Render farm (or alike)

[madcoo]

Hi everyone
I will probably need to setup a render-farm soon, as I'll have a long video to render.
=> Does anyone know how I could manage to do this ?
I'd need the power of something like 4, 6 or even 8 GTX 690
(the quicker the render the better)
I use 3DSMax + plugin v1.10

In case you were wondering, NO I didn't win the lottery lately
My local computer reseller is a customer of mine and he has now become kind of a friend/business partner.
He told me that if one day I needed to setup a render farm he would be ok to set it up for me at a very low cost, since he can get the hardware at cost-price.

Many thanks in advance for your replies

Cheers,
Madcoo

[sphericall]

Lucky you!!

[madcoo]

Thanks...
But still, I don't know how I could do this...

I had a look at other topics, and one solution seems to be the "Neststor" PCIe expansion box, but on the other hand I got in touch with another company that builds PCI expansion boxes (can't remember the name) and they advised me to plug multiples GPUs directly onto a high-range motherboard, so I can fully benefit from the motherboard's bandwidth...

Anyone's got any idea ???
Cheers,
Madcoo

[rappet]

Hi Madcoo,

There are more posts related to expansion boxes and I could make out of it that buying expansion boxes are probably more expansive then buying a second machine.
I think for rendering just one image you don't really need more then 4 GPU to save time,
but for animation.. yes!
And why not build a second machine rendering your animation in two parts?
At the same time you have a new machine with new specs, you got a backup machine as well.. just in case, and probably you save money.
Having 8 GPU outside the machine with extension cables could be a solution,
but you still need extra PU watts and cooling. So far, on this forum, I have seen only handmade build external multi-GPU boxes that does not make it way-too-expensive like to buying such an expension box like Cyclone.

It is cool to have a 8-GPU machine, but I would buy two machines instead,
but that is my 1,5 cent
I am not an expert in this, so maybe you expert guys can respond better on this.

greetz,

[mib2berlin]

Hi, there are more and more mainboards with 4 or more PCIe slots.
For example > http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Big-Bang- ... --B3-.html
Put 4 Titan in and use it remote from your workstation, i do this sometimes from laptop.
Supermicro has boards with 8 PCIe slots but very expensive.
Here is a server with 4, cant find the 8 Slot version.

http://www.supermicro.nl/products/syste ... R-TPRF.cfm

Cheers, mib.

[Andreas.visjon]

Hi madcoo,

for sure it´s not that simple.
Power supply and Cooling should be set up correct if u have 8 cards rendering over hours and hours.

Maybe these links are helpfull.

https://developer.nvidia.com/content/ho ... ch-cluster

http://www.hpcgeeks.com/index.php/hpc-h ... l=&start=2

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wik ... uster.aspx

Ciao
Andreas

[madcoo]

Wow, thanks a lot for your replies guys, that's plenty of info that I'll pass on to my hardware reseller !

Hmmm...
I don't know but it seems like investing in a BIG motherboard and building a new BIG computer might be best.
"Clustering" looks a bit frightening to me, as there are plenty of technical details to handle...

One more question : why would you buy Tesla cards instead of GTX6xx or 7xx series ?
I had a look at the specs for some Tesla cards (or at least those I've had a look at) but they have less CUDA than GTX cards... Or maybe they have less CUDA but they manage them better ???
[EDIT : sorry I meant QUADRO not Tesla. Still, my question remains : is it better for quicker render to buy several Quadro or several GTX ?]

Cheers and many thanks again guys
M.

[BorisGoreta]

I have Netstor expansion box and it works perfectly. I warmly recommend it. Best GPU to buy is TITAN because of it's speed and memory (6GB). GTX690 are not such a good choice because they appear as 2 GPUs in Windows and then you can hit the max number of GPUs limitation much sooner then with TITANs and they only have 2GB per GPU. Don'y but quadros or teslas because they are not faster with Octane. Octane was designed to work best with normal consumer cards.

[mib2berlin]

Madcoo, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... 19-22.html
Titan is still fastest Cuda card on earth + 6GB VRam.

Cheers, mib.

[madcoo]

Wow indeed the benchmark page clearly makes Titans an obvious choice...!
Many thanks for this complement of information guys !

I'm quite happily surprised by the prices of Titans too !!!
I thought they'd be like 3000€ each, but they seem to be around 700€ to 1000€, which is not bad compared with some Quadros or Teslas that cost 5000€ !

Investing in a whole new computer that would have 2 top-of-the-range Titans would be a nice setup, what do you think?
The only thing is I don't know how to compare Titans'CUDA with my current GTX680s'CUDA.
Can you say for example "100 CUDA in a Titan is the equivalent of 400 CUDA in a GTX680" ???

Cheers,
M.