C'mon you great artistic types! We need more dual monitor wallpapers.

Nice system Ryan. I'm an IT guy myself. Which resources are consumed the quickest with your work, system RAM, video RAM, disk I/O, or CPU? Just wondering where your bottlenecks are, if any.

A lot of SB-E boards support 64GB of RAM, so that doesn't preclude their use. Looks like that would run about $600 for the RAM.

on a SB-E motherboard with 8 DIMM sockets, 32 GB of memory would cost under $200 (but would have to be replaced if you ever expanded). But purchasing three of everything else (mobo, case, graphics, etc.) could nullify the lower costs of the CPUs and RAM. You'd lose ECC protection though.



I don't know if it would be more difficult to farm the work out to three separate systems vs. one or not, but that's another consideration.



Either way, I hope SB-E offers more performance for you!

Ryan,



Since your primary machine is already really fast, maybe what you should look at is more, smaller systems to round things out?



Like using single SB-E processors? For the price of a single Xeon E5-2690 (8C/2.9GHz/20MB L3) cpu you can get 3x i7-3930K SB-E CPU's (6C/3.2GHz/12MB L3). So a trio of SB-E's would get you 2 more cores, all running at least 300MHz higher, and 18MB more L3 Cache on the CPUs.



The Xeon's would obviously be faster, but with the kind of horsepower you use cost efficiency can come into play.

@FlareHeart, good call. How about:

Aldebaran, Altair or Antares (Ben-Hur)

Balius or Xanthos (Achille's horses)

Hengroen (King Arthur's hourse)

Pegasus (no explanation needed)

Svadilfari (Sleipnir's father) ?

Just wondering if you were taking suggestions on the name for your new machine?

If you wanted to stick with the legendary horse names, you could use "Sleipnir" (Odin's 8-legged horse).

I was just mentioning because the first time I got prints made of photos I'd taken with my digital camera is when I realized that digital photos print darker than they look on the computer monitor so then whenever I got prints I had to adjust the contrast so that the photos would look the same in reality as they had on my screen. It hadn't occurred to me that the same thing would be the case for the posters. I'd assumed the printer would make the necessary adjustments to keep the artwork prints looking exactly the same as they had on the monitor. I wondered if others that ordered prints from Zazzle had the same thing happen? What did you think of the ones you've gotten so far? Maybe the mess-up with mine was just a one-time thing?

I'd been wanting to get poster prints of your work for the longest time and last time Zazzle did a sale I bought 3. It was the first time I ever purchased from Zazzle and had heard good things. I love your art so I was disappointed that the posters were not printed well and spoiled your art in my opinion. Each one (I got Highland Spring, First Light and Temple of the Leaf) was much darker than I was expecting, to the point that I almost didn't recognize Highland Spring as it looked so different to me and First Lightprinted so dark that it didn't have the same look and beautiful colors as it did on my computer screen. Areas that look vibrant green on computer screen looked nearly black in the poster. Also, for some unexplained reason, they put a white strip along the top and bottom of the first two but not on Highland Spring and the posters then look bad in the frame with the strips showing out of the frame. I don't know if you've seen copies of all your work that they offer in poster print so I don't know if you were aware. Maybe it's normal that they printed so much darker but I wasn't expecting that. I had thought they'd look the same as they do on-screen, the same exact level of lighting and colors but it was as if the contrast was turned way down in the poster prints than how they look as wallpapers :(

Careful, you might accidentally finish calculating pi to its last digit with that beast ... after you're done successfully dividing by zero.

Ryan, I'm SO glad you got to do your upgrade -- I hope it's fun to use and helps to increase your income. I am also certain that the Devil Duckie is extremely important for proper functioning of the electronics!

I'm curious about the case. which one is it?

well Ryan Despite the awesome Evga Sr-2 not fitting the case....

the new system is still a beast! well done!



3 times faster is a good average! :D

Just my comment on render farms: I remember reading in CPU magazine some time back that ILM switched to Linux based economy boxes (This was a while back, but I think they were older P4's) which saved them a vast fortune as I recall over the new SGI workstations. Using hundreds of them in a "farm" they were able to render in real time. Pretty impressive, but I'm not sure it'd be cost effective in this case.

well Ryan

you already have the 4 base components for your new rig specified!



Motherboad

Cpu

RAM

GPU



although the gpu matter is tricky..

due to the obvious reasons that made you let got the quadro series!



