What is the best graphics card for Octane Render?

[gordonrobb]

I think it only works with Nvidia.

Currently (best) would be Titan Black. That's purely based on the fact that it's got the most VRAM and is as fast as the next best 780Ti, which has half the VRAM.

[glimpse]

Hi,

We are looking at new graphics cards for our studio, and want to know:

a. What is the best NVIDIA graphics card for Octane Render?
b. What is the best AMD graphics card for Octane Render?
c. How many GPUs can Octane Render utilize for processing?

Lastly, do you have performance benchmarks for the program with these GPUs? Thanks for your help.

Rhea

hi, Rhea,

Gordonrob already sumarised best cards & that's straight forward. You can get quite good performance out of 580/590 - but these are older architecture based cards that are not so efficient as a side effect they are warmer while operating, pluss have less vram & You could house less textures..and they are out of production too.

Octane doesn't work with any AMD card, 'cos CUDA is nVidias technology(language).

Octane can see a lot (they even have their own, probably modified piece for the cloud), but firstly You're going to hit some sort of windows/bios (something along those lines) issue - so 7-8 GPUs is realistically what You're going to get at most in one box. Keep in mind for that You might need quite big case with somewhat more then 2kW of power if You want to feed 8x high end cards.

Lastly about performance, read a bit through GPU subforum - You'll get idea exact speeds. For the sake of simple, very loose view: Titan Black & 780Ti is ontop of performance charts (technically the same, but diff amount of vram), then goes regular Titan lower than that 780. 580 & 680 are around half the speed of regular Titan. If You a famillar with the way nvidia builds cards down the line, You should more or less figureout the performance of lower models based on the same line. Let's say older 480 was ~twise as fast as 460, but 470 was around 70% of 480..(in different lines 5xx, 6xx, 7xx - those gaps between models are different)

In the end everything matters how much of budget You have & what sacrifices (or not..) You're looking to make. Basicaly You get what You pay for, but don't need PRO (Tesla, Quadro)cards. For 1k You can get top of the GTX line, best performer in octane. For the the rig, it depends what else are You looking to use it for. if see no need for insane CPU power, probably something with mid quad, PCIe through PLX will house four Titans & You can easilly feed the system with 1.2kw PSU. Pick SSD's/HDDs & You are ready to go..

read through this forum & You'll find plenty ideas 'bout build and some different oppinions 'bout value and other things.

[voon]

I think the Pro cards are the same as the game cards more or less, apart from maybe ECC memory etc. Their main difference is the driver. It is optimized for polygon throughput, not shading etc ... which makes them suitable for CAD with insane amounts of polygons, but little requirement for crazy shaders. Sadly, you can't get or use those drivers with gameing cards.

That leaves the answer you gave: The best cards are the 780 Ti and the Black Titan atm.

[glimpse]

I think the Pro cards are the same as the game cards more or less, apart from maybe ECC memory etc. Their main difference is the driver. It is optimized for polygon throughput, not shading etc ... which makes them suitable for CAD with insane amounts of polygons, but little requirement for crazy shaders. Sadly, you can't get or use those drivers with gameing cards.

That leaves the answer you gave: The best cards are the 780 Ti and the Black Titan atm.

technically they are more or less the same. A while Ago I've seen some hardmod of GTX card that turned it to Quadro, and it accepted drivers..- Nvidia is probably aware of this & they make things difficult - You're paying for Product, labour to make it (doesn't matter if it's 90% or even more the same..)

however.. everything comes to usage model.. if You don't need 12GB of vram (that I think quadro offers)..and will not use ECC and DP (these don't matter in Octane) - then there's no point to waiste for PRO hardware. For the amount of one card, You can buy entire rig that will run 5times faster (in Octane). and if You choose to watercool it..it will run even at lower temps then Teslas..

[voon]

You need to factor in the small nuclear power plant you need to run those rigs, though