Render Farm - Intel or AMD?

[kayo7]

So, I'm planning to build a small render farm. Originally I was thinking of using a Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 and the Asus X99-M WS Micro ATX Motherboard. But now we have The Ryzen CPUs, (Ryzen 1800x -MSI B350M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard)

 

Which of these, you guys think are better?

Xeon with ECC memory, wi-fi (and better mobo overall), OR Ryzen with more cores, and better price?

[Simon771]

for farms and servers I would stick to Intel for now

1800X isn't realy meant for Enterprise usage, and might also not be the most stable platform right now.

And there is also ECC like you mentioned. It's a must for servers in my opinion.

[tom_w141]

@kayo7

 

Ryzen.

 

Better/Price performance and it supports ECC anyway... Even better value when you consider there is no need to get an 1700X or 1800X. My 1700 is clocked at 4GHz.

 

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/amd_confirms_that_ryzen_supports_ecc_memory/1

[samcool55]

I would go r7 1700 and OC it

You can even get 2 if you have different things to render at the same time.

Ryzen motherboards officially don't support ECC but it's not blocked either. It depends if the motherboard supports it but i don't know too much about ECC support on ryzen motherboards.

 

Honestly the price/performance is much better with ryzen so i don't see a reason to go intel O_o

[Princess Luna]

I would get Ryzen but you could potentially wait for Skylake-X and its Xeon equivalency to come out.

[porina]

It depends on the software. You need to either benchmark the proposed systems, get someone else to do it, or otherwise estimate the performance before you can decide. Then factor in the cost of getting those systems, and running them. If ECC adds value depends on the workload too. How critical would an error be?

[Simon771]

Overclocking on farms and servers? Is that a thing? Luckily no1 in my company decided to do so.

Last thing we need is unstable server lol