Best bang for buck render node.

[lolec]

Hello!

We just got a big project that will require a lot of animation in the next 12 months or so. We want to build a small render farm.

My workstation is a threadripper 3990x 256 gb ram ( although I rarely use more than 32 GB for rendering) . I would like to get around 5X my current rendering capability. But now, I'm faced with a question I've never faced before. As building a rendering workstation is a relatively easy decision, but I'm finding building nodes is not as straightforward.

This is because the case,  power supply, cooling, GPU, motherboard, storage and even ram scale with the number of nodes, so apparently the equation would lean towards minimizing the number of nodes, but at some point, the performance per dollar plummets so buying 4 3990x based systems might not be ideal.

I'm finding it hard to figure out what the absolute best strategy is.

Is there a currently accepted "best" node configuration?

Thanks :)

[Nejc Kilar]

Ha, good question you're asking! :)

My opinion is that it mainly depends on your workload and what you can afford. At the moment buying high end CPUs is quite an adventure at least from where I'm sitting. I personally can't find a 3990x that I could buy new, not on my continent and not on any other. And if I do happen to find a listing then it's about 9000$ which is... Too much?

I'm noticing the 3995wx is as equally as unicorn-ish these days and if you indeed can find one then you're looking at a price tag above its MSRP.

And that complicates things drastically because from my POV all the high end Threadrippers are basically non-existent at the moment. Not to mention sTRX40 motherboards are scarce as well.

That in my opinion leaves you with two maybe three options. Either go for a bunch of 5950x's which will come in really cheap but you'll have to pay a bit extra for all the licenses... Go the Epyc route with dual socket 64 cores machines (you can get really nice used ones as well although I personally haven't bought a used Epyc yet so I have no xp with them - I did used to buy used Xeons back in the day and am still really happy with them)... Or try and see what the system integrators / OEMs have in store.

It might be that the 5950x would be the cheapest but you'll need a ton of machines. It might be that used Epycs could be a solid in between solution. Or it might be that you can get a nice prebuilt that you'll pay a lot more for but it'll still be cheaper than an Epyc build (unless maybe you buy used but that comes with certain risks obviously). AFAIK prebuilts do still get some sort of a supply of chips but at the "worst" you can take a look at how much the 5000 series would set you back.

All in all, I think its just best to forget about building a node for 5k and expect it to have a performance of a 3990x. I think those days are currently behind us, lol.

So those are the options I'd probably look into if I was you I guess.

Obviously all of the above is just my personal opinion. You can always also wait and see how Intel might affect the market when they bring out their Fishhawk Falls / Sapphire rapids CPUs presumably later this year. There's also Zen 4 around the corner so perhaps going with mainstream parts that'll be close to the 3960x in performance might make sense?