OTOY Forums

ASyme1 wrote:Sure. It's Netstor. It's also a 4 cards unit. Together with the three left in the computer you end up with seven. (That last bottom slot connects the chassis to the computer so it can't hold an eighth card.

I was looking at the Netstor NA255A for adding more GPUs to my Mac Pro. My biggest concern was temperatures inside the Netstor. Do the fans do a good job of keeping those Titans cool?

Edit: I should also ask, now that network rendering will become available, would you buy the Netstor again now or build a network GPU node? Just wondering if you feel the Netstor is worth the ~$2,400 investment overhead.

I'm not sure the network feature allows interactivity, I think network nodes are for rendering final images so you can make use of them while working, I'm not sure about this.

I wonder if you could stick two Netstor boxes in the main comp and would it work ?

BorisGoreta wrote:I'm not sure the network feature allows interactivity, I think network nodes are for rendering final images so you can make use of them while working, I'm not sure about this.

I wonder if you could stick two Netstor boxes in the main comp and would it work ?

I was wondering this, but Octane seems to render interactively and that's it, no separate final mode (accept maybe to render an animation) and it was already confirmed that network rendering will be more like Distributed Rendering where network GPUs can work on one still image. So my guess is that you can use it interactively, it might just take longer to load into networked VRAM.

I'm not sure about the two Netstors either, though I've wondered. I might be a little over my head here, but an LGA2011 socket, like for a 4930K CPU, has 40 PCIe lane support. A single Netstor with (4) PCIe 3.0 x16 lane cards totals 64 lanes. So it appears the CPU has to juggle the PCIe bus already. What I don't know is if those 40 lanes are "hard wired", meaning it can't dynamically dedicate more lanes to one card and then another based on the load but rather has to give each one a fixed amount of lanes. If that's the case, seems like 8 cards would need to operate at x4 to be properly served. That's just a guess, hopefully someone more knowledgable chimes in.

Thinking of building a 4x GTX 780 Ti system just for rendering.

Anyone have any advice on motherboard and case to use? Would be nice if the board had onboard video.
Also, how big of a PSU would you suggest?

From my past experience with a lot of the 4 PCIx16 boards, the bottom one can't handle a double width card so it actually ends up only being a 3x PCIx16 board.

Thanks for any help

I built (not for me) 4xTITANs on Asus Rampage IV Black Edition - fits all 4 Titans but as I wrote here
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... on#p169922
there are problems with connection chassis cables under the 4th card - this is the problem for all boards unless you have low plastic chassis connectors.

I also bought Asus p8z77ws with integrated graphics - I returned it back. My both monitors went black after booting the system and many users on different fora reported such problem with z77 chipset. So avoid this board. After this board I am sure I would avoid integrated graphics.

My personal recommendation - go with Gigabyte - it is rock solid and
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product ... id=4766#ov
is all you need - there is no need to spend twice for Asus WS or Rampage IV. I still have gigabyte UD4 and unless I need more PCI slots I am not getting rid of it.

If your GPUs are to be stock air cooled you'll reach temp. limit (about 80-84C) fast and they will be clocked at stock 836MHz core. The lowest coolest card will be about 70C and may run faster. So if aircooled - get yourself big well ventilated chassis. My personal recommendation - go with watercooling. All gpus will run at 45C and will be silent and you can use their 100% power or even more. My single watercooled titan is about 25% faster when overclocked on save 1.2 volts and 45C. 4x780Ti on water = 5x780Ti on air. All you need is a pump, 2x 4x120 radiator, waterblocks and reservoir. If you can afford it get it.

Shortly speaking - my recommendations are - go with gigabyte and water cooling (+ case labs chassis which is my dream, like the new mercury s8
http://www.caselabs-store.com/mercury-s8/ )

PSU 1500W.

Just bought a Gigabyte 780ti OC card.
I am getting 8.25 in the benchmark under path tracing straight out of the box.
With 3 GB VRAM, I think this is the card to get.

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GTX780-G ... =gtx+780ti

@Kavorka - I'll prepare a post on building a machine which will be able to fit 6 X any card you like and still use it to work. And even better - quite not expensive And quite quiet too
Just give me few days, still waiting for some stuff.

The GTW 580 3GB are in a Cubix Box (8x PCIE cable on 4x PCIE slot).

The GTX 480 is internal and shared with display on 2 screens.

Pathtracing without Alpha shadows as specified here :

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7144

Scene opened as it is and not moved.

1 GTX 480 : 20.09 Ms/sec
1 GTX 580 : 23.28 Ms/sec
2 GTX 580 : 46.55 Ms/sec
1 GTX 480 + 2 GTX 580 : 66.7 Ms/sec
1 GTX 480 + 1GTX 580 : 43.37 Ms/sec

kavorka wrote:Just bought a Gigabyte 780ti OC card.
I am getting 8.25 in the benchmark under path tracing straight out of the box.
With 3 GB VRAM, I think this is the card to get.

http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GTX780-G ... =gtx+780ti

I got the same card but I get 7.6 ms/s. Does anyone know if risers lower the performance? I though only by importing (geometry and textures) to the vidoe RAM was a bit slower with risers. But when I see this I don't know it that is true.

you have the same exact card that I linked to?
I think the EVGA one is slower.