Dream machine

[ricky01]

Hi all,

I would like to buy a new workstation dedicated to Octane render.

Budget around 5.000 euros.

CPU, GPU, graphics cards, what do you suggest ?

Many thanks in advance !

[pixelrush]

The most obvious question to ask first is:
What will you be rendering? ie what are your needs - scene size, rendered image size, complexity of textures, speed...and will you use the same pc to prepare your scenes with Maya or Blender or...?

[GUIGuy]

Sorry I know you said buy, but may I suggest you build. You could get a Quad GTX 480 with 980x for that kind of money

[ricky01]

You are right, let me be more accurate in my answer.

I would like to have a workstation for modeling (Solidthinking, Cinema4d) a rendering large size architectural interiors scenes (A3 format, 300 dpi, high quality textures) to be printed in catalogues, advertising pages etc. etc. (see attached a resized sample image).

Buy or build ? Buy for me, I'm not a technician.

Thank you for your suggestions.

[pixelrush]

Arch renders are not my field so I suggest you get multiple opinions before you decide on anything.
There are a few people like yourself here so someone is bound to have a better idea than me.
I would suggest you get 2gb vram or more video cards for Octane for that.
Really the choices atm are GTX460/2gb, Quadro5000/2.5gb or TeslaC2050/3gb.
GTX480 might be ok but its 1.5gb and you might like just a bit more.
The trouble with the Q and T is they are so expensive.
Quadro is 1250 euro and Tesla is 1800 euro each I think.
3x GTX460 ought to be equal to 2x480 or 2xTesla in render performance ie no slouch..if cuda 3.2 makes use of the idle cores we have atm
2gb will allow about 5 m polys + A3@300ppi + 500mb textures together max.
I am not a big texture user so I cant tell you if that is enough for arch-viz or specifically for interiors.
Here's a quick stab at a ballpark spec. You might need to get someone to assemble this for you because I doubt anyone makes this sort of thing.
I put in a good Quadro for your UI and 3d program use....
All up this would be a pretty potent machine without going crazy on the $$ for only a bit more performance.

Quad core i7-3ghz
12gb memory DDR3-1600 triple kit
X-58 mobo 1366 socket with 4 pci-e slots at double slot spacing like Asus Rampage III Extreme or Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9
3x GTX460/2gb
1x Quadro 2000
1000W or even 1200W modular PS like Corsair HX1000W
decent large case + fans - cooling will be really important in a crowded case like this- probably something by Cool Master made for SLI gaming incl large side fan.
dvd + mouse +keybd
24" LCD
640gb or 1tb harddrive for storage
128gb SSD? for O/S + programs
Win7 64 bit

~3500 euro ??? + assy?

Edit: Just a note that the Palit 460 dont have the best fan shroud ie it doesnt ventilate to the outside of the case well at the back so 3 in close proximity would need careful attention to the cooling.
I dont think I would overclock them at all like this but I would use an o/c utility to boost the fan speed.

The other alternative is to use your existing pc - doesnt need to be too flash - with a GPU_X expander (see link in forum header)
HTH

[Daniel]

You don't really need to build a computer from scratch. The easiest way is to buy the parts, and slowly swap them out for the parts in your current one, to ensure nothing gets missed out or misplaced. And it's well worth the money saved to make it yourself.

[GeorgoSK]

I don't know, that's a lot of money...

But I can assure you all the suggestions for multiple gaming Fermis (Gtx 470 n 480) is ridiculous right now due to their low memory, they make very short-time investment.
You can't do real archviz with that, don't let anybody fool you.
If you gonna invest THAT much of money, you want it to atleast last you some time in bussiness (2-3 years, or longer) and to be able to render pretty much everything on it.
On other hand, even 5000 euros isn't enough to buy Teslas or Quadros who have enough memory. So this is tough question.

If I was in your shoes, I would wait a little longer for something new to appear on the market, or atleast some of the Teslas to lower their prices when newer version will appear (which is gonna happen in time span of 5-6 months). Wait atleast until Intel Sandbridge, and new mainboards with PCI Express 3.0 will hit the market, same with newer nVidias.

Octane is wonderful, don't get me wrong. But If I would spend 5000 euros to buy computer that would only allow me to render smaller scenes, and definitely not in 300DPI for A3!! while people with workstations under 2-3k euros would have no problems to do that with their CPU renders..... now, that would suck a lot.

So...main point is, brainstorm, but let this go through your head for bit longer, we're on the end of one technologies's cycle and newer one will begin soon (not even Sandbridge starts the newer one, it merely closes this one, but it's still better choice then today's i7, and with 5k euros, you want to have the newer technology at all costs) And let's wish GTX 580 or what will they name it will appear sooner, and will have higher vram as promissed (2560).

[steveps3]

Surely a GPU-X would be the answer? It is this sort of purpose that the beast was designed for.

[Jaberwocky]

I agree.Simply start with a GPU-X and a couple of cards.Add to the cards if you need more speed.One advantage to the GPU-X is that it will keep the heat generated by all those graphics cards away from your CPU.There is also another way at looking at this.the Graphics card in your machine can be used to prepair the next scene for render whilst the GPU-X expander is rendering away on your previous scene if you are in a high production environment.Or even 2x GPU-X expander boxes and send alternate scenes to the GPU-X expanders whilst creating the scenes on your main computer.
Just a thought.

[martin.hedin]

hey my first post

With 5000 euros maybe the strategy would be not to spend all the money at once but rather get a decent not to expensive workstation that you can upgrade over the next 3 years. After that you might want to get a new one completely, and then dedicate one station to rendering and use the other one for work completely.

Start with
i7 3Ghz 1366
2-3x GTX460 2GB (waiting for something better)
12gb ram

And then wait and see how things develop over the next 3 years.

If you spend all that money now, maybe in 3-4 years you will be sitting on something useless when better cards have arrived. I think the GPU-X is quite expensive for now, maybe not worth it.


Regards,
Martin