Render Server (Opteron or Xeon)

[Myflag]

Hello Community Member,

I have a several questions for anybody here that would kindly lend their assistance, opinions, and (hopefully) some factual evidence toward solving my dilemmas.

I am currently in need of a dedicated render server to free up my work station for further work. My work station is current am Intel 2600k at 3.4GHz with 16GB of RAM. While this computer has and continues to work well it is limited for rendering more... intensive scenes and animations. It is not uncommon for a single frame render to take thirteen hours (advanced lighting, complex transparencies, ETC...) and animations taking thirty minutes or more per-frame even without GI. Needless to say, I am in need of an extensively more powerful and dedicated rendering machine.

From Newegg, I am currently considering building myself either a dual Xeon or dual Opteron server for rendering. Now, the only problem I am having is decided on which platform to invest in for a dedicated render server. I am currently debating between the following:

1. 2x Opteron 6272 2.1GHz 16-Core

2. 2x Xeon E5645 2.4GHz 6-Core

Now, my primary question to the kind people on these forums. Which setup would you recommend for the greatest rendering performance with Cinema 4D? If you can not in good conscious recommend either of the above platforms, than what would you recommend that is comparatively priced?

Any and all assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Myflag

 

[Dangman]

Setup #1 will provide slightly higher performance than the Xeon setup. But just barely sadly.

 

[Myflag]

That seems to be the general consensus after I have performed further research today. In the end, I have decided to go with the Xeons.

Thank you,
Myflag