Spec me a 3D rendering Supercomputer !!!!

I recently (last week) speced a CAD machine for use with engineering software. I investigated the Xeon route, and if my knowledge had been better I may have gone down it. But, it looked like a mine field. Most (if not all) Xeon motherboards are v expensive and use ECC fully buffered memory (we're not talking normal DDR2 prices here). The motherboards aren't ATX spec either so that makes me wonder about power supplies / cases etc!

If you can find someone who can give you a crash course then go for it ! :-). (I ended up opting for quad core and 4 gig of quick ram and £1000 Ati FireGL gfx because that's where most of the work is done.)
 
Shrapnel said:
I recently (last week) speced a CAD machine for use with engineering software. I investigated the Xeon route, and if my knowledge had been better I may have gone down it. But, it looked like a mine field. Most (if not all) Xeon motherboards are v expensive and use ECC fully buffered memory (we're not talking normal DDR2 prices here). The motherboards aren't ATX spec either so that makes me wonder about power supplies / cases etc!

If you can find someone who can give you a crash course then go for it ! :-). (I ended up opting for quad core and 4 gig of quick ram and £1000 Ati FireGL gfx because that's where most of the work is done.)
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I'm quickly running into these very same problems and am wondering if I should invest in overclocking a quad and RAM.

The other issue with these boards is that the PCI-express slot is rated at 8x at best :|

Currently looking at the ASUS DSBV-D
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=9&l2=39&l3=0&model=1210&modelmenu=1

Width is the right size but 1inch more depth.
 
Xeon Workstations tend be expensive because normally are E-ATX so need a large E-ATX case, think Lian Li PC70/G70 rather then a PC60/7 size. They also tend to come with PCI-X solots rather then PCI-E as PCI-X still tends to be dominant in the Server/Workstation Market. Although people such as HP do seem to be moving to PCI-E. They also tend to be large through putting 2CPU sockets on them, and large ammounts of memory slots

You need an EPS12V 2.91 or later PSU. a lot of ATX PSU's are but check for the EPS12V compativbility. I can say that the Coolermaster iGreen PSU's work as I have one running an H8DCE which is a skt940 Workstation board needing 24 + 8 + 4 pins PSU.

Memory is either EEC DDR2 or if unlucky is FB-DIMMS. These have the Error Checking etc that is usually required in this sort of environment but not needed in a Desktop, hence memory is more expensive, that and a lot less volume is shipped.

It isn't that difficult to put together just a lot more expensive, and finding somewhere that sells the proper parts.

I would suggest getting a Quad CPU, normal DDR2 and then either a FireGL or QuadroFX graphics card as that is where the rendering is done. That way you can get the performance that is needed without breaking the bank.
 
Blimey - get a life !! ;)

OK what macs are out there that are up to competing with a q6600 with accompanied firegl card ?

I'm open to all options.

ps mdjmcnally thanks for the info :)
 
Subliminal Aura said:
Blimey - get a life !! ;)

OK what macs are out there that are up to competing with a q6600 with accompanied firegl card ?
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Umm, the Mac Pro is just about the best worksatation deal of that caliber there is. Get the cheapest 8-core (dual quads) one with 4 GiB RAM and the el-cheapo graphics card. Install Windows and the best Quadro you can afford. You'll be blown away.

I played this game a while back. It's tough to beat such a machine in price and performance by doing a self build. The thread I made about it is a bit outdated in terms of the mobos, etc. discussed.
 
aye Mac Pro! New ones just came out the other day, expensive but you get what you pay for and they're also pretty good value!
 
Mac Pro :)

My housemate got one last year for his 3D Animation course. He was originally using an old Boxx machine, 2x 2.2Ghz Athlons, 2Gb RAM, and with his third year project it struggled as he was doing it all in Mental Ray with extremely high poly count scenes

He bought a mac pro, 2x quad core chips and the difference it made was outstanding. 3 of my 6 housemates all did the same course as him and they were all using his machine to render out onto it was that fast. Stuff that was taking my mates x2 4800 a day and a half would take the Mac Pro a couple of hours

They are perfect for 3D workstations

Well, the only thing better are brand new Boxx models, but I seriously doubt they come into your budget
 
mdjmcnally said:
Xeon Workstations tend be expensive ...

I would suggest getting a Quad CPU, normal DDR2 and then either a FireGL or QuadroFX graphics card as that is where the rendering is done. That way you can get the performance that is needed without breaking the bank.
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I'm glad you've said that mate. Confirms what I suspected. :-)

Spend as much on the GFX as you can.
 
Get two cheap quadcore PCs IMO.

Presuming you're doing the sort of 3d rendering that means you can slave rendering onto the other PC.

You could probably build 4 for the price of a xeon unit.
 
therealnerd2 said:
Get two cheap quadcore PCs IMO.

Presuming you're doing the sort of 3d rendering that means you can slave rendering onto the other PC.

You could probably build 4 for the price of a xeon unit.
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overclockersukyourbaskeke0.gif

Here's a workstation and two rendering nodes. This would indeed be faster than dual quad Xeons, assuming your 3D program supports distributed rendering. Spend all the extra money on the cheapest QUadro FX 3700 you can find. The 3700 is essentially an 8800 GT with extra Quadro gubbins added. It'll give you better cost/performance ratio than the GTX-based Quadro FX 4600.
 
WOW I came to the same conclusion - MAC PRO all the way !!!!!

It's unbelievable ! From what I gather they are using xeon 5300s and the same Intel 5000 series motherboard. Dirt cheap n all ;)

I am trying to get get a detailed spec for the motherboard in the mac pro - any help here would be great.

I'm also trying to work out if the mobo has intels sata raid controller help me find some detailed specs guys :)
 
I do not think that it has the Intel RAID controller since they offer a separate PCI-e card for SATA and SAS RAID functionality.

What else would you like to know about the mobo? In short, it takes up to 8 FB-DIMMs on two daughter boards. There are four 16x PCI-e (physical) slots. Two are wired as 16x, two as 8x IIRC.
Subliminal Aura said:
When was that last time you bought a software license ;)
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Since you never said what program you were using one could imagine that perhaps you were using one without such draconian licensing restrictions, such as Blender. :p
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I do not think that it has the Intel RAID controller since they offer a separate PCI-e card for SATA and SAS RAID functionality.

What else would you like to know about the mobo?
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Looks like its a custom Intel 5000 built for apple as all the dual xeon boards I looked at were 533/677 ddr2 but the mac pro is at 800mhz ?

Also is the PCI-e is at full 16x ?

I guess I will have to buy a SATA pci raid controller - any options here boys ?

Wish me luck in trying to build windows xp-64 when I get it !
 
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