sorry hardware question

[miohn]

Hi Tom,

did you forget me?

I now have 3 Boards on the shortlist:
- AS Rock X99 OC Formula
- AS Rock X99 Extrem 11
- EVGA FTW K

What do you guys think?
Does anyone have good experiences with one of these boards?

thanks
Mike

[rappet]

did you forget me?

Hi Mike, you seem to be an impatient guy..
I'd like to give you a tip by posting a thread about hardware in the general forum section, and not in a specific plugin section like there.. that gives you a better chance to reach more people.
greetz from another impatient guy

[miohn]

Hi rappet,

yes, indeed I'm very very impatient - sorry!
Since early childhood - so too late to change that

I know theres also a facebook-group from Tom for hardware stuff which I'm following.
But I don't have and don't want a facebook-account, so I cannot post there (they will be pleased to hear that )
and here are the C4D-Octane guys, so ....

I will do my best to wait patiently!

regards
Mike

[rappet]

Hi rappet,

yes, indeed I'm very very impatient - sorry!
Since early childhood - so too late to change that

I know theres also a facebook-group from Tom for hardware stuff which I'm following.
But I don't have and don't want a facebook-account, so I cannot post there (they will be pleased to hear that )
and here are the C4D-Octane guys, so ....

I will do my best to wait patiently!

regards
Mike

Your hardware question is not specific to c4d, but to OCtaneRender in general, so
I mean here on this forum, but in another section (more general, not only c4d plugin) in the general forum like this
https://render.otoy.com/forum/

I.e. here about gpu:
viewforum.php?f=11

cheers,

[glimpse]

ok, let's try to put some input here ;)

X99E WS is a great board, the problem that it's crazy complex (as I see You already seen some stories), meaning it has more parts to fail. I would not look into this or similar if You're to use for less than 7GPUs. However I do have friends who are running it with single slotted GPUs, 7 GPUs on ribon cables & 3GPUs on hte board + 4 on eGPU box.

the thing is simple (& let me give You something to illustrate in other words) - when You buy sport car it is tuned for specific purpose: meaning it might be stiffer, engine might me supercharged or turbocharged & then You could have wide body kit with spoilers all around that might be far from perfect in daily use if You drive around city. What I mean to say, just because You can buy this, it doesn't mean You should. If You drive around city something a bit less complex, a bit less tuned for specific work might cost less & serve better.

so if we go back to our topic ;) if You're into 4GPU rig, go to any site: Gigabyte, Asus, AsRock, etc.. & try to see x99 board that supports 4way SLI (not quad, but 4 way). This will make sure that all of those PCIe slots would have at least x8 lanes. It seems that with new release of OctaneRender (v3) is a bit more sensitive to lower lane count & thus getting x8 might be good idea.

regarding to x99 boards from EVGA, those are not bad, but they were released very early on cycle & some of those seem to be not up on par regarding to features. I would take a good look into newer boards if You're looking to use Your rig as main workstation & not purely as render node.

Let me know if You have any specific questions & I'll try to list some better motherboards later ;)

[miohn]

Hi Tom,

thanks for your reply.
As you may have seen in my previous posts, I'm a very impatient guy and so
I already ordered now the "AS Rock OC Formula" which gives 4 x PCI x8.

I also think or hope at least, that less features = less complicated = less problems.
Btw. I have read in another article/test, that concerning GPU-Octane rendering there
is no difference between X16 and X8 (except maybe scene loading time)

So the new board will arrive today or tomorrow and I will see how this works.

One more question please!

I have a nearly clean Win 10 installation on my M2 SSD.
Can I use this and just deinstall the Asus Board Drivers and install all ASRock stuff,
or should I format that disk and reinstall everything fresh?

thanks
Mike