A Big Hardware setup...

[Jaffro]

Ok so probably not as big as some of you are used to BUT...

I'm building a small render farm. I've got £1500 to spend, i'm a little flexible but i'm only a student so cant change things massively.

I've set aside around £1k for a mobo bundle, tested and assembled by novatech in the uk - so i shouldn't have and problems with things not working!! The other 5/600 will go towards power suplies, gfx cards (if needed), extra ram, hdd's, fans, and networking. I'm using a couple of old cases to build the farm case, mmmm metal work ;) .

I'm looking at either a AMD 64-bit system or a AMD Sempron system.

The 64 mobo bundle i was looking at is this, x5:
AMD Athlon 64 3000
256MB DDR PC3200 400MHz (x2 to bring it to 512mb) (3 ram slots total on the board)
Heatsink and fan included.
Mobo - i think its foxconn 755A01-6EKRS but they only provide the manufactures code. (not amazing board but how much does this matter exactly, as long as its solid and works right?)
Other features: 4 x usb2, 1x firewire 1394, onboard gigabit ethernet controller.


The Sempron mobo bundle i was looking at is this, x7:
AMD Sempron 2600
Heatsink and fan included.
512MB DDR PC3200 400MHz[2x256MB] (3 ram slots total on the board)
Mobo - i think its foxconn 600A01-6LRS
Other features: no real bonus's besides 4USB2, but thats pratically standard?!.


Now with the AMD rating system the sempron comes up as '18200', the AMD-64 comes out as '15000'. Yet obviously this isn't a direct reflection on processing power.

I've been told that the 5x 64bit will still be better than the 7x semprons. It also seems more sensible to go with latest technology, esp with the optimized LW 64-bit in the wings. So if i dont break this down into seperate systems and sell them on i could probably put it to good use again when MS Win xp 64 & LW64 comes out, yea?

I'm leaning to the 64bit system. What are your thoughts? Is this the best choice i can make? Share your wise words pleeeeaaaaaaaseeeeee :D
Thanks guys!
- Jaffro

[Jaffro]

After reading up a bit about the mobo, and realising that i actually have a couple of months before i'm going to be needing to render fulltime. I thought that i'd go with a similar setup, but not pre-built and tested - so its likely i'll be sending something back!:

Asus K8V SE Deluxe
AMD-64 3000
Ebuyer Extra Value CPU FAN
1GB PC3200 RAM
Maxtor 40GB HDD

gfx cards are going to be scraped from mates or off ebay if i really cant get rubish enough ones.

gigabit network, netgear wired switch. the mobo's got gigabit onboard. do i need to get cat 6 cables or will cat 5 be fine?

[Amadeus0]

Cat5 cables are fine.

You could try building "headless" render boxxen. Just have 1 GFX card on hand, install everything the way you want it, then remove it. To access the system you would use some type of VNC product (removing the cost of a KVM switch from your setup.)

As for a Network Switch I recommend the SMC EZSwitch 8505T. It has Jumbo packet support, and a myriad of other things. 8 ports, can hookup multiple switches together (I think.) Not too expensive either.

The 64-bit system would be the way to go.

If you use XP, MS will exchange your copy of WinXP for WinXP-64 for free. With Linux the 64-bit distros are already out and (for the most part) working.

[Jaffro]

Thanks for the info Amadeus.

I was thinking of going headless too but if i can get enough old gfx cards from friends then it would be nicer. I'll switch them over manually if i have to, got one kvm type switcher, only handles 2 comps tho. As i'm possibly building 5 i might have the 5th as a storage focused, with raid and seperate monitor and k/b mouse (i've got enough old bits to make do, 2 crt monitors in my loft doing nothing!) rendering on a budget :D

Anyway, thanks agn. I'll try get a photo of this thing, it should be quite amusing sight !

