OTOY Forums

I had help from Lewis, and I read and re-read the Video Cards & GPU section over and over again, until I understood the discussions and was able to spec out what I wanted. The case is actually a little small, but only because the design splits the interior volume on the horizontal. That makes the placement of the (future) pump and reservoir a little tricky. Right now, I am using two Corsair CPU coolers, which are bulky. These will be replaced with a cleaner setup when I install the cooling radiators and loop. That will free up a bit more space, though I plan on at least two 3 unit radiators for the cards, and another 2 or 3 unit cooler for the CPUs.

The power supply is in my sig as well. It is 1600 watts, and should be enough for my intended set up. Fortunately, there is plenty of room for another PS if needed, and this case has the option of a pedestal if I need even more room. Gotta love CaseLabs. Not cheap, but more than enough options!

If you're getting into this, take your time. I researched for over a month before I purchased anything, and I used everything I bought, save for GPU card 4, which is awaiting the water cooling system. I wanted all four cards to be the same, that is why I purchased them at the same time. FYI, I wish I would have gone with the Titan X over the GTX 980 Ti's, but only because of the memory headroom. I have already hit the limit a couple of times now, though judicious scene editing made it fit. Even so, this box is also a simulation (and comp) box for TFD and Marvelous Designer (one of the ways I justified the $ and config...). TFD rocks with GPU cards, but if you max out on memory, it crashes instead of exiting gracefully

LOL, I've been slowly googling each of the items in your sig and just hit the power supply before I saw this.

I've got an 800w PS and I've definitely got enough juice for 1 or possibly 2 more cards. (if intell's power usage numbers are to be believed for my 3930 processor)

Is there an advantage to matching the cards up? I was planning on a GTX970 as a second card.

I have no idea if there might be advantages to matching up cards, but I am sure there are no disadvantages! There is an issue with OGL cards and memory, where the amount of memory available to all of the cards is set by the card with the least available memory. So, if you have a display attached to one card, and that display consumes 20% of the card's memory, then ALL of the cards will result in the same loss of 20% memory. There are plenty of people who can explain why that is far better than I can, and I will leave it to them to do so.

I have heard of some adding a less expensive (but still very capable) GPU for the screen and UI, and fully dedicating the card to the app, leaving the other cards explicitly dedicated to Octane for maximum memory. I am not sure yet how to do that, but it does sound like a reasonable approach to take. If you ask in the Vido Card/GPU forum, you will likely get an answer to that very quickly.

Initially, this box was not intended to by my workstation. That changed when I had issues with the Octane network rendering not seeing the box from my laptop workstation. I went round and round with tech support and several people here in the forums, but could not really get it resolved to my satisfaction. It definitely had something to do with ESET security, but it was an intermittent issue, so I cannot say with certainty that was the only issue. In the end, tech support sent me a note saying that the network rendering function for Octane was not fully supported with Cinema, which I think is just a quick out for them. Their sales materials suggest otherwise, as does the experience of many Cinema users in this forum and elsewhere. Aoktar has stated that support for this is really out of his hands; he just passes along data as prescribed by OTOY. Instead, OTOY said I had to purchase another copy of the C4D plug in and use team render. Well, I decided against that, as I had already spent enough money, and switching to the box, in the end, was the better move for me. However, I currently hold an additional license of Octane Standalone that I am not using my solution will be to build another workstation, though I may not go whole hog with it like I did this one. I think a fast i7 and a couple of cards would be fine for a workstation, though not for sims...

Thanks Jay, this has been a HUGE help to my understanding. (or lack of) so far I'm really loving Octane, and right out of the box I've gotten results I never could figure out how to achieve with physical render. I can't see myself going back to it except for some very specific compositing issues.

You're welcome, just pass it on when you have the opportunity! I'm with you regarding Octane. I'm very hopeful for the next version as well...