Render Farm
What a Render Farm Costs, Cloud Rendering vs Your Own GPU Render Nodes, and Where to Run Them
Render GPUs rent for about $1.30 to $2.50 an hour, and a studio with a steady render queue can own the baseline for less. We find the rented capacity, or the data center space for your own render nodes, and negotiate the terms.
Price My Render CapacityThe render farm decision used to be about buying workstations. Now it is about where GPU capacity comes from: a managed cloud render farm billed per frame, rented GPU servers running your own pipeline, or render nodes you own in a data center. This page compares the render farm cost of each, explains which GPUs suit rendering, and covers what a studio needs from a facility. We are independent: we do not run a render farm or sell hardware, and the provider you choose pays us.
Prices checked October 2026, from GetDeploying and published provider price lists. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Four Ways to Run a Render Farm
| Option | How it works | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managed cloud render farm | Upload the scene; the service renders it. Billed per node-hour, about $1 to $7, or per benchmark hour | Overflow, deadlines, small teams | Least control; per-frame costs add up on long projects |
| Rented GPU servers | Dedicated GPU servers by the hour or month, running your own render manager | Studios with a pipeline that need capacity now | Monthly cost runs as long as the project does |
| Own render nodes in colocation | Your servers in a data center, with power, cooling and fiber handled | A steady render queue, year round | Upfront hardware cost; needs a facility near the studio's network |
| Own render nodes on premise | Servers in the studio's own machine room | Small farms in a building with spare power and cooling | Power, cooling and noise limit how far it can grow |
Managed render farm rates from published price lists, October 2026. Per-frame services also bill in benchmark units, such as OctaneBench-hours, which measure work delivered rather than time.
Then a managed render farm is probably the most expensive way to do it. Send your GPU count, render hours and deadlines, and you'll hear back within 24 hours with rented and owned options priced.
Render Farm Cost: Rent or Own?
One eight-GPU RTX PRO 6000 render node costs roughly $190,000 to $250,000 to buy, after GPU prices rose sharply in 2026. Rented at about $2 per GPU-hour around the clock, the same eight GPUs cost about $140,000 a year. Whether owning pays depends almost entirely on how many hours the farm actually renders.
MCA calculation from the figures on this page. Excludes power consumption, staff, storage, software licenses and the resale value of the hardware. Free to cite with a link to this page.
MCA calculation: about $270,000 to own and colocate over three years, against about $420,000 to rent around the clock. Reserved or cheaper rental rates move the break-even later; higher rates move it earlier.
Own the baseline
If the farm renders most of the day, every day, owning the nodes and placing them in colocation is the cheapest way to run that steady load.
Rent the peaks
Deadlines, a second show, or one heavy sequence: rented GPUs cover the spike without buying hardware that sits idle afterward.
Below about 15 hours a day, rent
A farm that renders less than that on average usually costs less to rent, and renting leaves you free to move to the next GPU generation.
Which GPUs Are Best for a Render Farm?
Render engines such as Redshift, Octane, V-Ray GPU and Cycles use the ray-tracing (RT) cores on NVIDIA's RTX-class GPUs. The data center AI GPUs, the H100 and B200, do not have RT cores, so they cost more per hour and render worse. A GPU render farm should be built on RTX-class cards.
| GPU | Memory | RT cores for ray tracing | Best for | Rental, per GPU-hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell | 96 GB | Yes | Large scenes, heavy textures, the fastest GPU rendering | About $1.50 to $2.50 |
| NVIDIA L40S | 48 GB | Yes | Most production rendering at the lowest rate | About $1.29 median |
| NVIDIA H100 or B200 | 80 to 180 GB | No | AI training and inference, not rendering | About $3 to $6.50 |
Specifications from NVIDIA; rental prices checked October 2026. AI GPU pricing is on H100 rental and B200 and B300 rental.
What a Render Farm Needs From a Data Center
Render nodes are far easier to host than AI racks. An eight-GPU RTX PRO 6000 server draws roughly 6 to 7 kW and an eight-GPU L40S server roughly 4 to 5 kW, so a few nodes fit an ordinary high-density cabinet with air cooling. What matters more for a studio is the network.
Render node figures are MCA estimates from GPU power ratings plus CPUs, memory, storage and fans. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Power per cabinet
About 15 to 25 kW per cabinet for two to four render nodes. Air-cooled colocation handles it; no liquid cooling is needed.
A fast link to the studio
Artists push scenes and pull frames all day. A facility on the same metro fiber as the studio, with a dedicated wavelength or dark fiber back, matters more than the rate per kilowatt.
Fast shared storage
Render nodes are only as fast as the storage feeding them. Plan storage capacity and throughput in the same cabinet or cage as the nodes.
Spread nodes across cabinets at 10 to 15 kW and almost any modern colocation facility qualifies; at 20 to 25 kW you need a high-density hall, still air-cooled. Either way you have far more choice, and better prices, than AI deployments do. See the colocation pricing guide and data center connectivity for the fiber options.
For Media Companies: Beyond the Render Farm
Rendering is one of four infrastructure decisions most studios and media companies face. Each has its own guide.
