Hi Beppe,
My new employer will pay for my new setup, I am a motion graphics designer frequently in c4d & Octane. I was about to follow your recommendation and get 27inch i9 imac plus radeon pro 5700xt egpu (now that octane x uses amd, am I right in thinking I don't need the egpu now but if I do get one it will boost performance? I'm still running late 2017 imac with high sierra and Cuda titan 1080ti to run Octane), however I am now wondering what performance for c4d & octane is like on the new M1 imacs?
I can't find much information on their performance with octane.
Do you think this will perform as good or better than the recommended above setup? Because with the above I can add a 2nd egpu to boost performance further no?
Even with the top end new M1 imacs at 16gb unified memory, will that be able to serve my needs without the need (as they are unsupported) of an egpu?
The price difference is also massive (£2500 for top end M1 imac vs £5000 for recommended above setup imac with egpu?)
Which would you recommend?
Thank you in advance
Octane X on iMac / which eGPU?
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Hi clarksloan,
yes correct iMac 27" with AMD Radeon 5700 XT is ready for OctaneX out of the box, and you can also add extra GPUs via Thunderbolt 3.
On the other side M1 chip support is still experimental, currently plugins are still working under Rosetta 2, and most important, M1 chip does not support eGPU expansion solutions.
In my opinion, the first M1 chip is to be consider like the entry level GPU for Apple Silicon.
With the upcoming M1X chip, we will see the real potentials of M1 GPU with OctaneX, so better to wait a bit more.
My suggestion is to keep the iMac 2017, and add an eGPU box with AMD 6800/6900 in it to be used with OctaneX only.
You will have almost 2x the rendering power of 5700, spending less money.
ciao Beppe
yes correct iMac 27" with AMD Radeon 5700 XT is ready for OctaneX out of the box, and you can also add extra GPUs via Thunderbolt 3.
On the other side M1 chip support is still experimental, currently plugins are still working under Rosetta 2, and most important, M1 chip does not support eGPU expansion solutions.
In my opinion, the first M1 chip is to be consider like the entry level GPU for Apple Silicon.
With the upcoming M1X chip, we will see the real potentials of M1 GPU with OctaneX, so better to wait a bit more.
My suggestion is to keep the iMac 2017, and add an eGPU box with AMD 6800/6900 in it to be used with OctaneX only.
You will have almost 2x the rendering power of 5700, spending less money.
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clarksloan
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:30 pm
Amazing, thank you so much for taking the time to respond with extremely useful information! Much appreciate Beppe!
I’m also very interested to know the performance of Big Navi GPUs, unfortunately it is not easy to find one here in Milan
Maybe for other tasks, but not for GPU rendering.swienty13 wrote:So has anyone tested 6800 xt egpu with MacBook pro and can share some insights on render times? I heard thunderbolt 3 is bottleneck here...
TB3 is slightly slower when loading the scene on GPU, but after few seconds, when the scene is completely loaded into GPU VRAM, the rendering speed is exactly the same as an internal GPU.
So the speeds that you can see here are real, even under TB3 eGPU:
Beppe
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bezossjeff90
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2021 10:11 am
I'm planning to get two AMD RX 6800 XT, I don't think will make that much difference vs the RX 6900 XT.
hello dear
Teatv
hello dear
Teatv
What's the best solution for 2x full-size GPUS? Currently I have a Razer core X which works great, and I was considering getting another one.
Beppe mentioned a modified Akitio Node Duo here, but I wondered if there was a something else?
I was looking at the Sonnet DuoModo, but found it confusing
Beppe mentioned a modified Akitio Node Duo here, but I wondered if there was a something else?
I was looking at the Sonnet DuoModo, but found it confusing
Hello Lovely People,
Got some numbers (and a set-up) that might be of interest to some people here.
I am running a MBP 16" Intel 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, with 64GB and a 5500M inside it.
Attached I also have 2 x Razer Core X boxes. One has a 5700XT and the other has a 6900XT (both are Gigabyte cards).
I've only run the Chess Scene and the results are:
5500M = 46 seconds
5500M + 5700XT = 15 seconds
5500M + 5700XT + 6900XT = 7 seconds
Depending of what news comes of Octane 2022, I might continue with the next bit of my build.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1 at my feet, that I'm thinking of loading the 5700XT into with a second 5700XT as a node and buy a second 6900XT to replace it in the Razer Core X.
Wonder what speed increases I'd see?
Thanks, any questions I'm happy to answer
Got some numbers (and a set-up) that might be of interest to some people here.
I am running a MBP 16" Intel 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, with 64GB and a 5500M inside it.
Attached I also have 2 x Razer Core X boxes. One has a 5700XT and the other has a 6900XT (both are Gigabyte cards).
I've only run the Chess Scene and the results are:
5500M = 46 seconds
5500M + 5700XT = 15 seconds
5500M + 5700XT + 6900XT = 7 seconds
Depending of what news comes of Octane 2022, I might continue with the next bit of my build.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1 at my feet, that I'm thinking of loading the 5700XT into with a second 5700XT as a node and buy a second 6900XT to replace it in the Razer Core X.
Wonder what speed increases I'd see?
Thanks, any questions I'm happy to answer
- 5500M + 5700XT + 6900XT
- 5500M + 5700XT