[Bf-committers] Raspberry Pi render farm

[Stephen Swaney]

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 11:27:47PM -0500, Markus Schulz wrote:
> I was wondering if this ARM computer that can run Debian could be used to build a render farm. It only cost $35 with Ethernet, it only needs 5V and it only uses around 2 watts as far as I understand.

I'm as excited as anybody about the Raspberry Pi, but...

The whole point of a renderfarm is to do work.  Doing work consumes energy.

Using energy consumption as a proxy for computing power, back of the
envelope calculation says a multi-core Intel processor consumes ~100
watts, so 1 multi-core cpu = 50 Raspberry Pi.

If you can fit 10 R-pi boards in the same case as regular cpu, you only
need 5 x as much space for your farm.

The cost (50 * $35 = $1750) is roughly the same as a 'regular' machine.

Bottom line: I don't see any advantage.

( if your sole concern is energy consumption, I recommend getting a
bunch of those hand-cranked laptops and a whole lot of orphans )

-- 
Stephen Swaney			
sswaney at centurytel.net