render node setups

[DarcTheo]

We are looking at getting a collection of nodes for the office to speed up project render times rather than relying on paying for services like Rebus every time our machines cant get it done fast enough.

what would be the most cost effective setup to boost our office render times with corona DR and possibly a later setup of Backburner to queue projects. dual xeons seem to rapidly increase in price but im not sure which is the best bang for buck at the moment and whether its worth going rack or just smaller form tower cases.

or with the price of xeons can multiple i7s sometimes better help via DR when they arent the main workstation?

[TomG]

Personal opinion only - I find dual Xeons best for nodes. Not sure of your location, so pricing may vary - lots of threads on cost-effective dual Xeon builds, worth checking! I didn't want to build one, and found that 2x E5-2690 v0 seemed to be a good spot on price / performance curve, around $1,400 for 1m 37s or so on the Benchmark, with price climbing faster than performance gain after that. But as I say, personal opinion only :)

[TomG]

PS - I was looking at refurbished machines.

[DarcTheo]

Personal opinion only - I find dual Xeons best for nodes. Not sure of your location, so pricing may vary - lots of threads on cost-effective dual Xeon builds, worth checking! I didn't want to build one, and found that 2x E5-2690 v0 seemed to be a good spot on price / performance curve, around $1,400 for 1m 37s or so on the Benchmark, with price climbing faster than performance gain after that. But as I say, personal opinion only :)

Thanks for the response. I'll search through the xeon threads n see what i can find for best pricing and power. I was browsing the benchmark table earlier, this machine does it at about 3:50 so it would be good to shave time off that with the nodes power. around 1:30 seemed pretty good.

Just wasnt sure if 3 or 4 i7s might result in a faster render over say 1 or 2 machines using xeon when using DR. If that even is a logical way of thinking about it.

[Jann]

I'd go for dual Xeon setups too.

Now, assuming you can build them yourself with used/ebay parts, here are two options that have nice price/performance.
Cheaper/older - dual E5-2670. That's V1 Xeons, very cheap cpus on ebay/aliexpress/other, can use simple DDR3 on some boards. Or just get ecc ddr3 64Gb kits for about 100euros on ebay.
Expensive/newer - dual E5-2683 V3. I'd suggest SR1XH stepping, as it's close or retail, so should have no issues. As far as I know dual boards with these require server ram. But performance is double of the previous system.

There are various V3/V4 chips that might be better, but I personally don't like early revisions for lower clockspeed and possible issues. And V4 have a problem with throttling under AVX, as discussed here on forum.

[DarcTheo]

I'd go for dual Xeon setups too.

Now, assuming you can build them yourself with used/ebay parts, here are two options that have nice price/performance.
Cheaper/older - dual E5-2670. That's V1 Xeons, very cheap cpus on ebay/aliexpress/other, can use simple DDR3 on some boards. Or just get ecc ddr3 64Gb kits for about 100euros on ebay.
Expensive/newer - dual E5-2683 V3. I'd suggest SR1XH stepping, as it's close or retail, so should have no issues. As far as I know dual boards with these require server ram. But performance is double of the previous system.

There are various V3/V4 chips that might be better, but I personally don't like early revisions for lower clockspeed and possible issues. And V4 have a problem with throttling under AVX, as discussed here on forum.

I can comfortably put a PC together, have built previous machines for myself but i've never done anything with dual CPUs and xeons. I'm not sure what you mean by "SR1XH stepping". i'll have a search for some of those parts and see how much cheaper it works out to prebuilt/custom machines online. Thanks.

[Jann]

I can comfortably put a PC together, have built previous machines for myself but i've never done anything with dual CPUs and xeons. I'm not sure what you mean by "SR1XH stepping". i'll have a search for some of those parts and see how much cheaper it works out to prebuilt/custom machines online. Thanks.

If you search on ebay you'll see ;)
Building a dual cpu box isn't that different, so if you have some experience, should be no problem.