New budget Render-node: AMD epyc?

[mraw]

Hello,
we're working on a short movie(unfortunately not a short short, but a very long short movie) rendering with Arnold. Some years ago I purchased 3 render nodes bases on Juraj's great e5-2670 thread(Thanks a mill!). But today the 32 threads feel outdated and I began to swap them with e5-2695 and I got a fourth render node(serverrack with e5-2695 with 128RAM for 150 bucks :) -managed to get it into a fractal design define... 4 I think?).
Nonetheless: For a CU-Shot I'm facing render times like ~1hour/frame and I need some real support for my little 4 render buddies. I am looking at items like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185233306187?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160811114145%26meid%3Db9083c2c421a4e60a00c3b073676c066%26pid%3D100667%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D185233306187%26itm%3D185233306187%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2351460%26brand%3DSupermicro&_trksid=p2351460.c100667.m2042
either from ebay/china or from a refurbished server seller. What do you think? My plan would be to find a good XXL-Case for that node and go either the water-cool or the air-cooling road.
Looking forward to your thoughts. Thank you.

[TomG]

Not sure many here have Arnold rendering experience to say what machines would perform well with it - but you never know :)

[mraw]

Thanks you, Tom, but I don't think in this case this is really related to the render engine. It's more about 'best bang for the buck(et)'. And: Can I get this (possible dual)epyc-system into a case and how to cool it.

[Juraj]

It's been long time since I followed the best value discarded enterprise hardware on eBay, but there is a community that really does, this one: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php

Problem is there are now too many generations of Epyc and Xeons, so making the right choice requires some research. Also the dual-systems are still problematic in some instances, even Corona seems to struggle with them in some particular configs as can be seen in some threads on this forum as well, people wondering why the rendering speed isn't doubled, until they "solve" something 6 months later and then it runs as should. This issue usually stems from what tier is the individual chips, is it very late engineering sample? Are there good chipset drivers for it? Does Windows play nice with? (Linux is often safer bet for all these various ES/QS chips).
Seems like the situation is quite complex, so I personally can't offer any exact config.

I would ask the sellers, or search the https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php community for Cinebench scores and divide that by dollar value, to see what you're getting.

I would probably skip first gen Epyc (7xx1), those were very weak.

For general build though:
- No need to watercool even the most powerful 330W Server chips. They are massive chips, and super easy to cool with Noctua server air-towers (or in case of Epyc, the regular sTRX coolers). The reason some of these are sometimes watercooled is when they are 2U racks where fitting heatsink is almost impossible. In any tower case, no problem at all.

[mraw]

Thanks for your insights, Juraj. And thanks for the link- I will have a close look.