Network vs Local render: massive speed difference (KS7)

[RRIS]

Hi, so I'm encountering some render-speed issues with network rendering that I feel are more than just overhead.

I rendered a scene locally/networked on two different machines. My local workstation (W-2155 Xeon with 20 threads) and our render pc that is used exclusively for rendering (AMD 2970WX with 48 threads).

The render times (minutes):

Xeon local: 28:35
Xeon networked: 37:45
(132.5%)

AMD local: 12:30
AMD networked: 28:30
(228%)

(edit: I made sure there were no other computers active in the network at the time, so rendering was exclusive to each machine I was testing).

That's pretty crazy to me, I can't believe how much slower that AMD is over network than just rendering locally.
These are actual render times, not including sending/preparing/etc.
The renders are done to a maximum of 250 samples. I know that networked renders use buckets, vs local renders rendering the entire frame in iterations... is this difference in render techniques perhaps an explanation?

I'm left wondering what causes this big difference....

[DriesV]

Hi Renze,

Are you by any chance rendering your scenes using Interior Mode?
We recently issued an update for Network Rendering (8.2.98) that considerably improves performance when rendering Interior Mode images.

My suggestion would be to update your Network Rendering setup to version 8. You would still be able to send jobs from KeyShot 7.

Dries

[RRIS]

Hi Dries, thank you for your quick reply. I just checked but the renders were done in product mode.
We're a product design agency and 99% of the renders we make are of products floating in mid-air.

I'll let our system admin know that he can upgrade to NR 8, that's something we didn't do so far.

Aside from that, is it normal to see such performance differences between networked and local renders?

[DriesV]

Hi Renze,

Would it be possible for you to share your scene and settings (quality settings, resolution etc.)? I would like to investigate why you are seeing these slowdowns on NR.
You can send data securely via our WeTransfer. Send to dries-at-luxion-dot-com.

Dries

[RRIS]

Thank you Dries, I will prepare a file for you today and send that over. Much appreciated!