Render Server

[Fyfey96]

Hey, 

 

I was looking into building a render sever. I guess its not really must have for me more of a fun project that could hopefully be useful. For sending stuff from Adobe After Effects to Media Encoder.

I was looking at getting -

Two Xeon Six Core X5670's

Supermicro Dual 1366 Motherboard

64GB DDR3 1333Mhz ECC Memory.

 

The cost will be about £400-£450

For 12 Cores 24 Threads and 64GB RAM seems like a not bad price.

 

Do you think this will be beneficial and work?

I currently have a 6700K and was thinking it would be cool if i could keep working on part of a project and have another machine render the last part?

 

Any Information/Thoughts Appreciated

[tt2468]

1 minute ago, Fyfey96 said:

Hey, 

 

I was looking into building a render sever. I guess its not really must have for me more of a fun project that could hopefully be useful. For sending stuff from Adobe After Effects to Media Encoder.

I was looking at getting -

Two Xeon Six Core X5670's

Supermicro Dual 1366 Motherboard

64GB DDR3 1333Mhz ECC Memory.

 

The cost will be about £400-£450

For 12 Cores 24 Threads and 64GB RAM seems like a not bad price.

 

Do you think this will be beneficial and work?

I currently have a 6700K and was thinking it would be cool if i could keep working on part of a project and have another machine render the last part?

 

Any Information/Thoughts Appreciated

It would be cheaper to buy a used r410 and cpus, instead of build one.

 

Here are the cpus: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matched-Pair-of-Intel-Six-Core-Xeon-X5670-2-93GHz-CPUs-AT80614005130AA-SLBV7-/272233863851

And here is an r410 which has x5660s in it for $240: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-R410-2x-X5660-2-8GHz-Six-Cores-64GB-RAM-H700-No-HDD-/401287400261

Here is another r410 which would need a cpu upgrade, but is so cheap that it's worth it. (And it has free shipping!): http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-R410-2-X-QUAD-CORE-2-40GHZ-E5620-32GB-RAM-1-x-TRAY-QTY-AVAILABLE-/371842504210

[Fyfey96]

5 minutes ago, tt2468 said:

It would be cheaper to buy a used r410 and cpus, instead of build one.

 

Here are the cpus: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Matched-Pair-of-Intel-Six-Core-Xeon-X5670-2-93GHz-CPUs-AT80614005130AA-SLBV7-/272233863851

And here is an r410 which has x5660s in it for $240: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-R410-2x-X5660-2-8GHz-Six-Cores-64GB-RAM-H700-No-HDD-/401287400261

Here is another r410 which would need a cpu upgrade, but is so cheap that it's worth it. (And it has free shipping!): http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Poweredge-R410-2-X-QUAD-CORE-2-40GHZ-E5620-32GB-RAM-1-x-TRAY-QTY-AVAILABLE-/371842504210

Yea, I see what you mean. Its just having somewhere to keep something that big lol. Well I guess i could keep it in my Loft. I already have an old HP Server planked away but is no where near as powerful

[tt2468]

Just now, Fyfey96 said:

Yea, I see what you mean. Its just having somewhere to keep something that big lol. Well I guess i could keep it in my Loft. I already have an old HP Server planked away but is no where near as powerful

It's not that big IMO. Smaller by far than an r610 or r710.

[SG14_96]

The gear you choose is mostly based on what software you plan on using. People tend to believe that just adding more cores or more GPUs will increase performance in an incremental or exponensial way. Even linus showed in one of his vids that his dual 18 core xeons were not reaching nowhere near full potential becuase the software was not tuned to take advantage of the specific configuration he was running. Investigate what software ur using and aska round what other people are running. That would be the best way to approach.

Good luck.

[Fyfey96]

2 hours ago, SG14_96 said:

The gear you choose is mostly based on what software you plan on using. People tend to believe that just adding more cores or more GPUs will increase performance in an incremental or exponensial way. Even linus showed in one of his vids that his dual 18 core xeons were not reaching nowhere near full potential becuase the software was not tuned to take advantage of the specific configuration he was running. Investigate what software ur using and aska round what other people are running. That would be the best way to approach.

Good luck.

Yea, Definitely. I was looking to build something maybe just about as powerful as my 6700K rig but cheaper. Im not going bonkers to that stage haha.

