The upsides to a remote rendering rig are not obscene, but they are nice. Basically a top-end machine is big, ugly, noisy, and hot. So remote rendering lets you

The upsides to a remote rendering rig are not obscene, but they are nice. Basically a top-end machine is big, ugly, noisy, and hot. So remote rendering lets you put it out of sight in a dark corner of a cool room in your house. In my case, the basement laundry. It also means the rendering rig can still have normal monitors to be used as a normal computer if you choose. Lastly, even my $400 laptop can now play Skyrim at max settings, so I can play on the porch if I like. As your other reply mentions, as far as competing remote rendering protocols, there aren't really any others good for games.