hardware suggestions

[spillstudios]

Hi

I'm looking to build an octane render rig, I've just bought a red harbinger dopamine case and I'm looking for other hardware suggestions. I have a i7 3930k sitting around with 32gb vengeance ram, hard drives etc. I have a 780 6gb, 770 4gb and 570 2gb. I guess what I need to know is a good motherboard for 6 gpus what power supply and which further cards to use. Are the 980 still running slower than 780?

Any advice would be great

Marc

[glimpse]

hi there, Mark! =)

Now that's a nice case =) please post some photos/build log as You do the build! Would be cool to get known this case.

I guess You're going for aircooled version? no watercooling..
(what would defeat the purpose of this great case).

In my eyes one of the best cards You can find on the market with non reference design coolers is Gigabyte windforce (also STRIX from ASUS, ACX from EVGA seems to do pretty good work..).

Guys from Polder Animation came up with piece on my site about their rig: Going on Air Wide Open – Custom rig for Octane Render by Polder Animation - guess this might be interesting read for You.

to that 980 thing =) it seems GM204 chip based cards (980s) & GK110 (780s/Titans) on the edge performing very close..- safe to say difference could be scene from scene to scene, but now Octane is fully optimized to take advantage of new architecture & there's little to no reason not to buy those cards (if they fit Your needs =)

if You're interested in performance comparisons take a look at result page of this tool - OctaneBench

You'll see a lot of varianse in terms of performance from the same card - let's say 980 =) on thing to keep in mind is that cooling does make a big difference - together with Sebastian (a.k.a. Smicha) we came up with long piece if You'd like to educate Yourself on this topic : Value-based GPU build for Octane Render You don't need to go watercooling, but if You choose aircooling at least buy good cards in order to take advantage of Your wonderful case =)

'bout motherboard, I'd really spend for something that has at least multiple 8x lanes =) otherwise Your upload speed (when data is transferred from CPU/system ram to GPU/vram) will be cropped.. =) migh be ok for render nodes, but for main rig, I'd say 8x is a must =) but do Your own testing (might be completely fine for You). I'd look into some X79 models from ASUS as they got cards with PLX cpips inside that multiplies those 40lanes from CPU..-allowing cards to be hooked on wider lanes..as You probably try to get more than 4x cards having more than 40 is probably going to help =)


feel free to drop a line if You have some more questions..we'll try to help You out!

& man, please make a build log as You go =) this should be awesome.

[RobSteady]

Really interested in that Dopamine Case!
Can you post some details and pictures?
Is there an optional cover? Otherwise it looks like the perfect dust collector.
Where do you order the case? The product link from their website leads to the indiegogo site...

Some customers reported missing hardware pieces and wrong gpu-card holding brackets.