Software mechanics is always the main issue..



either way you on the good track!

specially on the motherboard and CPU field! =)

I just saw this link on Tom's Hardware about Building Your Own Render Farm from last year. Thought you might want to take a look: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/render-farm-node,2340.html

I'm pretty clueless about this stuff but I believe Vue and Lightwave both have the ability to run on render farms. I think Vue includes 5 nodes in the box and I believe Lightwave is unlimited (I could be wrong on both accounts). Would it be worth it to consider cheap render nodes rather than (or in addition to) a single powerful box so that the rendering could be distributed among multiple computers? They would basically only need decent processors (i7-2600k for instance), lots of ram and small hard drives for the software/OS and basic video cards. You could use a KVM switch so you wouldn't need monitors, keyboards, etc. for each box. Again, I don't know much about graphics rendering but I would imagine each box could be easily under a grand and you could add boxes/nodes as needed/desired. It seems that much like a RAID system that uses cheap drives to create a lot of speed, a render farm made of cheap nodes may be more cost efficient than a single expensive workstation.

Ryan EVGA also has a compatibility list of cpu's and memory they tested on their motherboards !



PLEASE do check it out!



http://www.evga.com/support/motherboard/



List of CPU:

Westmere



Xeon X5690 - 3.46 GHz <- the ones you choose

Xeon X5680 - 3.33 GHz

Xeon X5677 - 3.46 GHz

Xeon X5670 - 2.93 GHz

Xeon X5667 - 3.06 GHz

Xeon X5660 - 2.80 GHz

Xeon X5650 - 2.66 GHz

...



and list of memory models:



DDR3-1333



Corsair TR3X3G1333C9 1GB

Corsair CMX8GX3M4A1333C9 Ver5.1 2GB

Crucial CT51272BA1339.18SFA 4GB ECC

Crucial CT25672BA1339.18FF 2GB ECC

Crucial CT12872BA1339.9FF 1GB

OCZ OCZ3G1333LV12GS 2GB

Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/1G 1GB ECC

Kingston KVR1333D3D8R9S/2G 2GB ECC

Kingston KVR1333D3N9/4G 4GB <<-------??

PATRIOT PSD36G1333ERK 2GB ECC

PATRIOT PS312G13ER3K 4GB ECC







im not sure if they tested the Kingston model you choose!



either way is a matter of asking them! simple no?

Hi Ryan!



yes ray-tracing is a cpu devour process!



BUT remember you can easily OC those cpu's on aircooling with good thermal paste to 4GHz with ease with that EVGA motherboard!



EVGA putted 300% more gold on those cpu pins so contact between cpu and motherboard would be optimal!



that motherboard breathes overclocking all over it!

you can do it with ease!



if you never done it you can just raise the FSB a bit on bios and you gain 500Mhz with ease!



don´t be afraid! evga made that motherboard for voltage increasing!

Just bought a gift subscription for my sister for her birthday. Hope this helps with the new workstation :) Keep up the beautiful work!

Oh yea... "Field of Dreams"



"Build it, and they will come!"

:D

Ryan, I must admit that I didn't expect to see such a hefty price tag when I clicked the link. That's quite impressive! Do what you have to do - I'm glad you have some hardware-savvy members to advise you - and we look forward to the projects that you'll complete with your new components! I know I can't be alone in wishing that we could have a closer look at the process behind your wallpapers... maybe you can make some videos (or just some long posts, with pictures) about how you go from concept to completed work. You talk about the time-consuming process of rendering as if it's an automatic task, but can you share more of your input with us? I'd love to see what goes into each work, especially if you're about to drop huge money on an upgraded system, the workings of which most of us don't quite understand!

New iMac's released today (or yesterday). Not that I'm an all-in-one fan, but a 2GB video card seemed pretty cool, as well as 16GB RAM. Just sayin'.

My own personal thought would be to swap to a raid array of smaller disks, then add in water blocks on the HDs (and procs, at that point). The improved hard drive throughput will probably save you some time (although I've never done any large renders, so I'm not sure where the usual hang-up is). You could even probably get away with a slightly slower processor to compensate for the extra price, if its an issue. Also, on the topic of soundcard, do you regularly play music on your main box? I personally still use an MP3 player when I'm coding, which means it doesn't matter what my computer's doing (or what computer I'm using, or where I'm at)... and I cant imagine you don't already have one of those.

Thats one expensive machine. Personaly if in your shoes i would wait to see how AMD Bulldozer 8 core processor preforms when it is released in June. Since normaly more core processors preform better in encoding like image rendering.



Also if you havent heard of this site before, The http://hardforum.com/ is a great forums to get infomation and feedback from. I would highly recomend cheeking it out if you havent already.

