Utilizing MAC mini servers to create rendering clusters
My plan is to purchase 2 miniMAC servers , boost the RAM to 8GB and use them as slaves for rendering Compressor jobs.
My other option was to use 4 lower specs MACmini , say 2.3GHz with 4GB each .
The first option would give me 8 i7 CPU cores to use and the second option would give me 8 cores but i5 CPU's
When creating clusters like this what is the most crucial elements ? Amount of cores, amount or RAM or CPU types? I am assuming that hard disk amount and speed is not that relevant in this scenario?
Hardware used:
iMAC 3.4Ghz i7
16 Gb RAM
iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)