It's ALIVE! FlyingArchitecture's new renderfarm

It's ALIVE! FlyingArchitecture's new renderfarm

FlyingArchitecture was created in 2008 as a freetime project of an architecture student in desperate need of 3D assets for Rhinoceros software. Unable to find any (except for the obvious Savanna3D collection from McNeel), he decided to open up his own blog and uploaded some of his own 3D models. After that, thousands of enthusiasts all over the world joined... and this is how the very first (and so far only) Archviz community for Rhino was started.

As time went by, we added more features to fill glaring gaps we noticed in the industry: V-Ray materials, tutorials, forum and Rhino-based architectural visualization services. Besides that, we started to educate people not only via tutorials, but also on our own workshops led in various European cities. And we are still growing!

It's ALIVE! FlyingArchitecture's new renderfarm

The next big thing missing in the Rhino world is... wait for it... a rendering service!

As an architectural visualization company, we work on large-scale projects and the scale of these projects has grown over the years. Current rendering machines get the job done, but you know... a little extra power wouldn’t hurt. ;)

So we decided to roll up our sleeves and build our first node, a hulking €5500 beast. I planned to call it Thor, The Mighty... but we encountered some minor issues while building our little darling and the project took on a life (and mission) of its own. We found out one of the coolers didn’t fit (by 3 mm!!!), so we had to dismantle 2 other PCs to get one that did :D So…  Frankenstein, meet everyone. Everyone, meet Frankenstein ;)

“So it’s got a cool name, but what can it DO?” Simple. Pretty much anything! Have a look under the hood:

  • 2 x Xeon E5-2650 V3 (10 physical cores, 20 logical... after adding both CPUs, that’s a total of 40 threads)
  • ASUS MB Z10PE-D16
  • Noctua NH-D15S
  • Seasonic X series 1050W
  • 128 GB of 2133 Mhz RAM ECC (not the ones in the photo - we switched them afterwards)
  • GeForce GTX 960
  • Fractal Design Define XL R2 Black Pearl

It's ALIVE! FlyingArchitecture's new renderfarm

It's ALIVE! FlyingArchitecture's new renderfarm

We will run Windows 10, Rhinoceros 5 and V-Ray for Rhino (always the latest version to get all features). We’re going to be using the farm for our own purposes at first, but once everything is tested and all the bugs have been zapped, we’ll be opening up access for all of you out there struggling with your complex 3D scenes or eternal render times.


We still haven’t decided on conditions, pricing, and other details, so we’d love to open up the topic for discussion to hear your thoughts on the matter. Frankenstein is ALIIIIIVE! Now let’s hear your ideas, comments, and questions on where to go from here.

Be well, everyone!


UPDATE:

Meanwhile we managed to upgrade our renderfarm with new nodes! What do we have?

2x Xeon E5-2650 v3 + 128GB RAM (Master) - 40 threads

2x Xeon E5-2670 + 64GB RAM (Slave 1) - 32 threads

2x Xeon E5-2670 + 64GB RAM (Slave 2) - 32 threads

2x Xeon E5-2670 + 64GB RAM (Slave 3) - 32 threads

That is 136 threads available for you :) Need to rent these beasts? Contact us!

Comments
Looks awesome, very nice investment. Any reason you guys didn't you want to wait for the new NVIDEA pascal ?
This is not a workstation, just a rendering machine. it's here just to open exported scene and launch render, so the current GPU is just enough for what we need.
luis88luis Apr 16, 2016
Amazing machine!!! The best of the wishes FA team! :)
Thanks Luis :)
There are only 2 things I really want for Rhino: a new upgraded and competitive Vray and a rendering farm service. Keep up the good work, we apreciate what you guys do for the Rhino comunity :) maybe Chaosgroup will show some love for Rhino too.
They will... very very soon ;) Just stay tuned. New V-Ray with appropriate renderfarm service will be available pretty soon, I'd say :)
winstonpynn May 5, 2016
Nicely done guys, looking forward to shortening my eternal rendering times. ha! Well done.
Congratulation for building this powerfull workstation guys! I've got kind of inspired by you and decided to build something similar. I have just one question, is the RAM you bought ECC? Would you be so kind and specify the exact model please? Thank you!
Good question :D Well, well, well... This one (in the picture above) we bought is non-ECC! We noticed that too late (components were delivered, photos done...) totally lame, right? :D The same day we ordered new ones, DDR4, 2133MHz, 8x16GB ECC :) Sorry for the confusion from the article, it's my fault.
We are already building 3 new render nodes, each of them will have: Samsung 64GB 8X8GB DDR3 1600MHz PC3L-12800R ECC REG - this time it's right ;)
Thank you Matus. I read somewhere on the internet that although officialy non-ECC are not supported by C612, sometimes it might work. So I was curious. As for the other 3 render nodes, I suppose you will be using different motherboards with the older C602 chipset, becouse the one on the picture supports only DDR4 memory. By the way, for those new render nodes you wouldn't be using second hand Xeons E5-2670 v1, which are now easily available for 70€ on ebay?
Exactly, following my friend - Juraj Talcik's blogpost. I ordered 6 Xeons for 66 USD/pc. Can't believe how cheap these pieces are...
I just ordered mine as well. Can I kindly ask where did you buy the motherboards and for what price? Thank you
I had to order MB from the local store, didn't find anything that cheap.
Same here. Anyway, thank you very much for all your help!
You are very welcome :) Post some thought in our Forum once you build it and make some tests ;)
Hello guy´s!! I´m building an E52670 too! i´m trying to find a motharbord but there so expensive!! What do you choose beetwin the Asus Z9PA-D8 or Asrock EP2C602-4L/D16
Hi! We chose ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS as they were in stock somewhere near ;)
Thanks for the reply Matus! For me the asus Z9PE-DE WS is to expensive! I´ll have to chose beetwin the Z9PA-D8 or ASrock! the are more affordable:))
Yeah, as I said - I took these as they were the only available and suitable MBs. Good luck with yours, zeca!
christos_g Jul 7, 2016
Hi to all Rhino Comunity.I use Rhino and Vray so many years now and invested so musch time that there is no reason to change this CAD package and Vray renderer. I am very excited about how this forum has developed. I really like your effort, I have used render farm in the past for rhino and Vray. The biggest issue was the textures to come all right - no missing textures and proxies, also some Vray settings may be inaccurate from one PC to another. I hope everything goes as planned.
Hi christos, thank You. I did some tests during last days and I experienced issues in 2 cases so far, where I got lighter buckets from nodes when compared to my main pc. On the other hand, tens of other images are coming out nicely, so I guess the ratio between good/bad attempts is still good :D Anyway, it's always possible to run it on master Frank (40 threads) with enough power :)
rachelre Aug 2, 2016
Hi Matus, Is it already possible to rent your render farm service, in order to shorten my renderings time?
Yes sure. Send me a message: matus@flyingarchitecture.com
muazesen Apr 4, 2017
Hey Matus, i want to ask you which motherboard you use for the 2x Xeon E5-2670? Thank you
Hi, if I remember correctly, we used Asus Z9PE-D8 WS
thank you for the information! Happy eastern!
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