I seem to recall an article that mentioned that the
effects on
"Titanic" were rendered using a room/closet full of Peecees (Dell, I
think)... Something about the hardware (running Linux, IIRC) cost
less than $50K.
160 x 433Mhz Alpha's for the rendering farm.
See:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2494
Martin