Mini PC as a render node

Question

Hello everyone! I’m working on a couple of motion graphics projects that require a lot of versioning — 13+ languages, different intros, outros… you know how it goes 🙂
I’m currently on a Mac Studio M2 Max, which is pretty fast for what I do, but each video has so many versions that even with quick render times, I still end up spending half a day rendering 100+ variations per video.

I’m considering adding a mini PC as a dedicated render node using Media Encoder, and I was wondering if anyone here has experience running After Effects to render this way. If you’ve tested specific brands, configurations, or setups that let you keep working on the main machine while the node handles renders, I’d really appreciate hearing about your experience.

My other choice is to get a refurb macbook pro, which are quite cheat right now to handle this.

Cheers,
DC

Kevin-Monahan · Answer

Hi,Thanks for the post. I understand that you want to create a render node with a separate PC or Mac. It soudns like you want to create a render farm. See this documentation for how to do just that: https://adobe.ly/49mSPwc far as specific hardware goes, I'll let the community give you advice on that. I hope the advice helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks,Kevin

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