GTX 590 quad set up?

[buzby]

Try re-installing the NVIDIA driver (310.90). Sometimes that helps.

That was it finally the beast is released!

I have been trying to build this system since I first bought Octane about 4 months ago and have spent more than I care to say rebuilding our computers but it still is far less than we would have spent even for one copy of the version of C4D and Vray that we would have needed to do our rendering.

I love the speed of Octane but as we are just getting into rendering it still seems to take forever so upgrading to the 4 GTX590 I know we are getting the fastest render possible. Barring of course the quad GTX690 but I think for the money (4 GTX 590 on Ebay run about $1700.00 as opposed to 4 690's at close to $4000.00) we are holding our own pretty well against The Octane Teams Chris (FooZe) with his 27 benchmark.

We humbly submit our 25.6 benchmark as proof Running a little hot though saw temp spike to 100 on one of the cards so we may need to find better cooling.

Octane Rocks!

[FooZe]

Awesome, good to see you finally got it going!

100 deg is a little warm :/
NVidia rates them for a maximum of 97 so yeah, additional cooling is perhaps a good move. For the 690's here i managed to cut a few degrees by making sure the case fans were working with the GPU fans to get hot air out of the case.

I can see a couple of options...
1) Try to under-clock them to keep them cool or,
2) Get some serious cooling and then overclock them.

I'm guessing option 2 is more appealing!

...Chris.

[whersmy]

Whats with the gpu-fan speed?

[buzby]

Awesome, good to see you finally got it going!

100 deg is a little warm :/
NVidia rates them for a maximum of 97 so yeah, additional cooling is perhaps a good move. For the 690's here i managed to cut a few degrees by making sure the case fans were working with the GPU fans to get hot air out of the case.

I can see a couple of options...
1) Try to under-clock them to keep them cool or,
2) Get some serious cooling and then overclock them.

I'm guessing option 2 is more appealing!

...Chris.

Yes I am going to have to look into it. I have been told 105 is where you reach meltdown so I think it is too close for comfort. I hate to think about it but I may end up trading these out for 4 water cooled 590s...someday for now I am pretty content. I think that is where the 690s really shine in power consumption and heat but I will wait a while till the price comes down.

[buzby]

Whats with the gpu-fan speed?

I think I had the "user define" on the fan setting off, they were cranking pretty good though. Not nearly what my old 580 classified would. Those things sounded like a jet engine when they were on full.

[whersmy]

It is the only way I can render with 4x 580s. Crank it up to 85%.
You know the MSI Afterburner has a yet-engine logo?

My solution for this mess: Extend a 10m HDMI-cable and USB-cable from another room: Heat issue solved, noise problem gone. I even have more space at my desk at my office. Total costs: 30 euros. (DVI adapters, HDMI cable)

[Refracty]

Hi buzby, I just saw this threat.
4 x 590s or 3 590s plus a 580 are both crazy fast setups.
Congratulations.
You asked why I decided not to go for a quad 590 setup.
These have been my ideas behind:

1. Energy: The power consumption is high. I went for a save way so that I knew that my 1500 W PSU would be sufficiant for the setup.
2. Scene Size: Because I am using a water cooled system, it is not possible to swap cards depending on the scene size. I wanted to have at least one 3GB card for bigger scenes - just in case. Of course that means that I can only use one card in this case but it is better then not be able to render at all.
3. Display VRam: To attach the 3GB card to the monitor means that you can use full 1.5 GB VRam of all cards for rendering. If your system and 3D apps consume 500MB and you want to use all cards it yould mean that you have only 1 Gig VRam.
4. The 580 is a card that is also supported by other applications like Premiere (GPU-preview).

But if you need a bit more speed you can go for a quad 590 rig.
It is a question of taste too.
In the end it depends on the scenes and aims.