1 machine, 2 CPUs or 2 CPUs, 1 machine?

[K.Mandla]

I'm thinking about setting up a render farm to make a little money off some of my brother's architecture classmates.

I got my hands on a pair of Xeon machines -- Poweredge 1600SC's, both with a single 2.8Ghz processor. I have little experience with server hardware on the whole -- these are actually the first Xeons I've ever owned.

So would it be better to combine the two into a single machine with two processors, or keep them separated and run it like a farm?

As I understand it, rendering is such a CPU-intensive process that it seems like one machine would almost do better with the extra ... muscle.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. ;)

EDIT: Screwed up the title. Argh.

[John.Michael.Kane]

You may have to adjust the guide to fit your needs
Build Your Own Render Farm (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1847365,00.asp)

[Compucore]

Well if they are already two seperate machines keep them as they are and have them work in a farm setting. I am sure if you have a computer recycling center close by and are always receiving in slower computers that you can get some of the slower machines to combined with these two. You'll be able to get a good farm running for your friends there that need a render farm. I used to work for a place that took in many different kinds of old computers that are still functional.

Like amd K6-2 400 on up with some networking hubs and a router to handle the DHCP stuff. You can find a lot of things to do with that. I was so close in getting a HP Visualade server myself. It had 4 RISC based CPU's, with memory and hard drives already in the machine. Would be great to have that. I might do that once I get the SGI O2 up and running over here. :D

Compucore.