Building my First GPU Slave

Thu Feb 25, 2016 6:34 pm

So after reading a lot of the forum post I wanted to start putting together my shopping list for my PC.
I currently have (2) GTX 980 Ti that need a home. I have a Z800 Workstation but am having major power issues (hard crashes) You can find more here if you have an idea(http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id- ... l#17564040)
So I thought it would just be easier to build a rig that can hold the (2) current GPUs waiting for (2) more when ready.

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 Quad-Core 3.2 GHz | $205
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117563)
Since CPU is no help to Octane I found no need to go i7, is there?

MOBO: BIOSTAR Z170GT7 | 129.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138421)
4 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot (x16, x8, x4- from SB, x4- from SB)
MOBO: ASRock Z170 OC | $227.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157649)
4 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE1/PCIE2/PCIE4/PCIE6: single at x16 (PCIE1); dual at x8 (PCIE1) /
x8 (PCIE4); triple at x8 (PCIE1) / x4 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4)); quad at x8 (PCIE1) / x4 (PCIE2) / x4 (PCIE4) / x4 (PCIE6))
Is it recommend to go with the ASRock or will not actually gain anything for the extra $100?

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 | $67.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 85V3UF6309)

PSU: LEPA G1200-MA 1200W ATX12V | $149.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817494011)
PCI-Express Connector - 8 x 6+2-Pin

Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 - Mid Tower Computer Case with High Airflow, Supporting up to Six 120mm Fans | $64.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119233)
I think this should handle (4) GPU's with enough air flow.
___
Total: $617.96

When you assume I already have the GPUs waiting this isn't a very expensive setup. Any additional thoughts from the long-term Octane users out there?
Thank you!

Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:03 pm

Dude, you should really bump the CPU up to get more PCI-E lanes... in hind-site, I should have got a i7 5930k, rather than the 5820k.. You will want 40 lanes. And Biostar?... I think I have seen that name once or twice. I would definitely be going with Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, Asrock.. in that order. Others around here are better mobo experts than me... But those lanes are damn important. If you were thinking that you could skimp on CPU because you would hardly be using it in your workstation, you were wrong. CPU controls PCI-E, and voxelization when stuff is getting loaded into GPU. And don't forget about quad-channel memory... you will want that too. That i5 only has dual-channel.

I love my NZXT H630 case. Although, it does make a wee little noise expanding/contracting while rendering. But it is a shitload of case, for $150. I removed all drive cages (all SSD, mounted against back wall of case) and added another 200mm fan in front, in addition to the one that came with it. Really nice airflow. I think Fractal Design also has a great case in the $150 range...

Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:54 pm

FrankPooleFloating wrote:Dude, you should really bump the CPU up to get more PCI-E lanes... in hind-site, I should have got a i7 5930k, rather than the 5820k.. You will want 40 lanes.

I thought that as well, but even the i7 only has 16 lanes, I did find that strange. (http://ark.intel.com/products/88196/Int ... o-4_00-GHz)

FrankPooleFloating wrote:And don't forget about quad-channel memory... you will want that too. That i5 only has dual-channel.

I'll have to rethink that, thanks.

FrankPooleFloating wrote: I love my NZXT H630 case. Although, it does make a wee little noise expanding/contracting while rendering. But it is a shitload of case, for $150. I removed all drive cages (all SSD, mounted against back wall of case) and added another 200mm fan in front, in addition to the one that came with it. Really nice airflow. I think Fractal Design also has a great case in the $150 range...

This is going to sit in our server closet so it doesn't need to be anything fancy, as long as it has enough airflow, I'm good with it.

For the most part this computer will just sit in a corner, not even sure we'll connect KVM to it. Just remote into it when needed.
Thanks for the insight.

Thu Feb 25, 2016 7:58 pm

Sorry, but i7 5930k has 40 lanes... my 5820k has 28 lanes... where did you get 16 lanes info?

Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:01 pm

FrankPooleFloating wrote:Sorry, but i7 5930k has 40 lanes... my 5820k has 28 lanes... where did you get 16 lanes info?

The link I provided (http://ark.intel.com/products/88196/Int ... o-4_00-GHz)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700 Processor
PCI Express Revision 3.0
PCI Express Configurations ‡ Up to 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4
Max # of PCI Express Lanes 16

Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:07 pm

Yeah, I noticed that right after posting.. however, that particular i7 CPU is not a 5930k... and even it has lowly dual-channel. In other words, not all i7 are created equal... If this is not a workstation, and just a render slave, then yeah, I guess you can skimp on CPU etc. And lanes, voxelization etc is prolly not a big priority. You said building my first GPU workstation, and I was trying to help build a workstation...

Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:28 pm

FrankPooleFloating wrote:Yeah, I noticed that right after posting.. however, that particular i7 CPU is not a 5930k... and even it has lowly dual-channel. In other words, not all i7 are created equal... If this is not a workstation, and just a render slave, then yeah, I guess you can skimp on CPU etc. And lanes, voxelization etc is prolly not a big priority. You said building my first GPU workstation, and I was trying to help build a workstation...

This is true, I probably worded that wrong. This will be a GPU Slave.

I do have an E5645 out of the Z800 workstation I mentioned before, I could always swap the processor and ram from that computer which is having power issues anyway into a new case and mobo. That actually might be the cheaper way to go.

Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:14 pm

Hmmm.. that being a Xeon, would that not make your mobo choices somewhat limited? I'm assuming that you would need another server/workstation board if you wanted to keep that and possibly ram too... speaking of which, does that Xeon require ECC ram?.. I dunno, maybe just building a cheap box anew might be really be your best bet. Hopefully someone like Boris or smicha will chime in.

Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:32 pm

FrankPooleFloating wrote:Hmmm.. that being a Xeon, would that not make your mobo choices somewhat limited? I'm assuming that you would need another server/workstation board if you wanted to keep that and possibly ram too... speaking of which, does that Xeon require ECC ram?.. I dunno, maybe just building a cheap box anew might be really be your best bet. Hopefully someone like Boris or smicha will chime in.

I'm hoping the cheap box is a worthy as being just a Slave computer. $600 for a little render guy is not that big a deal as long as I wont run into bottlenecking because of the hardware I choose.
Thanks for all the insight guys, I've only had the licenses for a few days now, but this is a big jump on our rendering.