Two 460s 768MB RAM or one 460 with 2GB (for the same $)?

[jamnique]

Hello, i'm planning to buy some hardware for Octane and i could use some advice.
For the price of one GTX 460 Gainward 2048MB/256bit
i could have two GTX 460 Palit 768MB/192bit
What would make more sense? I will need to render some massive scenes polygon wise (about 2-5 million), with little or no textures, but still two 460's sound better than one. What do you think? Or would it be better to get one 470 ?
Ram from multiple cards doesn't add up i presume?

[radiance]

the 2GB version is best, you really need the memory.
i'd get one and another one later if possible.

Radiance

[jamnique]

Thank you for taking the time to answer. And for making Octane ;]

There are three more things i have to ask before i buy the stuff:
1) provided that i didn't need so much memory, would these two 768MB cards be close to twice as fast as the 2gig one solo?
2) Has anyone already tested any of these cards for compatibility with Octane?
3) Is it a good moment to buy a GFX card, or is there something that makes more sense to wait for on the horizon? I'm not going to buy a new card for a looong time after this one ;] Is there something more sophisticated coming in, let's say, 2-3 months that you know of? Is the price for the 2gig cards likely to drop after a while?

Sorry for asking you to play the seer, but i bet the majority of people on this board keep their fingers on the pulse and i would really appreciate some tips

[kubo]

there is two main things to watch out for in a GPU for Octane, one is the number of cores, and the other is the vram.
Of course 2 460's would double the speed of renders(2x nºcores), but the amount of vram doesn't add up, actually is limited by the lower amount of both cards, so if you have one with 1Gb and one with 2Gb, your total memory would be 1Gb, that's because Octane needs to load the scene completly in both cards at the same time. The amount of vram means how many polys (mesh faces) and textures you can load up and how big your final render can be, so with 768Mb sooner or later you are going to be cap there, what Radiance meant is that with 2 460's 768Mb GPUs even thou you'll render twice as fast your scenes won't be too complicated nor your top resolution be too high, instead if you buy just one 460 of 2Gb, you'll be able to load huge scenes at high res and when they lower their prices you'll be able to afford a second one to half your render times.

[jamnique]

I get the memory cap, i was just considering simplifying my little production to get the speed benefit of two cheaper cards. But it makes sense to buy one 2gb now and buy another one later when they come in better prices.

Now my only concern is will this particular card work with Octane, and is it a good moment to buy or wait a while longer for something better.

[matej]

It will wok (although, you must note that current CUDA versions support only 2/3 of it's cores - so it wont run at full potential until 3.2 is out)

I would say go for it. (price drops wont happen anytime soon)

[jamnique]

Thanks! That's all i needed to know ;]

Last question: when i buy and activate Octane for the first time, will i be able to choose which device's Mac Address it will use for licensing? I would like to make a dongle from USB wireless stick or separate card, not the one built in to the motherboard. Does it simply use the device active at the moment?

[matej]

You will be able to activate it on whichever machine you want. You get your Live account uid&pwd and activate it on one machine, then you deactivate it, wait an hour (I think it is), and then you can reactivate it on another machine. Simple & flexible, no mac addresses involved anymore.

EDIT, because of this Octane needs internet access to start - but not to run (except LiveDB & your settings will be inaccessible if you are not online)

[jamnique]

I'm lovin' it!

BTW Matej, how is your Gainward in terms of noise and temperature?

[Jaberwocky]

jamnique.

For info may i point you to the Gigabyte site. I have their 1GB GTX460 - Totally silent.Runs at 66 deg C at full tilt and no more than 75 deg when overclocked to 820 Mhz.Cracking card for the money.