Quote - Can't you increase the memory of a netbook past 1gig?

 

yes you can for several models, but it is not important because it costs too much to add ram module. my aim was to use 100-150$/€ for each netbook (new or second hand).

i'm pretty sure that purchase 12 netbooks to build a (12-cores/24-threads 12GB memory @ 1.6GHz) renderfarm is less expensive than buy a full machine bi-xeon 12cores....... ...but...i forgot something very important too:

 

with equal frequency, 1 atom core is not as speed as 1 xeon core cpu whatever the generation/architecture (moreover there is no SSE4 instructions in atom cpu).

in fact i think 1 core of a xeon is equal to at least 4 cores atom maybe more. It means that i would need 48netbooks to equal a 12cores xeon computer and at this level money is more expensive !

 

Last months, i saw a new that intel release a 128 atom atom server, i'm really wandering what would be the performance in a render process...

 

well, i will come next year for asking the same question : can i build a renderfarm with tablet PC or smartphone.....as cpu mobile already in dual/quad core in this device ! :-)