Storage and egress
Large libraries in public cloud storage carry fees every time you download your own files. Owned storage in colocation removes them. See cloud repatriation.
Connectivity
Fiber to broadcasters, partners and cloud on-ramps from Manhattan's carrier hotels and the New Jersey hubs. See Manhattan data centers and the NYC metro.
Disaster recovery
A second site for archives and production systems, in a different power and flood zone. See disaster recovery.
GPU capacity beyond rendering
AI tools for editing, upscaling and generation need data center GPUs. See the GPU rental hub.
Send your render hours, storage size, studio location and timeline. You'll hear back within 24 hours.
How We Help Studios
You send the outline
Render engine, GPU count or hours, storage, studio location and deadlines. You'll hear back within 24 hours, at no cost.
We price rent, own and the mix
Rented GPU capacity from providers that can deliver RTX-class nodes, against owning nodes in colocation near the studio, with fiber back.
We find it and negotiate
The GPU capacity or the data center space, plus the terms: rate, term, delivery date and exit. The provider you choose pays us.
Render Farm: Frequently Asked Questions
What is a render farm?
A cluster of computers that renders frames for animation, visual effects and visualization in parallel, so a sequence that would take weeks on one machine finishes overnight. Most modern render farms are GPU render farms built on RTX-class cards.
How much does a render farm cost?
To rent, RTX-class GPUs cost about $1.30 to $2.50 per GPU-hour, and managed render farms charge about $1 to $7 per node-hour. To own, an eight-GPU RTX PRO 6000 render node costs roughly $190,000 to $250,000, plus about $1,400 a month to colocate at around 7 kW.
How much does cloud rendering cost?
Managed cloud render farms charge per node-hour, about $1 to $7 depending on the node and priority, or per benchmark unit such as OctaneBench-hours. Renting GPU servers directly costs about $1.29 per L40S GPU-hour and $1.50 to $2.50 per RTX PRO 6000 GPU-hour at specialist clouds.
Is it cheaper to build a render farm or use cloud rendering?
It depends on hours rendered. Over three years, one eight-GPU node costs about $270,000 to own and colocate, against about $420,000 to rent on demand around the clock, or about $210,000 to rent half the time. Owning starts to win at about 15 to 16 hours of rendering a day on average; uneven, deadline-driven work favors renting.
What GPU is best for a render farm?
An RTX-class GPU with ray-tracing cores. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, with 96 GB of memory, is the fastest for large scenes; the L40S, with 48 GB, is the value choice for most production rendering.
Can you use H100 or B200 GPUs for rendering?
They work for some compute tasks, but they lack the ray-tracing cores that render engines such as Redshift, Octane and V-Ray GPU rely on, so they render worse and cost more per hour. They are built for AI training and inference.
What is a GPU render farm?
A render farm built on GPUs instead of CPUs. GPU rendering is usually far faster per frame for engines that support it, which is why most new render farms are GPU-based.
How much power does a render node use?
An eight-GPU RTX PRO 6000 server draws roughly 6 to 7 kW, and an eight-GPU L40S server roughly 4 to 5 kW. Two to four nodes fit in a cabinet of about 15 to 25 kW.
Does a render farm need liquid cooling?
No. RTX-class render nodes are air-cooled, and a cabinet of render nodes falls well within what air-cooled colocation supports. Liquid cooling is for rack-scale AI systems.
Where should a studio put its render farm?
In a data center on the same metro fiber as the studio, with a dedicated link back, so artists can move scenes and frames quickly. For New York studios that usually means Manhattan or the nearby New Jersey sites.
Can we own a render farm and still burst to the cloud?
Yes, and most studios with a steady workload do. Own nodes for the everyday render queue and rent GPUs or use a managed render farm for deadline peaks.
How do studios cut cloud storage and egress costs?
By moving large media libraries and active projects out of public cloud storage into owned storage in colocation, where there is no fee to download your own files. See cloud repatriation for how the math works.
Per-frame or per-hour render pricing: which is better?
Per-frame or per-benchmark billing suits occasional jobs, because you pay only for work delivered. Per-hour or monthly GPU rental suits teams with their own pipeline and a steady queue, and is usually cheaper at volume.
Do you work with media and entertainment companies beyond rendering?
Yes. We place colocation for storage and archives, connectivity in Manhattan and New Jersey, disaster recovery, and cloud repatriation for studios and media companies.
What does it cost to use Metro Colo Advisory?
Nothing. The provider you choose pays us from its channel budget, and the rate is not marked up. If renting is cheaper than owning for your workload, we say so.
Price Your Render Capacity
Tell us your render engine, how many GPUs or hours you need, your storage and where the studio is. You'll hear back within 24 hours from the person who will run your search. If renting beats owning for your workload, we will tell you. No cost, no obligation, and the provider you choose pays us.
Once you have contacted a provider directly, it usually will not work through an advisor on your deal.
Renting GPUs: the GPU rental hub, GPU cluster rental, neocloud providers and bare metal.
Hosting your own: what colocation is, the colocation pricing guide, data center connectivity and AI and GPU colocation.
Media and New York: cloud repatriation, Manhattan data centers, the NYC metro, disaster recovery and how a data center broker works.
