http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=23042687 Wishlist there. There's going to be eight of them in a cluster, rendering more or less 24/7. The SSD is there for Intel Smart Response to boost shader rendering and other super high disk intensive rendering. Xeon is cheap with all the features of an i7 2600, just less clock speed and no useless integrated graphics. To compensate for lack of useless integrated graphics, a graphics card has been added. It's all designed to be the cheapest power : price ratio I can get. Opinions? Would it be worth it going to an i7 2600 to get the HD graphics and ditch the GPU?
What are you going to be rendering? I would of thought if it was video rendering that the intergrated GPU would have helped unless you plan on using some pro rendering software that could use a Cuda based Nvidia card? I really don't know allot about rendering as you can probably tell.
Sorry, should have mentioned it's rendering Maya 2012, many many complex and shader heavy scenes. As far as video rendering, any nVidia card would usually crush an AMD card under its heel, due to CUDA.
If it's a VFX render farm for MAX/XSI etc then just have the fastest processor clock you can get. Graphics should make no difference if they don't have to load the scene to a viewport. EDIT: If it's Maya then you're still best off going for the fastest processor you can get, unless the scenes are going to specifically be rendered with CUDA based features(I think Vray and MR have a few CUDA features).
Okay, good to know. Should I get rid of the GPU, and get 2600k's and a proper cooler so I can overclock them? With a Hyper 212+ I can probably get 4.5 easily.
Can't you get 6 core sandy bridge now? Would an extra 2 cores plus 2 threads help with rendering? (esp if you can overclock them) Also Quicksync (that is only available if you have the on die graphics) is very fast for encoding video's if you have the right software to take advantage of it, and it's only very slightly less quality than normal CPU encoding. I think toms hardware did an article on it. You can also use a separate video card at the same time if you have a lucid chip on the motherboard, which I believe all x79 boards do.
We could go for a six core Xeon E5, but the costs would go through the roof compared to the core to core count of the quad cores. Same problem with the 3930k. This seems to be the most cost-efficient setup, I was more asking about the processor: 2600k vs 1230 + GPU.
If you're building a cluster, surely you'd be better off getting a dual gigabit motherboard and using bandwidth aggregation, and would a mATX or MITX board not be cheaper in both the short and long term?
good idea. Would this one work?: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188097 It's on mega sale right now. As far as mATX or ITX, size is not an issue, we have tons of space to put them in.
Ahh I see, the xeon is much cheaper than I expected. I would def go for the 2600k, can't see any reason why one of those overclocked would be slower than anything else in that price range.
I don't think dual gigabit is a must for a render farm. They only have to process one file every few mins. The overclocked 2600K's swill serve you well, although they might draw much more power, depending on the volts.
agreed, after weighing the costs and benefits, we're sticking with the motherboards we have now and going from Xeon 1230's to i7 2600k's and a third party cooler, and dropping the 5450's. Thanks for the help everyone!
