Just a question out of curiosity, say I want to have the best possible setup for Blender, especially when it comes to simulations and rendering. What kind of setup would get me the best possible results, where could one get one and how much would it cost, and how long would that rig stay modern? I think I heard some companies build computers for purpose of rendering, although I guess those rigs most probably telly more on quantity and quality of ram and cpu rather than GPU itself, but correct me If I’m wrong. Hell… even I don’t what I want at this point. However I do have to mention that I’ve also heard those companies dealing with special rigs for rendering also tend to give 5+ year warranty, no?
P.S. I’m not looking to buy, I’m just asking this as I’ve already said out of curiosity. Sorry for wasting your time.
I would highly recommend that you spend some time learning to make your own system. It’s not too difficult and you get exactly what you want. I used to make my builds to last at least 5 years before I needed an upgrade. Now I use the 5 year mark to do big updates like a new CPU/motherboard and/or case.
For simulations you need a lot of system memory, for rendering you will want a nice GPU or two with as much vram as you can afford. I’m not sure just how much money I have spent on my system as I do minor upgrades every one or two years (adding more memory, adding disk storage, or upgrading my GPU). I also move old components into my new system if they are still good (disk drives, GPUs, etc).
If you go this route then I would suggest that you spend some money on a nice motherboard and CPU. Getting higher end versions of these will make upgrading so much easier and give you more time before you are forced to upgrade. You will want at least 16 GBytes of system memory but make sure you have the option to add more later (my current motherboard has room for 128 GBytes).
For rendering you will need a nice newer GPU(s) that have at least 4 GBytes of vram, although more is better. Given that AMD is still having issues with their drivers and OpenCL support, Nvidia cards are still the best bet right now.
I think a nice mid-range system would be about $1200 to $1500 US. A high-end system with 4 GPUs and a lot of memory would be around $2500 to $5000 US depending on the GPUs. In the end being able to make your own system will allow you to customize it to fit what you need. It will take a few years to settle on a system but it’s worth it in the end.
Well…the best possible system is kind of giant network of computers. What youd would want is not the fastest but the most efficent (production and power usage) hardware because your only limitation would be the resources our tiny planet offers. Good thing is: It would be “modern” forever because there are no resources left to build anything better :eek:
I guess you are right, Grimm. Learning about computer components and building custom one with a help of an experienced person or a professional would be the most wises way to approach this problem.
OriginalSin, I really don’t know about giant network of computers. Don’t they take too much space and require a lot of time to boot up and heat rooms really fast when rendering complex scenes?