Buying a new PC soon... help and advice needed please

[madcoo]

Hi everyone!


In the near future I'm gonna buy a whole new PC, which is gonna cost a bit of money, so you can easily guess I'm a bit anxious about doing the "right thing" when installing Octane and having it work fine.


My future specs:
- Win 7 64bits
- 6Gb RAM
- 3x SLI Motherboard
- 1 GTX 560 (the one I won in the competition - yay !!! )
- 1 GTX 480

1) I'm still running Octane 2.3 v5 - from what I've read in the dedicated topic, I'd better switch to 2.43 (more stable, more possibilities, etc) - is this correct ?

2) As I'm going to have 2 GPUs running at the same time, I should be using CUDA drivers 3.0 - is this correct ?
But apparently I shouldn't worry about this, as Abstrax said :

On Windows you do NOT have to install any CUDA toolkits or drivers. Just install the latest NVIDIA graphics driver (266.58) and it should work without problems.

3) I'm also planning to keep my old GTX275 and use it with the other two GPUs - will it work?

4) When all plugged together, do the "slower" GPUs slow down the "better" GPUs?

I know all these questions are a pain to you who are well-acquainted with that kind of thing, but your help would be much appreciated, guys.


Many thanks, and keep enjoying this beautiful software that is OCTANE !!!


Madcoo

[mib2berlin]

Hi madcoo, good times for you.

1) Yes (more stable, more possibilities, faster, etc)
2) Yes
3) Yes (see 4)
4) Yes, the gtx 275 slows all down.
5) Octane scales best with similar cards, go for 3 gtx 560

Or take the 275 for display and two 560 for octane.
The gtx 480 is a little faster but a beast at power consumption and sounds like a helicopter.
Go for more Ram (12 GB ?)

Cheers and more gtx more fun, mib

[madcoo]

Many thanks mib2berlin
These answers to my questions will no doubt help me lots!

Cheers !

[adrencg]

It's possible you might have a rough time getting power to both of those cards in one case. Also, the 480 is bigger than the 560, and generates more heat. Better have a nice large case like the Obsidian, and great airflow. I would sell the 480 and get another 560 -- this way at least both cards will work at the same level.

[madcoo]

Hi!

I had a chat about it with my reseller : I'm eventually going for 2x GTX560 !!!
This way indeed they'll work at the same level.
I'm gonna have 3 fans on the case so it can extract a lot of heat. (1 at the front, 1 at the back, and 1 more on the side)

Many thanks for your replies guys, they'll help me get a nice PC soon.