Rendering Processor

[tomallen]

Hello all!

So. I am thinking of doing a largeish project which would include a LOT of rendering. So my idea is to get a new iMac 27". Which would be pretty fast. But what I would like to do is offload all the rendering to another processor/computer, so the iMac is still free to do other things. I know it's possible to set up a render farm. So my question is, how what are the minimum components to build a machine that could render what comes out of the iMac. It would NOT have to have anything that isn't needed for for the render process... Unless it really needs it... But I'm a newbie so I dunno. lol

If anyone wants clarification just ask!

Thanks

Noah

 

[twelve25]

What programs are you using? Rendering is generally a matter of what do you want to spend. The more you spend, the faster it gets done.

I think the idea of designing on mac and then rendering on a PC build is probably going to be more challenging to design. I'd consider using PC for both for simplicity and using a single platform.

 

[tomallen]

Probably mostly Blender. Also After Effects for compositing.

Yeah. The problem is I have used mac for 4ish years and am... entrenched. I would prefer to stay with mac. I could do hackintosh, but would prefer to keep it more stable. So I'm pretty sure I'd be able to do cross system with blender. I'd have to do a test now on my less powerful mac and an old(er) pc. So anyways, I think would need a motherboard (with ethernet), a SSD (or Hard drive), processor, and RAM. Not a GPU, right? And the motherboard could be pretty minimalistic. I wouldn't need a large drive, right? Maybe not even any, if it's going to a NAS. And what how much ram would I need if I got a dual core processor. I've heard 2GB per core. And about price, I'm just interested in figuring it out for now. I'll worry about price later, but it would be fairly low. Maybe $1000 for the (non mac) render node(s). Also, do I want more computers or more cores (and faster speed processors)?