not high-end server-hardware. For those of you, who can afford a rack-mount solution, its definitely the better and safer way. For those who can't, just like me, its the better way to get 10 cheap machines and take the risk that one or two of them get broken after a year and have to be replaced.

For my nodes I used:
Lian Li miniITX Cases
Asus P8P67-M / P8H67-M (Z68 when they come) - microATX
i7 2600K oc'ed to 4.8 Ghz (running stable for 48h on Prime at 65°C-70°C)
Scythe Big Shuriken with 1500rpm Scythe Fans
1TB Samsung F3 (or WD Caviar Black)
8GB RAM (Corsair XMS3)
450W Corsair PSU

OS is not included, but the system is ready to take any OS it needs.

I don't want to claim, that these systems are better than a rackmount solution, they are definitely not. They are just a cheaper solution for some freelance artists or small studios that can't afford the really great nodes, that are out there.

Regards

you brought the comparison to 5000-6000€ stacks into play... whatever...

so, this is the system that reaches cb-score of 9? or is it 10 of them ("...just like me, its the better way to get 10 cheap machines and take the risk...")?

and:
what about legal things... delivery or guarantees/warranties and it's parameters... ("...I would sell these nodes for a very fair price (including support, warranty, etc.)....").
additionally: are you a shop/computer-parts-dealer or a private person?

[klangbild]

you brought the comparison to 5000-6000€ stacks into play... whatever...

I was comparing the performance of the nodes, not the overall quality. For me its the better way to have 10 sandybridge-nodes with nearly 100CB score for the money, that I would spend for a single 1HE-rackmount-node with 12 cores and, lets say, 12-15pts (and support, that i don't need, because I'm able to switch a hdd by myself, if its broken).

For the moment I don't plan to sell these builds, it was just an idea, that I would think about if there's any interest out there.

If I should really start selling them, I would of course offer everything that it needs. But lets keep it low for the moment...it was just an idea.

Regards

[stefan]

well from pure render efficiency it is best to have few strong nodes with high ghz and many cpu+ram, not many weak ones

so 3x 12 core are way faster than 6x 2 core of the same brand. you have way to may overhead in network and I/O data otherwise

stefan

[klangbild]

Hi Stefan,

if you're running them on the same speed, it would definitely be like you say. But we're talking about running the sandybridge-cpus on a way higher clock than the untouched six-cores. So a single oc'ed 2600K build scores higher than a single-sockel six-core build (or at least equal), but costs half or less.

A 12-core build would be the best solution in every way, except the price.
But as I mentioned in the beginning, at least for me, its not an option. I don't think that the network overhead slows down the rendering that much, that even an at least five-times higher cb-score wouldn't compensate.

So we have the same strong nodes, that you're talking about, but much more of them for the same price. I think 2-core builds are useless, thats nothing we need to talk about.

Just on more thing, because someone mentioned temperature, etc.
These nodes are absolutely quiet, even on high-load they never go over 65°C (guess Intel says everything below 80 is ok, at 100 cpu gets damaged). If you have ever seen and heard a 1HE-rackmount-node working, you know that they are so loud, that you need an extra room for them (or some good headphones). Thats one more thing, that most freelance artists or small studios can't afford.

[stefan]

nothing beats the 3.46 12 cores intel in power, really, and they are very quiet too. at leasts mine here i built i dont hear. but not very cheap, true.

so yes of course on price/power ration,
you can try over clocking lower cpus and use more machines to find a balance, but believe me, you have a lot of loss then to to big over head using many machines. so not sure how much it pays off in end.

networks is an extreme bottle neck many underestimate. also the fact that you multiply the computers I/O times to load and unload data etc. only if you use 10gb network, which is expensive again you overcomes this bottlenecks a bit.

i made a lot of tests to make our renderfarm inhouse, and the result was very clear to stick to less but high cpu instances.

so yes a price/speed ratio balance might be use very fast quad (or better six cores) instead of the 12 cores

[miohn129]

is there a similar software available like the "Farmizer-Plugin" from Rebus
which let me send jobs directly from C4D to other PCs/Nodes?

thanks
mike

[stefan]

well you can do with any render manger software more or less the same.

any that works for c4d works also for vrayforc4d.

Stefan

[miohn129]

which one for example?
Any recomendation?

Never work with that kind of software!

thanks
Mike

[stefan]

well those stuff is very complex to handle and setup

smedge is what rebus uses,
royal render aixspnonza
renderpal some use i think
enfuzion does support it
and my more, simpe use google and search fro rendermanager software

Stefan

[miohn129]

thanks!

will have a look at these!

But, btw why are they not using Maxons Netrender?



Mike

[Mor4us]

Hey,
i7 2600K oc'ed to 4.8 Ghz (running stable for 48h on Prime at 65°C-70°C)


jeez.... i won't expect too much reliability at this high temperatures, the nodes will become highly liable to make mistakes!
would there be a way to improve the nodes with water cooling? :D
perhaps 50€ more per node, but would make them 100% silent ;)

[brasco]

i won't expect too much reliability at this high temperatures, the nodes will become highly liable to make mistakes!

I've run a 72 hr prime with this 2600K at 4.9, max temp was 72C.
Since then rendered for looong periods of time and had not a single bsod/crash. So i'd say it's stable enough.

The general consensus is that 80C and under is fine without seeing stability/performance issues on SB chips- Intel state 100C as tmax (which is obv baaad). Of course, as with all OCing you run the risk of chip degradation but you wouldnt OC if you didn't already know that :) and at ~€250 it's not as much of an issue to replace than one of my dual xeons.


brasc

[Mor4us]

I did a prime for nearly one week without any problems, system seems stable, temperatures where 62°C max (@4.5ghz cooled with Scythe Mugen 2) but rendering seems to be different kind of cpu load than prime test (100% usage isn't 100%) temperatures where quite different in rendering too, they seem slightly higher than in prime... :/
At least i got several bsod/crashes with rendering, dropping down to (4.2ghz) cpu looks stable now. don't have problems anymore...
looks like i got really really bad batch of my cpu... perhaps i got to change it, or i'll try to change my mb to one of the B3 Chip ones

[klangbild]

jeez.... i won't expect too much reliability at this high temperatures, the nodes will become highly liable to make mistakes!
would there be a way to improve the nodes with water cooling? :D
perhaps 50€ more per node, but would make them 100% silent ;)

Of course you can improve the cooling. Our nodes are working at 65°C on air right now, most i7 with boxed coolers are running much higher on full load.
So of course you can get lower temps, but if you spend 50€ more per node (so 250 with 5 nodes) I would rather take the risk and replace a cpu after a year.

A year ago, we startet building up nodes with i7 920s oc'ed to 4ghz (on air). CB score was about 6-7pts. Only one year later we're having the sb-cpus that are making about 9-9.5 pts, but cost less. Long story short, I wouldn't expect to run these nodes for more than 1.5-2 years before there are better solutions coming out, and that's a lifetime that even a oc'ed cpu on 24/7 full load is about to survive.