Value Rendering Rig

[NinetyFour]

Hey guys!

 

I have had these parts for roughly over a year and I just wanted to get some fresh eyes on the build before it happens.

 

The only new parts are the motherboard, case, and ssd. Everything else I already have.

 

Case - LINK

CPU - FX 4350

RAM - Patriot Signature 4GB 1333MHz

SSD - Patriot Torch 60GB

HDD - Seagate Barracuda 3TB

PSU - Lite-On 250w

Card - Radeon 5450

Mobo - LINK

 

[OfficialJsP]

If you call that a rendering rig then I guess anything can be.

 

/jk

[Fulgrim]

Erm, this is far from being a "value rendering rig". It's more of a media rig than rendering...

[Emanuel_M]

Upgrade ram and GPU and CPU

[thekeemo]

Get an 860k instead

And people for rendering the 4 cores do matter

[NinetyFour]

Get an 860k instead

And people for rendering the 4 cores do matter

Agreed.

 

Remember guys, this isn't meant to be Linus' SIXTEEN CORE BEAST!

It's just meant to take the strain off of my main machine so I don't get dragged back every time I have some emergency job come up. Sure it won't due the highest of tasks, but that's what my main rig is for. LINK

[Electronics Wizardy]

Hey guys!

 

I have had these parts for roughly over a year and I just wanted to get some fresh eyes on the build before it happens.

 

The only new parts are the motherboard, case, and ssd. Everything else I already have.

 

Case - LINK

CPU - FX 4350

RAM - Patriot Signature 4GB 1333MHz

SSD - Patriot Torch 60GB

HDD - Seagate Barracuda 3TB

PSU - Lite-On 250w

Card - Radeon 5450

Mobo - LINK

Get a 8320 if you doing lots of rendering, anyways what are you doing rendering in. I have made stuff that takes over 12 hours to render in low quality in maya.

[Mindstab Thrull]

You definitely don't want only 4GB on it. I'd go up to 8 at a bare minimum and probably 16. You'd definitely notice a difference.

[ALwin]

The OP is obviously reusing some spare parts he/she has at home to build a machine to offload some final render work off from his/her main machine.  This rig being built is basically a slave.

 

I use to do the same when I worked with 3Ds MAX.  I had a few old Dell Pentium core machines lying around at the office, that no one was using anymore, reinstalled the OS and turned them into slave machines for rendering.  The editorial work was done on my main machine and the slaves did the output rendering.  This way instead of one machine doing all the work from start to finish I managed to increase productivity by having 3 crappy slave doing parallel rendering.

 

I do think that having 8GB of memory will be nice, but if you're going to upgrade other parts like the CPU and GPU, you may as well build a better rig from scratch and throw away those old parts.

[NinetyFour]

The OP is obviously reusing some spare parts he/she has at home to build a machine to offload some final render work off from his/her main machine.  This rig being built is basically a slave.

 

I use to do the same when I worked with 3Ds MAX.  I had a few old Dell Pentium core machines lying around at the office, that no one was using anymore, reinstalled the OS and turned them into slave machines for rendering.  The editorial work was done on my main machine and the slaves did the output rendering.  This way instead of one machine doing all the work from start to finish I managed to increase productivity by having 3 crappy slave doing parallel rendering.

 

I do think that having 8GB of memory will be nice, but if you're going to upgrade other parts like the CPU and GPU, you may as well build a better rig from scratch and throw away those old parts.

 

You definitely don't want only 4GB on it. I'd go up to 8 at a bare minimum and probably 16. You'd definitely notice a difference.

 

Get a 8320 if you doing lots of rendering, anyways what are you doing rendering in. I have made stuff that takes over 12 hours to render in low quality in maya.

 

Guys, I think ALwin hit it right on the mark. I may add another stick of 4GB ram, but that'd be it. I'm already gonna be spending over 100 to get this thing up

Yes it's a slave and no, I will not be upgrading any of the parts I already have, that's why it's a slave.

 

What I am considering though, is replacing the SSD with some ram. Turns out I have to buy a new HDD anyways. The primary storage will still be on my main rig.

The problem I am facing now, is how to transfer files between the machines for rendering.

 

This will largely be used for video rendering and possibly as a broadcasting machine for twitch if I ever put the proper capture cards in it.

 

TLDNR

• Can I run Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12.0 on the slave and have it read files on the master?
• How much storage should I purchase? This won't need the boot times of an SSD or the run times of one either. This is dependant on the question above and the result is what will allow me to purchase more ram or not as well.

[Prysin]

for VALUE rendering get a 8320e. That mobo should easily support the 95w version of the 8320 (the "e" version that is).

8 Cores > 4 cores

costs as much as a i3

will render stuff an order of magnitude faster any day of the week/month/year

For GPU, get a newer card, like a 7950 or 7970 GHz edt. Reason for that is that you need A LOT of compute power.

If you want to go insane budget, get a FX 6300 + R9 370. That will still be faster then what you got today but will only cost you 200 USD tops

[Mindstab Thrull]

Sure, I get that. I just think it's going to be incredibly slow with only 4GB and might even have trouble running some software. An additional 4GB stick isn't expensive anyways - it looks like another stick of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220480 is currently on for about $40 (this looks to be the same kind you mentioned you have?), but for only a few dollars more you can get an 8GB kit (two matched 4GB sticks) from another brand, which would bring you to 12GB. (And you can get a pair of matching 8GB sticks - a 16GB kit - for under $80.) Suffice it to say, any increase in RAM will definitely help.

A 2TB drive starts at around $80, and 3TB starts around 90ish. If that $10 is important to you, get the 2TB. Otherwise, spend the extra few bucks and get the larger drive.

 

All pricing is being checked via Newegg's US site. You can probably find better pricing through PCPartPicker since it checks multiple sites.

[ALwin]

Guys, I think ALwin hit it right on the mark. I may add another stick of 4GB ram, but that'd be it. I'm already gonna be spending over 100 to get this thing up

Yes it's a slave and no, I will not be upgrading any of the parts I already have, that's why it's a slave.

What I am considering though, is replacing the SSD with some ram. Turns out I have to buy a new HDD anyways. The primary storage will still be on my main rig.

The problem I am facing now, is how to transfer files between the machines for rendering.

This will largely be used for video rendering and possibly as a broadcasting machine for twitch if I ever put the proper capture cards in it.

TLDNR

• Can I run Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12.0 on the slave and have it read files on the master?
• How much storage should I purchase? This won't need the boot times of an SSD or the run times of one either. This is dependant on the question above and the result is what will allow me to purchase more ram or not as well.

I am not sure if your software includes features for offloading work to a "render farm" but you could connect your main rig and your slave to the same wired gigabit network and setup shared folders. Perhaps a bit of online research for software setup, or head over to the CreativeCows.net forum and get some advice for your workflow.