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Because i will buy the system and not build it myself, what instructions should i give the company? should they install the 3 GTX470 cards in sli? if i connect the 2 monitors in the 1 card, the other 2 will only be available for octane? or i could use them in other applications as well?
Is a combination of a small quadro card like FX580 (for driving the monitors) and 2 GTX470/480 (for rendering) a better one (than 3 GTX470)?

Thanks!

i'd recommend the quadro for display and 2x GTX480 for octane.

Radiance

so if someone wants to use a gtx nvdia card for octane he must have left it unconnected with a monitor?
In that case the card is working only for rendering purposes (the card is not being used by any other program), or i am wrong?

thanks!

Well, if I understand it correctly is not like you need to have it disconnect, but that if you do the card won't have to waste "power" on screen refreshments and will concentrate all its processors in rendering. That way you'll get all the juice out of that gfxcard. You can see my specs, when I render depending on the load my OS doesn't go too smooth, kind of what it happens when you render with a cpu based renderer and all you processors are busy rendering. The fun thing is that you can have a regular cpu based rendering away while octane does its magic at the same time, and neither of them will suffer or even notice, getting two images for the price of one in the same machine, and also you might be able to fry an egg with all the extra heat coming of your box, but that's the price of fun.... hehehehe

Hi guys,

octane runs on canrds with a display connected to the gpu offcourse, and it does not impact speed.
it's basicallly the inverse of what kubo said, octane takes priority over windows and locks the UI for each render pass.

Therefore a 2nd card would be better.
Any card that has a display attached can be used too.

Radiance

hehehe, I stand corrected... thanks

So, if I have a 980a/760 On board and 2 GTX-260's. Would it be best having my 2 monitors hooked up to the Board's display and leave the 2 260's unattached for processing purposes. By the way I need the Hybrid SLI option enabled in my bios in order for my board's 980a/760 to show up as a usable adapter (my 2 260's also show up this way but only the 2 260's show up when hybrid is disabled)

No need for a reply. on this one

Found solutions in other posts

Thank you

Can't find which thread I posted this result earlier, but I had another power failure after rotating in a somewhat resolved render of the Chess Demo, Computer comes back after restart, but I'm getting a little concerned. 1 of the card has a bastardized power connection on the 2 8 pinners coming from several molex 4 pins supplied with the mobo. Been searching for Power supplies that have the proper 4-8 pinners I need to run the 2 cards. Anybody know of one? The standard sli hunt just doesn't work because they usually only supply 2.

Finding a psu with 4x 8pin connectors might be hard. If you are in the US here are some to look at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

The big thing to look at is the amps on the +12v rail which might be your problem. If your system is trying to pull too many amps the psu could shut itself down in order to protect itself. Typically people will say to try and find a psu with a single +12v rail as it is kind of difficult to figure out which plug has which +12v rail on it when you have a psu with more then one. I would imagine if you are using a psu with at least 2 8-pin plugs built on that using the adapters for any other ones you need would be fine. You will probably want something with 55-80 amps across the +12v rails and 700-1000 watts depending on your system specs and what cards you plan on putting in it. 2x gtx480's will probably demand something more like 900-1200 watts. Radiance can confirm this as he has multiple gtx480's.