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MillimeterPixar Builds Massive Intel and Racksaver-based Renderfarm
Feb 12, 2003 12:00 PM
Pixar Animation Studios, the Academy Award-winning creator of "Toy Story" and "Monsters, Inc.," announced that it is working with Intel Corporation and RackSaver to create one of the most powerful computer installations ever used for digital animation.
Pixar's new RenderFarm, used to create the digital images for each frame of animation in its movies, will consist of 1024 Intel Xeon processors inside of eight new RackSaver BladeRack supercomputing clusters running Pixar's own RenderMan software. The RenderFarm features two terabytes of memory and 60 terabytes of disk space. Each Intel Xeon processor at 2.8 GHz is about five times faster than the older RISC-based processors in Pixar's outgoing RenderFarm. Pixar is using the system for its film, "The Incredibles," scheduled for a 2004 release.
Each BladeRack contains 66 dual-processor servers in an innovative arrangement that provides excellent cooling for very dense clusters. Pixar worked closely with RackSaver and Intel on the design of the systems, which are built around the tailored Intel SE7500WV2 server board. Pixar also utilized the assistance of Intel Solution Services and the sophistication of Intel compilers and performance tuning tools to boost the performance of their RenderMan software by 50 percent on the Intel-based systems.
About Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (Nasdaq: PIXR, www.pixar.com) combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. Pixar has created four of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Academy Award-winning "Toy Story" (1995); "A Bug's Life" (1998); Golden Globe-winner "Toy Story 2" (1999); and the Academy Award-winning "Monsters, Inc." (2001). Pixar's four films have earned more than $1.7 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The Northern California studio's next three film releases are "Finding Nemo" (May 30, 2003), "The Incredibles" (holiday 2004) and "Cars" (holiday 2005).
About Intel
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
About RackSaver
RackSaver, Inc. is a world-class provider of high-density individual rack-mounted computer servers and supercomputer clusters, high-density computing solutions, computing systems as well as other software integration services. The company's state-of-the-art servers and supercomputer clusters primarily utilize the Linux operating systems, the fastest growing segments of the server market. The company also offers servers with the Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems. RackSaver's management team has more than 30 years of experience in server design and manufacturing. RackSaver has been installing supercomputer clusters for the past four years. The company's systems are sold primarily to Fortune 2000 companies, universities, major research institutions, Internet service providers and research and development entities. RackSaver has been based in San Diego for over five years and is committed to providing custom and turnkey solutions for virtually any market needing high-performance computing power at the lowest possible cost. To learn more about RackSaver and its unique supercomputing cluster solutions please visit www.racksaver.com or call (858) 874-3800.
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