3D Max Rendering

[KaHn]

Right guys,

Been asked a question I couldn't answer so thought you guys might be able to help. One of the guys I work with is looking at upgrading PCs in the office to help with rendering, he went to a comptuer company who has came back with two solutions.

Solution one - High end desktop machines

Duel Xeon - X5650 +2.66
24GB Ram @1333MHz
NVIDIA Quadro 4000 - 2GB
+ standard stuff

Solution two - average desktops + rendering node

desktop:

i7 2600K
16GB ram - 1600MHz
Firepro V5900 - 2GB
+standard stuff.

Node:

Dual Xeon X5650 @ 2.66
24GB DDR3 - 1333MHz
no graphics.


Now my question to you is which is likely to be the better option, we do not do a lot of rendering here, mostly draughting/design work using inventor/autodesk and then 3DMax etc to produce operational videos.

Thanks for any help.

KaHn

p.s. cost isn't really the option just looking for the best solution, but for reference both cost a similiar amount.

 

[Staffy]

My initial thought would be the second option purely due to the fact when you are doing the rendering the desktops can all still be used productively.

 

[Limenote]

if you don't do a lot of rendering better machines might be the best choice rather than a dedicated render node that will sit idle most of the time, at least that way you get better performance in the app's, downside being of course that you need to tie some up for rendering once in awhile.

3dmax has backburner support for network rendering, could render across multiple more powerful machines which would be a lot quicker.