multi gpu motherboards

[rloncohen]

can you elaborate on multi card set up more please.
for example, if one has a modern mobo say set up for crossfire with 4r pci slots, can an nvidia card still be used or does it need to be a board the supports cross fire and sli. already purchased an expenive ati card and would still like to use it if possible. havent, purchased other components yet. do you have any good recommendations, that are known to function well?
sincerely,
richard cohen

[timbarnes]

As you don't enable crossfire or SLI for Octane, it doesn't matter what the board supports. However, most people seem to find that it doesn't work to combine ATI and nVidia cards. I sold my ATI card and now have two nVidia cards. This seems to be a very productive combination.

For what it's worth, my mobo doesn't support SLI, but only Crossfire.

tim

[max3d]

Siince a driver update some time ago Nvidia doesn´t want to function if it sees ATI cards. This to ´guarantee´ stability but no doubt with large support from the marketing dept.

Max.

[jamnique]

What do you think about putting 3-4 460's inside this ? And by this i mean Asus Rampage III Extreme

http://www.ceneo.pl/showPicture.aspx?productID=7358952

Would it consume huge amounts of energy even if not rendering? And is it possible at all considering the heat?

EDIT: This is sooooo cool. Seems like you can switch each of the installed GPU's on and off using switches on the mobo. So you could have up to 4 GPUs and if you aren't going to use them, just cut the power consumption to one.

BTW bought Octane today But it turns out Refractive is a bit far so everyone is probably asleep now:) I'll have to wait for it a little longer.

[Jaberwocky]

adding 3-4 x GTX 460's will be fine.Just remember that each 460 consumes on average around 160 watts when running full tilt.So if you plug 4 of them in and let them loose on a render your talking 640 watts before you take into account the rest of the system.Add in say another 130watts for a decent CPU and your talking about needing a 1200watt power supply to cover yourself.The good news is that they do not produce a great deal of heat.Well at least not the Gigabyte 460 that i am running.The other good news is that i have done the math and worked out that they only consume around 15 watts each when they are idling.IE when you are surfing the net.Writing Emails or say typing out queries on the Octane Messageboard

[Odeas]

There's due to be a GTX 490 to be released which I believe is pretty much 2 460's strapped together. This should help with heat/space/power of something like a 3/4 card 460 setup though I don't know what the price would be for this card.

I'd recommend about 250-300w for a i7 system without GFX cards and as Jaberwocky says about 130w per 460.

300w + 520w (4x 460) = 820w Minimum | 1k+ Recommended of Quality PSU such as Corsair or Seasonic with high 12v Rails.

[PhilBo]

I was trying to do a Phenom II 920 and two GTX 470's on a 680W ps. It worked but I must have been up to the wall.

I ended up getting a 950 Corsair and my computer overall feels more speedy. I must have been not getting enough juice.

I'd recommend just springing the bucks for anyone who's thinking of building a multi-gpu system and get a big, quality power supply so that you can render with confidence.

[Jaberwocky]

One other thing to bear on mind.Choose get an 80 plus power supply.The higher the efficency the less is converted to heat and the more is used as juice to power your rig.May cost a bit more but will help with the electricity bills and keep your rig going if the power consumption gets borderline.See link for details http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_deta ... d=0&type=2

[Odeas]

Corsair have just released the AX range of PSU's which are 80 Plus Gold providing up to 93% efficiency at 600-900w which is pretty top notch.

[jamnique]

Got a stupid question i haven't found answered anywhere: does importing an obj, via plug-in or manually, take twice as long on two GPUs?