[kopperdrake]

How about buying a basic Shuttle from microdirect for about £117 inc Vat. It takes an Intel 478 socket CPU so you can stick a 3.0GHz Intel CPU in there for about £120. RAM is bog-standard DDR and the shuttle has built in graphics, LAN, 5.1 sound, firewire and USB 2.

Stick in cheap TV out card for about £30 and a wireless card for about £20, a DVD drive for £16 and you have a media centre PC too (as long as you're on a wireless network). Store it downstairs next to the TV, play all your avis on the telly and mp3s through your stereo. Sorted :D

[Jaffro]

The Shuttle is intresting, but too late to look into now. Its a completely different range from what i was looking at, and i've already placed my order of one system :) Just to test it out ;) If i had more time on my hands to research around i would probably hunt down some reviews of the shuttle type systems and see how they rate.

Cheers for the heads up, didn't realise they packed in so much power to these lil things now! :)

[kopperdrake]

LOL...shame it's too late! I've run a 2.4Ghz Shuttle with 1Gb RAM and a GF4Ti4200 256Mb dual display for over a year now and it's as solid as a rock :) Never over-heated, never broken down, just keeps going! Build quality is second-to-none too - a real pleasure to build.

I've just built my dad a Shuttle AMD 3200+ with 512Mb RAM as well, burned it in by sticking it in the render-farm for a few weeks and no problems at all.

I'm now thinking of my next new system and I was going to go shuttle again (check out www.shuttle.com and look for the SB95PV2 model

http://eu.shuttle.com/en/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-2/231_read-10414/

It's not cheap, but models further down the line for basic render boxes are - and they're so darned cute too :)

[Jaffro]

Hmmmmmmmmm Next time! :D I could switch over. I've only ordered one mobo system but i'm so close to doing the rest and i spent a good few days solid reading endlessly and calculating prices etc (ended up with a massive headache!) just to make sure i was making the right move. I dont wana go through all that again too soon :S However this time next year! :D

[kopperdrake]

LOL...I don't blame you ;) I'm going through it as we speak...dual system, single system, xeon, amd, 2gb, 3gb...aargh! Then there's your budget which you try and convince yourself is much higher than it really is ;)

Good luck :)

[Jaffro]

lol - so true! My budget started at 700 the first system I aimed at. Then i realised that was stupid and figured out i could infact afford upto £2000 maximum, this system should come together for 1600total. Although at the start i was thinking 4 cpu's and not 5 so thats probably partly why its so much more.

I went with 64 in the end because LW 64 and in general the up coming 64 changeover, prices are not too high and reports are good. Good luck with your system too! :)

[Jaffro]

Update > Got the hardware through and plugged it all up, had a bad ram stick! DOH knew i should've ordered two. Going to have to wait for a new stick of ram, but the system was really fast when checking the ram :D haha

[kopperdrake]

Oh bad luck!! Always the way isn't it!! Memory seems to be one of those 'hit and miss' affairs with anything cheaper than top-of-the-range Crucial, Corsair etc.

Ah, just got myself a new system too :D Pick it up tomorrow!

[Jaffro]

yea thats true. i got some nice ocz memroy, fast and good rep.

What system did you get in the end?

[kopperdrake]

A dual 3.2GHz Xeon with 4Gb of memory and a couple of nice fast SCSI harddrives :) Not the fastest but it was such a bargain I had to get it! I'm sad that I won't be able to go the Athlon 64 route as I'd wanted but I need the grunt and this'll give me what I need for a while :)

[Jaffro]

oo sweet. love those power setups :P

[kopperdrake]

It's going to be my first experience in 10 LWing years of one and I can't wait!!!

[Jaffro]

Hows the new system kopperdrake?

