Rental nodes vs. buying a new rig
Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2026 12:49 pm
Hi everyone
I’ve been crunching the numbers lately because my current GTX 1080 Ti setup is finally hitting a wall with my latest interior scenes. I expected that with the recent price drops in hardware, building a dedicated dual-4090 rig would be the obvious long-term win over paying for monthly render farms. However, after looking at my actual project budgets and the sheer upfront cost of high-end components right now, I’m finding a huge gap between "owning the gear" and staying profitable. I’ve tried balancing my spreadsheets several times, but the initial investment for a top-tier local machine is so steep that it’s actually starting to look riskier than just sticking to cloud credits. I'm definitely no financial expert, but I’m struggling to see the "break-even" point where the hardware pays for itself before it becomes obsolete. How are you guys handling the leap to new hardware this year? Do you find it's still better to own the cards, or are more of you shifting to a "pay-as-you-go" model to keep your overhead predictable?
I’ve been crunching the numbers lately because my current GTX 1080 Ti setup is finally hitting a wall with my latest interior scenes. I expected that with the recent price drops in hardware, building a dedicated dual-4090 rig would be the obvious long-term win over paying for monthly render farms. However, after looking at my actual project budgets and the sheer upfront cost of high-end components right now, I’m finding a huge gap between "owning the gear" and staying profitable. I’ve tried balancing my spreadsheets several times, but the initial investment for a top-tier local machine is so steep that it’s actually starting to look riskier than just sticking to cloud credits. I'm definitely no financial expert, but I’m struggling to see the "break-even" point where the hardware pays for itself before it becomes obsolete. How are you guys handling the leap to new hardware this year? Do you find it's still better to own the cards, or are more of you shifting to a "pay-as-you-go" model to keep your overhead predictable?