PC over G5?

[rubixstarr]

I was reading a lot of posts in the Mac forum, and a lot of people say that you can buy a render farm (at least 8-13 cheap computers) for the price of one dual processor G5 and be able to render so much faster that way. I was planning to buy a new more powerful computer than my G4 (100mhz bus, 400mhz processor, 320 mhz ram) and I was planning on getting the $3000 G5's, but if i can render so much more with a PC for the same price, then why not? But before I was going to do that, I was wondering what you guys think...but if i convert to PC's, then is my Mac going to go to waist? or can i hook up my Mac G4 as a render slave with the other PC's as well with the PC render farm with one Mac in it? or is that not possible? hm... don't know. any suggestions would help. Thanks!!

[js33]

I believe there are some render controllers that allow mac/pc combinations. Search again for screamernet controllers.
As far as render speed. Right now the pc is faster and we won't know the truth about the G5 for a little while. I basically comes down to preference. I also have a G4 iMac (800 Mhz). I like it Ok but I find the 15" monitor too small for Lightwave work as I have 2 19" CRTs on my PC with a dual GF4 Ti 4200 driving the displays.

Also keep in mind that the PC version of Lightwave works better than the Mac version and that there is more 3rd party support for the PC version.

Also I don't think you could buy 8-13 PCs for the price of 1 G5 but you could in fact get about 6 PCs in the $500 range for the price of 1 G5 ($3000) and definately have a small render farm.


Cheers,
JS

[hrgiger]

Yes for the price of a new G5 system (around 3 grand I believe right now) you could get 3 or 4 nice new pentium systems and have yourself a nice little render farm plus a computer to work on that's not rendering. Your money could even go a little farther with Athalon processors but the price versus performance is in the pentium.

[Extent]

If you're really willing to put together the machines as dedicated render nodes and nothing more I'ld venture to say you could do it for about 400 a box if you go with an athlon processor.

Intel is defenatly the fastest, but I'ld venture to say that AMD defenatly beats them out on the price/performance ratio. If you consider two processors at the same clock speed (san an XP2000+, that's about 1.6 Ghz) I get a pricewatch price of 60 for the XP and 121 for the P4, and it looks like the AMD is capable of outperforming the P4 still at that clock speed (I'm too tired to properly interperate the Blanos benchmarks, I use raytracing as a guide) Even my dual MP2000 system which performs similarly to a P4 3.2 single is more cost effective (240 for both processors Vs 370 for the single) for chips alone. Tho I wouldn't reccomend duals for farming. Intel is currently on the bleeding edge, but AMD still has the value.

Although it looks like youre talking about a single workstation computer, that makes things a little more expensive, but you could put together a kick ***** system for 2k and spend another 1K on a small farm and still come out ahead of the G5 IMO. Untill I see more realworld LW benches proving that it's the fastest thing since hyperspace I'm not beliveing a word of it.

I would defenatly keep your mac and get a PC for 3d. Unless you don't like/ want to use the mac anymore I'ld use that for everything you feel comfortable with thats already on it and keep the PC just as a 3d box

[dmg3d]

Originally posted by js33


Also keep in mind that the PC version of Lightwave works better than the Mac version and that there is more 3rd party support for the PC version.




From another thread:
http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10225

=================
...And from my vantage point my sense of things is that most issues in LW are present on both platforms, and each platform also has about the same amount and severity of issues that are platform specific. If I were still support staff I could reasonably spend the same amount of time in each area.

__________________
Chuck Baker -- NewTek, Inc.
Director of Corporate Communications
http://www.newtek.com/
==================

:)

[js33]

Well the main advantages the PC version has is good OpenGL speed and easy screamernet setup over the Mac. Not to mention that there are many more plugins available to the PC version.
Also the PC has faster rendering at least until the G5 comes out and gets optimized.

Cheers,
JS

[dwburman]

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=90217&Category_Code=SOHO

Here's an AMD 2000 system that could work for a render system. After upgrading the RAM to 512MB (You might want to add more) and WinXP Home, comes out at $522.

You can probably find similar deals elsewhere. You could continue using your G4 if you're happy with it and just use the PCs to render. Personally, I haven't done cross platform rendering but it should work. There are few plug-ins on the MAC that aren't available on the PC.

[mattclary]

deleted

[mattclary]

deleted

[Extent]

darnit I hate it when people do that, now I feel like I missed something :p