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calling upon all . multimedia and hardware EXPERTS urgent help needed

210 views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  TheMosh 
#1 ·
Dear friends ,

this question is for those of you , who understand the " Hardware needs " of the 3d animation/rendering at a professional level in today's era .

currently , we own a system ,

core i7 , 990x
32 gig RAM
gtx 680 x 2
rampage 4 extreme MOBO

it is among the TOP configurations , that a person can own in a single desktop unit ,

BUT , the thing is , that even this system , which happens to be a gamer's dream pc , is NOT able to take the extremely heavy workload , and the render timings for a 50 minute file are reaching as long as 20 hours . ( of course there is a lot of 3D work in there )
__________________________________________________ _______________________________

so we have decided to take things to a next level ,

and we have 2 options .

1. go for a XEON work station , with

2 x XEON E5 2687w processors , a total of 16 cores , with 20MB cache per unit . 4000$
64 GB RAM 800$
NVIDEA QUADRO 6000 5000$

these along with other items and coolings would easily cost around 12000$

now thats a lot of money ..... for a single system ...


2. WE BUILD A RENDERING FARM


now we can put together 10 core i5 systems ,
make one as a server , join them , and then utilize all their computing power simultaneously .

and this setup would cost no more 8000$ with all systems running a 680 GPU .

now my QUESTION IS ,

which among the two setups would do the job faster ,
i have never laid my eyes on a rendering farm , nor have got the opportunity to take a look and observe its performance for comparison , and happen to know nothing about it .

so what would be a better deal ?

A. to join together a number of smaller systems ?
B. keep ONE machine and the most powerful and run it as a single unit .


the disadvantage in a farm are obviously its electrical consumption , and maintenance . hence the 4000$ difference is evened out .

my question is , that if one has to shed a 10.000 $ , for building a BLAZING FAST SETUP with a LOT of processing power ,

which one is better and more value for money ?

a single system , or a rendering farm ?
which one would prove to be more powerful , and offer a better price to performance ratio .
 
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#2 ·
Not a professional, but you can keep your current system and replace the 680s with a Quadro or a Titan of some sort.
Depending on what software you rely on you may even be able to get away with SLI.

Geforce tier Kepler is terrible for rendering tasks because of how the cores have their memory allocated.
More cores and memory, but about 50% less memory accessible per core compared to Fermi.
Which can have some serious side effects.

That alone should improve things by at least a few hours

Personally, I would go for a single machine for simplicity sake.

And Im not sure if this is viable, but perhaps if you go the route of a farm you can look into Fermi cards.
If memory serves a 570 renders video/3D loads on par with a 680, so you can save some serious money if you can nab 570/580s
 
#3 ·
Same here as not a professional, but I was looking into which cards to use for assistance with rendering, and quite a few places stated the NVidia changed the Cuda cores a little to make it harder to utilize them (600 series). This way there would be more reason to pick up the Quadro series.
 
#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilWrir View Post

Not a professional, but you can keep your current system and replace the 680s with a Quadro.

Geforce tier Kepler is terrible for rendering tasks because of how the cores have their memory allocated.
More cores and memory, but about 50% less memory accessible per core compared to Fermi.
Which can have some serious side effects.

That alone should improve things by at least a few hours

Personally, I would go for a single machine for simplicity sake.

And Im not sure if this is viable, but perhaps if you go the route of a farm you can look into Fermi cards.
If memory serves a 570 renders video/3D loads on par with a 680, so you can save some serious money if you can nab 570/580s
Thanks , thats a real good sugesstion , but if i get a quardo 6000 for 5000$ after disposing of the 680's for hardly a 1000 ,
and the performance increase is only a few hours , then i m afraid it would be a dea lbreaker for me ,

we are currently looking for a setup that shall be able to perform this task in a MAXIMUM of 2 hours at most .

however , if we go on the rendering farm side ,
how much hours can be saved if we set up 10 core i5 systems , with a 570 GPU in all of them ,
the electrical comsumption with obviously be VERY heavy , but do you think it would be able to do this job in 2 hours ?

i m new to the term FERMI cards . thanks for the refer i would try to look into it more .

Quote:
Originally Posted by AcEsSalvation View Post

Same here as not a professional, but I was looking into which cards to use for assistance with rendering, and quite a few places stated the NVidia changed the Cuda cores a little to make it harder to utilize them (600 series). This way there would be more reason to pick up the Quadro series.
yes i totally agree , quadro is the only way to go for the PRO 3d artists , but its PRICE , is the only thing that keeps us back , however , i think that whatever new setup we would put , ( if single )
then quadro is the way to go ,

we need atleast *-10 times more graphica processing/computing power .

and if it becomes possible in a single setup ,
then yes we are definitely going for a quadro K6000
 
#5 ·
I don't know anything about professional 3d rendering, nor have I any business experience, but doesn't it come down to operational costs and time spent down? Those 680's will eat more power doing the same task as a Quadro, and will cause more down time. I'm not sure how much you would get back in the long run.
I also don't mean to over step at all or question you.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AcEsSalvation View Post

I don't know anything about professional 3d rendering, nor have I any business experience, but doesn't it come down to operational costs and time spent down? Those 680's will eat more power doing the same task as a Quadro, and will cause more down time. I'm not sure how much you would get back in the long run.
I also don't mean to over step at all or question you.
Bro , your are welcome to overstep and counter question , it would only do the better , While in the given situation ,

However , as it absolutely comesdown to operational costs /time spent

I was more eager to look for a price to performance ratio , more than the operational costs .

Because time is the key factor here that we are trying to save , at the least possible cost , with the hieghts performance possible.

if I am about to spend 10,000$
On a setup , I just want to make sure if it. Can achieve the results I want , and if their is a way to achieve the same results at a cheaper investment ,

Operational costs are not an issue here , as it comes in installments and the time allows us to earn it back ,

We are just trying to focus , that
Which is better and faster ,

A single among most expensive system money can buy today .
Or a clever workaround of a rendering farm .

Operational costs are NOT and issue .
Performance is . Time is .

Thanks again .

سیاہ توت ٩٩٠٠ سے بھیجا گیا ہے- دباؤ بات کے ذرئیے -
 
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