Got new ram and got it all tested and installed with xp64. few minor problems - getting right drivers mainly but all working. Now moved onto the case build! looking to put 5 barebones in one tower, is going to be intresting! :D

[kopperdrake]

5 bare bones in one tower!! A radiator by any other name :D Cool! Err...I mean hot ;)

The dual is behaving itself nicely :) I'm actually running LW off my old Shuttle, but on the new dual, so the Shuttle is acting like a LW server. It's great in that I haven't had to move any data...just mapped new hard drives on the dual to the same as the Shuttle, move the dongle over and sorted :)

I did the radiosity things test with reflection scene (in Lightwave's benchmarks directory), and on the old 2.4Ghz it took about 67 seconds. The new dual took about 25 seconds :) An amazing leap for me, and great for test-renders! FPrime doesn't make full use so I'll just stay on my knees until the multithreaded, multiprocessor version comes out, but I'm a happ bunny!

You'll have to upload a small pic of this 5 barebone-tower when it's built - would love to see how 'normal' it's going to look ;)

[Jaffro]

sweeeet :D My uncle phoned me up today offering a dual 3.2 xeon dell workstation, i was tempted because i'm doing all my work on a 2.2ghz laptop, would be nice to have a new workstation!

Yep 5 in 1! I'm intrested to see the finished thing also! You should see the coolers i've been looking at :D Infact...

CPU Test cooler :P (http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=10&data=4&disc=) Just a test, currently have another one installed cause its cheaper but gets the job done around the same i believe. This was just too cool not to 'try out' :D

Also got hard drive cooler units, with lcd at the front with two tempreture displays so i can have the hdd temp and the system temp displayed outside the system - **** useful! :)

Going to overload this thing with fans to keep the air moving :P Hoping it wont be too much of a radiator, might fit a smoke detector tho! Hopefully when its all done i'll have a video diary of the stages of the build :)

[kopperdrake]

WOW :eek: Does that cooler fly!!

A video diary would be a great idea :) The thought of being able to stick 5 barebones in a case for a render farm is a nice idea :D

If there's no catch with your uncle then grab that dual! You won't go back, honest! My only downside with this one is that it has a pretty crummy Quadra in it - you can run 4 screens if you so desired, but the Lightwave performance is pretty bad. It'll do for a bit, I could always swap my old NVidia out of the Shuttle but I want to keep that in the Shuttle for gaming whilst the dual is busy rendering ;) Method and madness, a happy partnership :rolleyes:

[Jaffro]

Cool cooler huh ;) heh

If i had the money i would snap that dual up. But as life goes i have none - its all, well almost all, going into this renderfarm tower.

Gaming while rendering, sounds like the life to me!

[kopperdrake]

Shame :( But you'll have a render tower that I can only dream of :D

Yep, the gaming whilst rendering thing is truly my goal, but alas there is *always* something to tweak which means that things get rendered whilst I sleep...lol! At least I make sure I get my lunch hour's worth of gaming each day unless things are really tight ;)

[Jaffro]

Hey kopperdrake (and anyone else reading this)

Thought you'd like to see the finished product :) Great fun building this and playing around with some hands on stuff - its always nice to swap the keyboard and mouse for a hammer and drill!

Looking back i feel like i wasted sooo much time making this and not enough time on my project. I'd never have enough space for 5 towers of computers though, and this solution does solve the space problem thats for sure.

I know the rendertimes will make up for it, plus if i can get into the LW64 open beta i could give that a go and make some REAL use of the system! These pic's are a bit old, i've put on another switch and added some more gfx cards. Each system spec is:

AMD 64 3000 (sockect 759 i think it was)
Asus K8V SE Deulxe
1.5G OCZ PC3200 RAM, cl 2.5 so its fairly fast off the blocks.
40GB SATA HDD's, and in the control machine i've got SATA RAID 80GB and a 40GB for the OS
GeForce Fx5500's in most of them - good fun in the games :D
Gigabit lan works great too, very fast.

Its already saved me time with one render, i need to get it setup properly however for the main scene's of my film :) O and before i forget, system running temp is normally between 26-35C, cpu temp has never gone above 40 at max load and thats after a few hours.