I am benchmark testing a desktop as a service (DAAS) called Advance 2000, and thus far, I am impressed! The company has been around for awhile, so they have a solid understanding of the needs of the Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) industry.
Here, is the scene I used.
The scene I used does use one plug-in, which I have uploaded here. I am in the middle of the test so I will post the results soon. I am using Chaos Group's V-Ray. and Autodesk's 3ds Max®, for my testing.
2 - Intel Xeon CPU X5680 @ 3.33GHz, 32.0GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (Advance2000 Cloud)
My Advance2000 cloud render, running 2 Intel Xeons, took 1h 29m 32.7s. You can see the computer specs under the above final render.
1 - intel(R) Core i7 CPU 965 @ 3.20GHz (8 CPUs), 24.0GB, NVIDIA Quadro K5000 4095 MB (local farm)
4 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), 12.0GB, Stock video card (local farm)
My local render farm, running 5 Intel i7s , took 1h 7m 58.9s. You can see the computer specs under the above final render.
So, we are almost running neck to neck, but in their lane is 2 rigs, and on my side is 5 rigs. Mind you, my rigs are about 7 years old and have already paid for themselves 10x.