Best Practices For Building A Multiple GPU System

[smicha]

...12 is the current limit for local network rendering. Despite numerous attempts to get a definitive answer from Otoy regarding the amount of GPU's a single system can handle, they have not confirmed this... (unless I've missed it - ?). I think 8 GPU's is the most I saw anyone here use and at least one demo from Otoy shows 8 GPU's in action. ...
Seeker

I can confirm using 11 gpu rendering one Octane scene, with 4GPU on the master and 3 on one slave and 4 on an other slave.
Cheers,

If this is the case - next question - will for 8x Titans Z placed into one motherboard (like in this thread) two licences of Octane work? If not - the 12 gpu limit per network per licence should be expanded to 16.

[Tutor]

...12 is the current limit for local network rendering. Despite numerous attempts to get a definitive answer from Otoy regarding the amount of GPU's a single system can handle, they have not confirmed this... (unless I've missed it - ?). I think 8 GPU's is the most I saw anyone here use and at least one demo from Otoy shows 8 GPU's in action. ...
Seeker

I can confirm using 11 gpu rendering one Octane scene, with 4GPU on the master and 3 on one slave and 4 on an other slave.
Cheers,

If this is the case - next question - will for 8x Titans Z placed into one motherboard (like in this thread) two licences of Octane work? If not - the 12 gpu limit per network per licence should be expanded to 16.

After giving further consideration to (1) the power consumption requirements for 7-8 Titan Zs, (2) the usefulness of running two Revo (960g) 350s in Raid 0 for handling 4K+ video with my Tyan systems, (3) the usefulness of having my 4-port SATA cards for backup storage and (4) the flexibility of using my GT 640/4Gs for scene design interactivity, for now I'm planning only on installing 6 Titan Z Hydros in each of my Tyans. Maybe, I'll later consider adding one or more Titan Z-2 or Z-3 Hydros if they sell at reasonable prices and have incredible performance, but even then I'd probably shift the same number of Kepler Titan Zs down to my 4-CPU (E5-4650) Supermicro systems (and water-cool them there and correspondingly shift their GTX 780 6Gs down to other systems and so on). In other words, my Tyan Server systems would still have only 6 dual GPU cards.

[Seekerfinder]

...12 is the current limit for local network rendering. Despite numerous attempts to get a definitive answer from Otoy regarding the amount of GPU's a single system can handle, they have not confirmed this... (unless I've missed it - ?). I think 8 GPU's is the most I saw anyone here use and at least one demo from Otoy shows 8 GPU's in action. ...
Seeker

I can confirm using 11 gpu rendering one Octane scene, with 4GPU on the master and 3 on one slave and 4 on an other slave.
Cheers,

If this is the case - next question - will for 8x Titans Z placed into one motherboard (like in this thread) two licences of Octane work? If not - the 12 gpu limit per network per licence should be expanded to 16.

Licensing is one thing. Compatibility is another. The question that we need answered by Otoy is what is the current limit of amount of GPU's in a single system?

I have also lobbied for an increase from 12 GPU in the network since I think 12 GPU's can easily be attained by a small / medium studio. So if we need to access more than 12 GPU's, we are forced to go to the cloud, which I think is a shame. It sounds like a business strategy to me and I think the small studio will suffer if there is not an option to allow access to more than 12 GPU's per network for a project...

Seeker

[Seekerfinder]

...12 is the current limit for local network rendering. Despite numerous attempts to get a definitive answer from Otoy regarding the amount of GPU's a single system can handle, they have not confirmed this... (unless I've missed it - ?). I think 8 GPU's is the most I saw anyone here use and at least one demo from Otoy shows 8 GPU's in action. ...
Seeker

I can confirm using 11 gpu rendering one Octane scene, with 4GPU on the master and 3 on one slave and 4 on an other slave.
Cheers,

Sure, the limit is 12. So you have one more to go!

[p3taoctane]

Unless I am still missing something... excuse me if I di not read carefully enough.
If you are running windows.... you can only support 8 single GPUs.

So anything more than 4 titan Z's will not work. I do not think you can tell the system the other Z's are slaves. The slaves have to be on another separate system.

Double cards count as 2 GPUs so you will run into issues.

Hope I am wrong.

Peter

[smicha]

If you are running windows.... you can only support 8 single GPUs.

Any valid link to this info?

[rappet]

...12 is the current limit for local network rendering. Despite numerous attempts to get a definitive answer from Otoy regarding the amount of GPU's a single system can handle, they have not confirmed this... (unless I've missed it - ?). I think 8 GPU's is the most I saw anyone here use and at least one demo from Otoy shows 8 GPU's in action. ...
Seeker

I can confirm using 11 gpu rendering one Octane scene, with 4GPU on the master and 3 on one slave and 4 on an other slave.
Cheers,

Sure, the limit is 12. So you have one more to go!

I thought the max of 12 was for number GPU Of the slaves only !?!?
...master (1, 2, 3, maximum you can build) + adding maximum 12gpu by network rendering using slaves
But then I must have misunderstood?
Still think it is strange to set a max on number of GPU (12x a gtx 275 is even worse then one Titan Black).
It would make more sense of having a maximum of renderslaves (i.e. 1 master and max. 3 slaves)
Anyway, that is another discussion/thread)
Cheers,

[p3taoctane]

I have tried a couple of times to run more than 8 cards in one system under windows 7 64 bit pro and have been unsuccessful.

That does not of course mean that it is not possible. But I have seen other posts on this site saying the same thing.

Maybe under win 8 it is possible?

I sure hope I am proved wrong.

Peter

[smicha]

I have tried a couple of times to run more than 8 cards in one system under windows 7 64 bit pro and have been unsuccessful.

That does not of course mean that it is not possible. But I have seen other posts on this site saying the same thing.

Maybe under win 8 it is possible?

I sure hope I am proved wrong.

Peter

I've just browsed some sites and yes - 8 seems to be the limit of gpus under windows on one mobo. This means building more than 4x Titan Z has no sense. It's better to go with two separate smaller builds and use network rendering.

BTW If I buy 3 licences will the limit be 36 via network? Can some precisely explain that?

[glimpse]

BTW If I buy 3 licences will the limit be 36 via network? Can some precisely explain that?

..there's a possibility to get more than 8GPUs to work,
but it seems not on windows but on linux with quite some work..

no matter how much licences You're going to buy, 12 is the limit.

4GPUs (physical) or 8 if You use dual GPU cards =) is the best option to go for..