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Thread: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

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    Certified AUGI Addict patricks's Avatar
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    Default What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    Just throw as much CPU and RAM power we can into a box? Something like a Core i7-4930 Ivy Bridge 6-core CPU, on a motherboard with 8 memory slots that supports up to 128 GB RAM? I'm sure we'd start out with 32 GB

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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    Check the motherboard manual first, as many non-Xeon ones will only support up to 32 GB regardless of how many slots they have. What you are looking for are number of cores, the available RAM, and CPU speed. The usual target spec for RAM is 4 GB per core (don't forget hyperthreading - on a hex core that can result in 12 effective cores). If you want to go core crazy and cost isn't an option, think about a quad-processor motherboard, with quad-core Xeons and a small fortune in ECC RAM. Or use the Autodesk cloud rendering.

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    Certified AUGI Addict patricks's Avatar
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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    The problem is that cloud renderings look AWFUL in our experience. It's like it uses a completely different engine than the Mental Ray engine used in locally-installed versions of Revit.

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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    wow... a dual socket mobo with 24 RAM slots supporting up to 256 GB RAM and running two 8-core Xeon proc's would do the trick... at a cost of nearly $10K probably!

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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    For that cost you would be better served by setting up a dedicated render server, since they are better able to handle adding processors and RAM as you need them.

    A somewhat cheaper option in the single-box category would be to get a hard core gaming box - overclocked CPU, water cooling, tweaked out RAM settings. You'll burn it out in a couple of years, but up-front costs will be more reasonable.

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    Certified AUGI Addict patricks's Avatar
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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    We're actually about to replace our office server with a new souped-up version with 32 GB RAM, RAID 6 with 5 15K SAS drives + 2 RAID 1 SAS drivers for Server 2012.

    Could we just install a copy of Revit on that machine and use it for creating renderings? It will also be our file server for all other projects (no MS Exchange or anything), but with 32 GB RAM surely it could handle it right?

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    Default Re: What's most important for a super awesome rendering machine?

    The problem with that is it runs a server-based operating system, while Revit is designed to run on a desktop OS. It might work, but being unsupported you could run into pitfalls (including video card support and potential licensing restrictions). Using servers for rendering requires Backburner or similar specialized software which is where the boundary of my knowledge is.

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