AMD Epyc Dual 64C 128T rendering with Corona 9

[simtub]

Maybe a silly question, but is it worth the price of such a system ?...

I guess it depends on your rendering needs. We had to render a lot of animation work lately and using an online renderfarm was too costly especially since we have to develop the animation throughout the process so a lot  of draft rendering was required for interim meetings before final rendering.

We had considered buying a large number of desktops based on either Intel 12900K’s at the time or Ryzen 7950x’s but we calculated that we needed around 10 systems and it just wasn’t feasible space wise to hook up 10+ PC’s together with 10 separate power supplies and network connections. On top of that you have to deal with 10 installs and multiple software licenses. The hardware would have cost much less than the dual Epycs though.

Having the dual epycs on racks allowed us to store them in the server room which is temp controlled and saves a lot of space. In the long run I think the return on investment is justifiable. We will be using these for the next several years.

[Nejc Kilar]

Maybe a silly question, but is it worth the price of such a system ?...

If you are feeling a bit adventurous you can try snagging used EPYC CPUs for a lot less :) Doesn't come without risks though obviously.

[Juraj]

If you don't render animation, powerful multi-threaded system is no longer needed or worth the price.
If you do render animation, no amount of systems will ever be enough, and managing fewer but more powerful machines is absolutely worth the cost of human and mental labor.
Installing (even cloning), Licencing, etc.. is such a damn hassle. Few big machines > More lesser machines.