What's the fastest rendering machine I can build?

[riggles]

I'm guessing that if "between six and ten minutes per image" is cramping his workflow, troubleshooting any network hiccup is not on the list of things to do either, lol.

[eisberger]

Hi Guys,

Thanks a lot for all of your excellent advice. At the moment, based on all of your replies, I'm tempted to go for one of the netstore external boxes. Am I right in assuming that it's not a PC in its own right, but simply something that connects to a spare PCI connector on an existing machine and then uses the network rendering capability of octane?

Is anyone using one of these at the moment? I feel like it would be the quickest and easiest way of getting to more power without having to take apart my existing setup. So if I were to go down that route, I'd simply have to buy such a box and six cards, maybe take out one of the 580s to make space for the PCI connection, and could just continue from there?

Thanks a lot for your help thus far, you're really making this all make a lot more sense for me.

[riggles]

Hi Guys,

Thanks a lot for all of your excellent advice. At the moment, based on all of your replies, I'm tempted to go for one of the netstore external boxes. Am I right in assuming that it's not a PC in its own right, but simply something that connects to a spare PCI connector on an existing machine and then uses the network rendering capability of octane?

Is anyone using one of these at the moment? I feel like it would be the quickest and easiest way of getting to more power without having to take apart my existing setup. So if I were to go down that route, I'd simply have to buy such a box and six cards, maybe take out one of the 580s to make space for the PCI connection, and could just continue from there?

Thanks a lot for your help thus far, you're really making this all make a lot more sense for me.

Basically, yes. You'd need a free x16 PCIe slot in your computer to hold one of the host cards (which may be sold separately, check on that) and then add graphics cards to the expansion chassis. However, it doesn't use network rendering. Since it's connected via PCIe, your computer just thinks those graphics cards are directly attached because, in effect, they are.

One thing I failed to mention earlier. If you're currently satisfied with the 3GB of memory from your 580's and you don't expect to need more VRAM for your projects, you could opt for GTX 780TI cards instead. The same speed as a Titan Black, but with less RAM and less money. For what it's worth.

[Seekerfinder]

The expander box option could work for you but I think both Netstor offer max of 4 double slot cards in the desktop version. The rackmount options (both Netstor & Cubix) offer more but at significantly higher price.

Like Riggles said, it's not network rendering. These systems use what's called a 'backplane'. Effectively a stripped down mb, dedicated to hosting the GPUs.

Keep in mind:
1. Power supply needs to be adequate;
2. If your main PC goes down, so does everything.

Best,
Seeker

[glimpse]

keep in mind that expander alone would cost like 2k$ pluss You need to change a power supply.. - You need bigger supply anyway, probably 1200-1500w for good quad system to be stable if You OC some parts.. now that 2k$ You can spend better.. buying a new case.. & capable mono (if You still run 2500, You should be able to find 4way capable one) think for that saved money You can buy extra GPU or two =) when You will not be happy with CPU performance You can simply use this beast as a GPU node - if I were You, that would be my way. I don't see expander a good option unless You already have 3-4 cards & very powerful capable workstation class rig =)

[p3taoctane]

Am I right that a water cooled Titan Z has a width of a single slot... but they take up two slots because of the DVI connecto?

[glimpse]

technically You should be able to modify it removing one connector & adding smaller (single slot bracket) I've seen a company done that SS version of current dual AMD beast with custom EK block (if I remember good: here's a link https://www.visiontek.com/graphics-card ... etail.html - & that's purely insane =) I'd like to see who would have balls to mod Z =DDD.. though I just found who is selling one for 2k!!! =)..getting a system shipped with bundled card, but want to change unused Z it into pair of 780 (an keep some spare =)

[gabrielefx]

don't waste your money buying external boxes

buy 2 twin systems with 4 GTX780 6GB each, Asus WS mb, single i7, 1500w psu, Silverstone TJ11 case with vertical cooling (the best for gpus)

Don't buy water cooling stuff because the latest gpus have an efficient air cooling system

My old GTX580s air cooled have worked for 4 years 24/7 night and day. In 4 years of hard work I substituted only 2 gpus.

Now I replaced my GTX580s with Titans

If your monstrous gpu rig will fail all your work will fail too. If you are a pro user think for a backup workstation.

Because Octane handles without any problems networked or distributed renders you can add a third machine.

regards

[eisberger]

That's an interesting point, though I feel like the reliability issue is solved by the fact that even if the external box should fail, which seems to me to be less likely than a whole PC failing, then I'd still have the two cards I have atm in the box, and could continue with those.

I've also found this http://www.magma.com/expressbox-16-basic , or others like it. They seem to have far more slots than the netstor boxes, has anyone used one of these? It seems to me to be more future-proof, given that even with a higher initial investment, it's got space for adding more cards down the line, even if now I were to only put four or five in.

In response to another question, I am absolutely fine with 3GB cards, my usage seems to come nowhere close to running into memory issues. so a Magma box with, initially, four or five 780Ti cards seems to be a good way forward. Do you agree?

[eisberger]

Hi Again.

Please completely ignore my previous post, I've changed my mind to the point where I'm in agreement that building a quad-card PC to serve both as a network render slave and a potential back-up machine is the most sensible option both from the point of view of cost (those pci boxes are really expensive!), and ease of installation (I've built a lot of PCs but pci boxes would be entirely new territory for me).

So I'm going to check the availability of the parts for the build that was mentioned earlier. My configuration would then be; my current machine with one of the 580s removed in favour of a middle-of-the-road Quadro card, the second 580 still there doing its thing, and a second PC squirrelled away with 4x 780Ti and nothing installed on it but windows, octane and teamviewer. Does this seem like the most sensible way forward? And just to ask again, is four cards really the limit for a single machine?

Thanks for all of your help you're a great community.