1 Super Rig VS 3 Normal Rig

[refa]

Hi, my first post and thread ever here.

I need an opinion form the Pros regarding this matter. Though I've search the net for answers but, I didn't get the best answer. Maybe I didn't type in the right key word in the search bar. But anyway, I really hope I can get something out of this beneficial forum. At least anyone could direct me to the right sites. Thanx in advance.

I have 12,000 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit) in hand, equivalent to 3,735 USD. I want to build a rig, or maybe few rigs, whichever more beneficial. I'm doing 3D Architetcural Rendering and Animation, and sometimes Video Compositing. I'm using 3dsMax and Vray for 3D and After Effects for video. So I need to make sure what I'm to going to spend really worth the money and supports my freelance career to the fullest.

I was thinking with the amount of money I have, I want to build 1 rig of 2 Xeon (8-cores) on a server board, so I can render stuffs fast. But my friend recommended me to buy 3 seperate i7 rigs with the total money that I have. That way I can do 3D on 1 rig, render a 3D scene on another rig, and maybe do a little bit of compositing on the other rig. Great deal for multitasking. But what I heard from another friend, 1 super rig is much2 more faster than 3 seperate rig in terms of rendering, which is 1 of the things I intended to have in my dream rig.

So if anyone has an opinion bout this, you are welcome to help me or atleast, if you ever come across such threads anywhere, please direct me. Thank you so much.

 

[chriscornell]

I work with Post-production, mostly in television and commercials. At my workplace we have "power"macs running FinalCut and powerpcs running AVID, while all hardcore rendering is done on machines that only do that - they render.

It really pays off doing the rendering on seperate machines, so you can continue your editing-work without having to wait for the system to be done.

Ergo: I would buy a Quadcore i5 og i7 to do the animation on, and a similar machine to do all the rendering (maybe a Xeon based one). The rendering machine should have a fast HDD-raid and lost of ram. With movie rendering at least, more ram means more speed.

 

[Pro Llama]

As Chris said I would go with multiple rigs, but you should look into the new AMD x6 1090T you work would benefit from having the extra cores. It also depends on availability in your area and cost in your area.

 

[refa]

Thanx ChrisCornell and Pro Llama. Appreciate it. But... I just thought of something.

What if, I build 2 rigs. 1 is twice as powerfull as the other one, so I can do work at the more powerfull rig, and render stuffs at it, and then turn to the other less powerfull rig to continue work, how bout that?

I think that way would speed my working and rendering hour, wouldnt it?

 

[chriscornell]

Thanx ChrisCornell and Pro Llama. Appreciate it. But... I just thought of something.

What if, I build 2 rigs. 1 is twice as powerfull as the other one, so I can do work at the more powerfull rig, and render stuffs at it, and then turn to the other less powerfull rig to continue work, how bout that?

I think that way would speed my working and rendering hour, wouldnt it?

I think that you would end up doing all the work on the not so powerful rig, because pausing your work to transfer it across the network to finish it on another machine is too annoying in the long run IMO.

Rendering is done solely by the computer, and therefore transferring rendering jobs is less of a bottleneck while working.

Again - that's my perspective on things

 

[refa]

Yeah... I think so... Anyway, thank you everyone. Glad you stopped by and posted comments