Building Render farm Vs buying used workstation !

[Mohamed Abbas]

HI,
I been looking forward to build a render farm for my tiny freelancer 3d architecture visualization . i mainly use 3ds max with vray , Photoshop and illustrator . sometime working in video editing projects .
while searching around on the internet i found i have few options , i either build a render farm inside IKEA helmer which i found a bit odd for me . i never tried this before . Or .. i have a chance to buy a used "Dell T7500 - ram 32GB-X5680 x2 (24 CPU)" .
so basicaly its all about ;
Dell T7500 - ram 32GB-X5680 x2 (24 CPU) USED server will cost me around (1.5k USD)
VS
3x nods I7-4790 Haswell 3.6GHz LGA 1150 with 16gb ddr3 inside Ikea helmer . will cost me around ( 2.4k USD)
please feel free to add your other options here . thank you in advance .

 

[Whtwolf]

What graphics does the Dell have in it?

That is really the power you need for your video rendering and 3D applications.

 

[Mohamed Abbas]

it have Quadro 4000 , but why i would need graphics card for rendering ? vray and 3ds max , and most of rendering systems req raw CPU powers . correct me if i am wrong ?

 

[Whtwolf]

I was just thinking about the photoshop and video production, and that rig definitely has enough CPU power!

The one thing that I would worry about is buying the used system, and not really knowing how long and hard it has been run.