As more and more people get into computer graphics, the bar on “awesome” is being continually raised. As render times climb ever higher and higher, rather than investing in a huge workstation, maybe you want to rethink the process.
If you’re looking at buying a new machine and are thinking of spending big bucks to get a bleeding-edge system, you might want to step back and consider whether it would be more effective to buy the latest and greatest workstation or to spend less by investing in a few additional systems to be used as dedicated render nodes.
The article gets into processor differences, rack-mount vs deskside, and scaling issues present in larger farms. A good read for anyone considering building their own.
via How To: Building Your Own Render Farm : Introduction – Review Tom’s Hardware.