[Pixel5]

what is the end goal of this, that you can use the computer for something else while rendering?

 

how long do your renders usually take, is it a viable option to invest so much in a separate system that will just draw extra power and need space?

[SG14_96]

11 hours ago, Fyfey96 said:

Yea, Definitely. I was looking to build something maybe just about as powerful as my 6700K rig but cheaper. Im not going bonkers to that stage haha.

Probably you can find older server grade stuff. there is lots on ebay. An older LGA 2011 or 1366 Xeon is a good place to start. or if you want something more recent, there are pentium and core i3 SKUs that support ECC ram.

[SG14_96]

11 hours ago, Fyfey96 said:

Yea, Definitely. I was looking to build something maybe just about as powerful as my 6700K rig but cheaper. Im not going bonkers to that stage haha.

The config you picked seems like a well rounded solution. It would give you lots of expansion and horespower.

[Griefa]

Just yesterday did an almost identical thing

 

Super Micro boards are EATX (13" x 12"), so you can gut it and fit everything in a full height case. 

 

Had noise issues with the 2U rack case, so chucked it in a 900D, and it's almost silent. I only went for something so big, as I will be chucking 10 drives in there, but something like the R2 XL or 750D would be fine. 

 

Build (all sourced from eBay UK):

 

2 x E5645's, 64GB ECC 1333, 9TB WD Green's, Raid card, Dual Fibre Card and extra NIC's:    £300

AX760:               £82

Hyper 212X's:    £61

900D:                 £100

Fan Splitter:       £4

 

Total:                  £54

 

Could have saved a bit by getting a less stupid case, lesser Power supply (but make sure you have two CPU supplies - Higher end/Higher Power PSU's) and not gone for pretty new coolers, but it gets the job done.

 

R9 290X in the post at the moment for a bit of fun...

[Fyfey96]

13 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

what is the end goal of this, that you can use the computer for something else while rendering?

 

how long do your renders usually take, is it a viable option to invest so much in a separate system that will just draw extra power and need space?

Well i intend to pick up more video production workload but I guess maybe not to the extent where I really need to do this, its more of a bit of fun, Learning curve and a bit useful too haha hence why im not going all out.

 

9 hours ago, SG14_96 said:

Probably you can find older server grade stuff. there is lots on ebay. An older LGA 2011 or 1366 Xeon is a good place to start. or if you want something more recent, there are pentium and core i3 SKUs that support ECC ram.

Yea, Ive been looking just so much to choose from. Im sure something will show up soon i fancy.

 

5 hours ago, Griefa said:

Just yesterday did an almost identical thing

 

Super Micro boards are EATX (13" x 12"), so you can gut it and fit everything in a full height case. 

 

Had noise issues with the 2U rack case, so chucked it in a 900D, and it's almost silent. I only went for something so big, as I will be chucking 10 drives in there, but something like the R2 XL or 750D would be fine. 

 

Build (all sourced from eBay UK):

 

2 x E5645's, 64GB ECC 1333, 9TB WD Green's, Raid card, Dual Fibre Card and extra NIC's:    £300

AX760:               £82

Hyper 212X's:    £61

900D:                 £100

Fan Splitter:       £4

 

Total:                  £54

 

Could have saved a bit by getting a less stupid case, lesser Power supply (but make sure you have two CPU supplies - Higher end/Higher Power PSU's) and not gone for pretty new coolers, but it gets the job done.

 

R9 290X in the post at the moment for a bit of fun...

That looks awesome man, How does it perform? Have you ran cine-bench. I guess it might not be the best way but when ive been looking at the older xeons if been looking at how well the cine-bench to decide where I like it or not haha.

[Griefa]

9 hours ago, Fyfey96 said:

That looks awesome man, How does it perform? Have you ran cine-bench. I guess it might not be the best way but when ive been looking at the older xeons if been looking at how well the cine-bench to decide where I like it or not haha.

Thanks mate. 

 

Performs pretty well, graphics card in the post, so we'll see how it gets on with an OS and not running VM's. 

 

Quick boot up into Win 10 and Cinebench run, and it hits 1124 on multicore, which outperforms my 7700k (depending on which way the wind is blowing...). Which isn't bad, when you consider the entire donor server cost less than my 7700k alone...

[Fyfey96]

On 3/18/2017 at 11:16 AM, Griefa said:

Thanks mate. 

