Morning Guys,
I have been putting off upgrading machines & software for a while now, still happy using Max 2009 Design but machines are feeling the toll (Plus recent Backburner problems on render nodes prompt -UPGRADE!)

I’m the only visualiser in my office and our IT team are more just IT so spec the best possible machines have been left to me. There is no budget as such but I I was sticking to sub £5K.

Here are my thoughts, currently I have only a HP xw4400 core2duo as my workstation & similarly spec machines for mini render farm (3 of). All on XP 32bit, 3GB ram.

I would like:
1x HPz600 dual quad xeon - £1800
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/u...0864-3718663-4173588.html
This would be my work station & I would use my cirrent GPU (nVidia Quadro FX4600 756mb)

3x Dell vostro 430 MT core i7 -£600
These would be my render nodes
http://configure.euro.dell.com/d...D074301&rbc=D074301&s=bsd

All to be on XP pro, 64 bit and Max 2011 and latest backburner.
Total cost £3600+VAT

My knowledge is a bit limited and I was wondering is there a better way to spend the money?

I do however know it would not be suitable to buy just one ‘super’ computer (i.e.dual 6 core) as my workstation as I still require it whilst rendering and it’s a case of not wanting all my eggs in one basket.

Ideas, opinions, specs, etc would be much appreciated

Many Thanks

Henry

http://www.3datstech.com/

3Ds Max 2012+Sp2 +SAP, Vray 2.2, Photoshop CS5.1
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (295.51), OCZ vertex 2 120GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 560 (1GB) (295.51), wacom bamboo

I too have been looking into rendering solutions for my company, & I’ve been searching around for about a month now; Thus far, I have found no better solutions than http://www.boxxtech.com/products/RenderBOXX/rendering_Series.asp All of the other competitors have not been able to pack as much power into such a small space; granted, they are a little pricey, but it seems to be the most bang for the buck.

Chris Robinson
http://www.supercoonstudios.com (Under Development)
3ds Max 2011
Dell Precision 690, Intel Xeon Dual Quads @ 2.66 GHz, Dual NVIDIA Quadro FX4500s, 12 GB RAM, Windonws 7 x64

Check my blog, I wrote a couple of stuff about that, pretty interesting I guess, in the whole understanding of what is a node and how it should be.

http://www.tanguybodivit.com/blog/?page_id=72
http://www.tanguybodivit.com/blog/?p=60

Thanks,

Tanguy

I built my own render servers. I used barebone server nodes, CPUs, ram and a single harddrive for each node all purchased from newegg. All I had to do is plug in the CPUs, ram and harddrive, then install the OS. I spent about 1,800 on each node and they all work very well. The only thing I had to make sure of are drivers for my OS. Most server motherboards didn’t offer the drivers I needed. I also selected a barebones that came with CPU coolers so I knew they would fit. I do wish I would have purchased cd/dvd drives for each when I first ordered them. I had to rig an external drive so I could install. I just remote desktop into each when needed. My next upgrade for them are UPSs. Hope that helps!

James C. Hill