I have and love the HAF, but I remembered you had that desk enclosure you put your towers in. The HAF tends to draw a lot of air from the side and vents a lot of air upwards. Is there enough space in your desk to get good air flow around the outside of the case?

I know you want the fastest, cause it's the same way I am, but I would save $400 or so and get a slower-clocked Xeon, like the X5675, which clocks in at a still nice 3.06GHz.

Hi Ryan!

about that EVGA Classied Sr-2..



it supports:

DIMM QTY: 12 DIMM SLOTS

Mem Type: DDR3 800/1066/1333MHz ECC or NON ECC

Mem Capacity: 48GB



You can read the rest here (PDF):

http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/270-WS-W555.pdf



EVGA has PDF details of everything they have!



this motherboard is a A2 part number (PART NUMBER: 270-WS-W555-A2) -> witch means it has a limited lifetime warranty



for warranty details read more here:

http://www.evga.com/support/warranty/



that's the top of the top in motherboard world..

it's the dream of every hardcore user / Gamer



CAREFUL: a case with 9 or more expansion slots is required, 10 for 4-Way SLI.



i gave you the list below! make sure it is compatible or it wont fit in the case!



cheers!

It says on the spec sheet you can use ECC or non-ECC.



http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/270-WS-W555.pdf

Depending on your OS I'd make sure that everything there has updated drivers that will work for you. (before purchasing) I've just had to reinstall windows 7 about 4 times in the last 6 months due to incompatibility.

@Jan - I can see those going out with lack of cooling. I have 4 of those in a PC case and I have a 180mm fan blowing on them and a case sensor temp right behind them and they are around 100F at all times. No issues with the drives - and they are RAID 10 setup thus I get 4 TB out of them.

The new LGA2011 Xeons will provide more performance for similar price, but they aren't due out until 4Q11/1Q12. Doesn't sound like you really want to wait that long.



The Crucial C300 SSD is a little cheaper than the Intel 510, but the reliability of Intel is generally superior. May want to consider if the added price (pretty minor considering the cost of the whole system) is worth it, even for just the boot/application drive.



I also say to get whichever sound card you want. It's not that expensive in the grand scheme and you'll be more productive if you're happy, which benefits us all :)

You can always get one at a later date as you have one now. Maybe with a new build, and the latest software, it will work better. If not, you can always go for the one level down .. something like this for $70 is pretty good. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=29-132-006

OK Ryan nice RIG there!



2 things tho:

Pc case and Motherboard!



i still Strongly recommend the:

EVGA Classified SR-2 Motherboard! (good warranty)



http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=270-WS-W555-A2&family=Motherboard%20Family&series=Intel%205520%20Series%20Family&sw=5



as it is with the supermicro motherboard this evga motherboard needs also a special case SO:



you can choose one of the ALU Mountain Mods case:



U2-UFO,

Extended U2-UFO,

Ascension,

Extended Ascension,

Pinnacle 18 or Pinnacle 24 with HPTX tray assembly



http://www.mountainmods.com/modular-hptxsr2-motherboard-tray-assembly-p-567.html



Or



Lian Li PC-P80

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=131&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61

Looks like a solid machine to render your more complex scenes on. However, we've had some bad luck with those very large harddisks in the office. Some of them made it about a week then broke down completely. Personally I'd go with two or four smaller harddisks. You might want to chain them together in a RAID array if you really need such a large chunk of continouus space (about 1.82 TB, since the industry's TB don't match up with the actual TB).

Concerning the sound card: I'm running an X-Fi Fatal1ty on Windows 7 x64 as well and in case the Xonar comes with similar means to optimize the sound I'd never buy a Creative soundcard again. The drivers are horrible and support is non-existant. Better pay 200 dollars for a decent soundcard than waste 60 dollars on nice hardware which gets ruined by its drivers.

Why Asus Xonar d2x and not Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty? I am just curious why you need a $200 sound card when you could save that money for something else. Are you gaming or doing something else because you can get a good 7.1 with a PCI-E slot for around $60.



Secondly, I don't know what OS you are going to use, but remember Windows 7 home premium won't work for you since you have more than 16gb ram and 2 sockets. You have to have Professional or Ultimate. Just letting you know.

Make sure that Extended ATX motherboard will fit properly in the case you selected. I though you were going with a Supermicro Case/Motherboard combo? I would suggest going back to that configuration because its purpose built with optimized cooling, hotswap HDD bays and a quality redundant power supply.

The sooner you pull the trigger, the sooner you can start the clock on upgrading again!