 

Performs pretty well, graphics card in the post, so we'll see how it gets on with an OS and not running VM's. 

 

Quick boot up into Win 10 and Cinebench run, and it hits 1124 on multicore, which outperforms my 7700k (depending on which way the wind is blowing...). Which isn't bad, when you consider the entire donor server cost less than my 7700k alone...

That's my thoughts exactly make something on the cheap that's as good as or slightly better than my 6700K for soley for rendering so I can send it to that. I might be able to get an old HP Proliant DL360 G6 From work and drop two CPU's in it and some ram so hofully all I need to pay for are CPU's and RAM. Only thing I'm not sure about is fitting a GPU in that. Does that make much of a difference to rendering. I thought CUDA only makes most difference during the editing process?

[Griefa]

16 hours ago, Fyfey96 said:

That's my thoughts exactly make something on the cheap that's as good as or slightly better than my 6700K for soley for rendering so I can send it to that. I might be able to get an old HP Proliant DL360 G6 From work and drop two CPU's in it and some ram so hofully all I need to pay for are CPU's and RAM. Only thing I'm not sure about is fitting a GPU in that. Does that make much of a difference to rendering. I thought CUDA only makes most difference during the editing process?

Sounds like a plan. Check dimensions on MB, and mounting holes etc. Might have seen it on one of the Tech Tips videos, but I think someone mentioned Dell/HP have some weird mounting querks.

 

Graphics card won't make much difference to the rendering at all, but bear in mind, without one (even a cheap one), you're stuck with the onboard graphics which are only designed to display a server's basic GUI (max at 720p I think - depending on board). So if you want the nice appearance of 1080p, I'd recommend one. 

[CptCarbonat]

12 minutes ago, Griefa said:

Check dimensions on MB, and mounting holes etc. Might have seen it on one of the Tech Tips videos, but I think someone mentioned Dell/HP have some weird mounting querks.

The ProLiant SE316M1 mainboard is E-ATX, it fitted perfectly in another case I had. But I think the DL360 G6 uses a weird size mainboard if I remember right, so it wouldn't fit in a case without a bit of modding if the case is big even enough. Fitting a graphicscard on these is also a bit hard, you will probably have to use a PCIE riser because the PCIE slots are often in weird places.

[Fyfey96]

6 hours ago, Griefa said:

Sounds like a plan. Check dimensions on MB, and mounting holes etc. Might have seen it on one of the Tech Tips videos, but I think someone mentioned Dell/HP have some weird mounting querks.

 

Graphics card won't make much difference to the rendering at all, but bear in mind, without one (even a cheap one), you're stuck with the onboard graphics which are only designed to display a server's basic GUI (max at 720p I think - depending on board). So if you want the nice appearance of 1080p, I'd recommend one. 

Yea, To be honest I plan not to really look at it. Just set up and control over network and let it do its thing. I was just going to keep it in original chassis as will be easy with built in PSU's ect. Only thing I am concerned about is that its quad core E5504 (no hyper-threading) thats in it now but im not sure if the board will take the Six core I wanna put in. (X5670 or X5675). Im sure I read online it saying about checking with support.

6 hours ago, CptCarbonat said:

The ProLiant SE316M1 mainboard is E-ATX, it fitted perfectly in another case I had. But I think the DL360 G6 uses a weird size mainboard if I remember right, so it wouldn't fit in a case without a bit of modding if the case is big even enough. Fitting a graphicscard on these is also a bit hard, you will probably have to use a PCIE riser because the PCIE slots are often in weird places.

Also  I dont know how I haven't seen the board you mentioned above i have been searching ebay for dual socket boards and only supermicro ones were coming up but i see that now and its a bit cheaper

[samiscool51]

After effects and media encoder really love it when you use a GPU to render files

hardware acceleration really helps when working with this type of stuff

[Fyfey96]

18 hours ago, samiscool51 said:

After effects and media encoder really love it when you use a GPU to render files

hardware acceleration really helps when working with this type of stuff

I think maybe with certain codecs like cineform?

[samiscool51]

56 minutes ago, Fyfey96 said:

I think maybe with certain codecs like cineform?

i have never used cineform, i think it doesn't have HA (hardware acceleration) support and can only use CPU cores to render files

also your post is kinda confusing for me to understand, so if this didn't answer your post just ignore this post