GPU Rendering

How to Calculate CPU and GPU Hours for Animation: Simple Formula + Cost Estimator with Urja Render Credit curation based on Urja Calculator

Rendering is the final and most compute-heavy stage of any animation pipeline. Whether you use Maya, Houdini with Arnold or Renderman, Blender, Unreal, Nuke, Katana or any modern 3D tool, your total render duration, and ultimately your production cost, comes down to CPU or GPU hours consumed.

But most creators struggle with one important question:

“How do I calculate how many CPU or GPU hours my animation will take, and how does that translate into cost?”

This is exactly the clarity that Yotta’s Urja brings to the Indian and global CG community.

Why Urja Is Different - Transparent, High-Performance Rendering

Before jumping into formulas, it’s important to understand why Urja’s calculations are more accurate and more transparent than what most cloud render providers offer.

1. Precise Benchmark Mapping (Cinebench & OctaneBench)

Urja has mapped all CPU and GPU variants to industry-standard benchmarks:

• CPU Pods → Cinebench scores (AMD EPYC 9634 – 84 core dual CPU)

• GPU Pods → OctaneBench scores (NVIDIA L40S and various RTX series)

This ensures every frame you render is billed exactly according to real computational performance, not vague “vCPU” labels or shared resources. Globally, very few rendering clouds provide this level of transparency.

2. Higher Baseline Hardware Than Competitors 

Urja starts with 84 CPU cores + 256 GB RAM going to 1TB RAM on bare metal as the baseline. Most competing clouds offer only 28 to 48 cores, often on shared virtualized compute.

For creators, this means: 

• More speed per frame

• More stable performance

• More predictable billing

3. Full Specification Disclosure 

Urja openly reveals the exact generation of every CPU and GPU offered. Most render farms globally hide this information, making performance unpredictable.

4. Free Credits to Start: 50 URC on Signup

Studios receive 50 Urja Render Credits (URC) immediately after signup enough to test render or prototype a small project for free.

Part 1: How to Calculate CPU or GPU Hours Needed for Your Animation

No matter which render engine you use (Arnold, Renderman, Redshift, Octane, Cycles, V-Ray), the total compute required follows a simple model.

Formula 1: Total Compute Time for a Single Frame  and the Whole Project

Total Frames × Compute Time Per Frame

Total CPU or GPU Hours Needed

For example:

• 300 frames

• 2 GPU minutes per frame

300 × 2 = 600 GPU minutes   

600 ÷ 60 = 10 GPU hours 

Formula 2: Convert Compute Hours → Urja Render Credits (URC)

Each hardware tier on Urja has a fixed URC/hour rate. 

So, the final formula is:

Total CPU/GPU Hours × URC Rate per Hour

Estimated Render Cost in URC

You can plug these into the Urja Calculator on the portal, which auto-calculates:

• CPU/GPU hours

• URC cost

• Hardware comparison

• Overall savings

Urja’s calculator automatically does this using Cinebench/OctaneBench-mapped hardware.

In simple terms:

The faster the Urja machine, the fewer compute minutes are used per frame.

Part 2: Why Urja’s Benchmarking Makes Your Cost Estimates More Accurate

Because Render Time Isn’t Just About “Cores” or “VRAM”

The real-world performance of:

• AMD EPYC 9634 CPUs

• NVIDIA L40S GPUs (with 1 TB RAM per server)

varies dramatically depending on generation, thermal limits, core efficiency, and GPU architecture. By mapping Cinebench and OctaneBench scores into its pricing and metering system, Urja ensures: 

• You only pay for actual computation

• Every frame is tracked transparently

• You can estimate cost before rendering anything

• Two different GPU models aren't wrongly billed the same way

This protects studios from overpaying especially on long projects with complex lighting, simulations, fluids, crowd systems, or volumetric rendering.

Part 3: Using Urja Render Credits (URC) to Estimate Actual Cost

What Are Urja Render Credits (URC)?

URC is a unified billing unit used across all CPU and GPU instances. It makes comparing hardware simple: 

• If one GPU is twice as fast, it consumes half the URC

• If a CPU pod renders slower, the URC consumption corresponds to actual compute minutes

• The total URC consumed is always by default a collation of the CPU + GPU computational time utilized only.

This is what creators love most:

Transparent billing that scales with actual performance. 

Postpaid Models are Available

Studios or agencies working with unpredictable spikes of workloads can choose postpaid billing, make production pipelines smoother and reduce pre-production delays. 

Free Credits for Testing 

Every new studio gets 50 URC free on signup equivalent to INR 5000.  This is enough to: 

• Run a test render

• Benchmark your scenes

• Estimate a full project’s required compute

• Compare CPU vs GPU rendering efficiency

• Evaluate cost variations before uploading production files

Part 4: Example – End-to-End Cost Estimation Workflow

Here’s how a typical studio uses the Urja Calculator: 

Step 1 - Test Render Locally

Render 1–3 frames on your machine (low sample and full sample both help). 

Step 2 - Enter Frame Time into Urja Calculator 

• Choose CPU or GPU flavour

• Input your local render time

• Calculator normalizes the speed using Cinebench or OctaneBench

• Enter either/or: The total number of Nodes needed or the total timelines in days. One of them will be greyed out, once entered.

Step 3 - Enter Total Minutes of Render content to be generated. 

The calculator shows:

• Total CPU/GPU compute minutes

• URC required

Step 4 - Estimate Total Budget

You instantly see whether the project will cost for e.g. 161, 571, 1290 etc. So on and so forth... URCs depending on complexity of the content to be generated. 

Step 5 - Adjust Hardware & Compare 

Switch between CPU and GPU options to find the most cost-efficient choice. 

Conclusion: Accurate Render Forecasting = Better Production Planning

With Yotta’s Urja, studios no longer need to “guess” render time or cost. The mix of high-end hardware, benchmark-based transparency, clear URC billing, and free signup credits makes Urja one of the most straightforward rendering solutions available today.

If you're a creator, VFX team, or animation studio seeking predictable render budgets, and the ability to benchmark before investing, Urja’s combination of 84-core bare metal servers, NVIDIA L40S GPUs, and Cinebench/OctaneBench mapping delivers unparalleled clarity.

You can explore, calculate, and test using the free 50 URC credits at: 
Urja.pro