one big workstation or 3 small in DR

[Yanosh HRDY]

Hello, I work under 3DS and Corona 3, I have the project to buy a new workstation
I have a conformable budget (13000 €)

Following various discussions I wonder about the best design.
- A powerful station 48 cores (96 threads) 2 xeon 24 cores, 128 GB Ram,
- or a station with one big single-processor type i9 and two node stations with many hearts type big xeon and 64 GB of ram each ....

Do you have an opinion? what do you think is the best choice?
thank you.

[Vuk]

Hello there Yanosh. Reading what you wrote, mentioning your budget and the dual 24 core intel xeon cpu’s I guess you already did some research on the matter.

I guess you already know that with your budget you can barely buy a dual 24core xeon machine since the price of a sigle refurbished cpu is around 5000 usd, unless you wanted to go the ES (eng. sample) route? If you wanted to go that route then my advise would be to go for a single 2990wx single workstation + 2-3 dual 24core ES nodes but I am not sure you will be able to squeeze 128gb of ram in each of the nodes with that budget. I don’t know what your line of work is but if you don’t surpass more then 100gb of ram on your workstation then 64 on the nodes is more then enough. I still have some nodes with 32gb of ram and they work perfectly even tough I am nearly pulling 55+gb of ram on my workstation.

If you don’t really like the amd route then I’d suggest the new 28 core Xeon W-3175x which is the same 8180 28 core counterpart at 3 times the lower price so around 3000 but without scalability so now dual,quad or octa xeon options. The only thing is that the boards are rather expensive around 1.7k usd but you will still be able to squeeze one dual 24c node within he budget. Ofc only if you go
the ES route for the nodes :).

Hope I helped!

[Yanosh HRDY]

hello Vuk, thank you for your answer.
I run a specialized office in design product, construction and 3D imaging.
In imaging I realize fixed visuals, for catalog, some animations and virtual visit.
my website: www.hyh.fr
Actually I have already looked for some configurations, as for 10 years I work on Dell stations, I first looked on their site.
In attachment a configuration that serves as a basis for comparative study.
I am not anti Amd, I have only never used.
I asked my computer scientist to propose solutions, one with a single big and powerful station and another with a station and nodes.
I don't know which is the most effective and relevant. Hence my questioning.
My computer scientist is also looking for user information to determine the best config.
On my side, as I am more a user than a programmer, I do not know what an engineering sample CPU .... which makes that I do not understand the advantage or not of your explanation :)

[Yanosh HRDY]

Here are more details about my workflow and my needs. :)
I run the company HYH creations which develops several fields of activity. I am a product and space designer, interior designer, I make custom furniture for individuals and the tertiary sector. I am also a design office for designing structures for events, live shows. And as a 3D graphic designer, I realize images for product catalog, for architecture in image format of small videos and other virtual tours.

For almost 3 years, I went under corona with 3DS, I also use Lumion for less qualitative images than Corona and animation archviz (for which I will have a dedicated station with a 1080Ti)
I work with Autocad and Inventor for technical and mechanical modeling. I work regularly on several projects at the same time, I need to have a station that can calculate images while I work under Autocad or Photoshop for example ...
I also want to increase the speed of my calculations. Ideally, I would like to divide my computing time by 10.
On average my images are calculated and 3 h 30, often with series of 5/6 frames. Sometimes for large formats, the calculation time is 8h for a frame.
With some clients in the event I need a lot of reactivity. When I realize images of interior, not often a lot of light, I need to realize images 2500 x 1400) in 30 minutes max. for now it's 1:30 to 2:30
In terms of 3D imaging my customer requests are usually and for the moment still images, rarely videos and some virtual tours or VR. The requested image sizes rarely exceed 9000 x 6000
I use the DR regularly with the Backburner.
I often make images at night and depending on the projects and the number of frames, my PC calculates more than 20 hours in a row.
For the moment I have 3 nodes, my current pc is configured like this: a xeon 6 cores X5690 @ 3.47GHz, 56 GB of ram,
my laptop (i7 - 2860QM @ 2.5GHz - 16 GB ram) and an old station that is not really effective because very old ...

The difference between a calculation with my station alone or in DR is very small, maybe 5 to 8%.

So the question is a single big station, 48 cores (96 threads) like 2 xeon platinium 8168 or a station with i9 and two nodes with a lot of core?
what choice and why ... these are my questions .. :)
Thank you !