Mac Pro config

[alvanh]

Hello
I'm on Mac Pro . I ordered a external pci express box (turbobox). I could then plug in 4 gpu cards.
I don't know exactly witch card I can put in.
- my choice is turn know to 680 4g
But when I saw the recent bench with the 690 I hesitate a lot.

So is the différence between the 2G memory a 4G memory is huge?
People said that is better To have 4G for large scene.
I would like to know, what kind of scene iI can't render, and if I have any way to walk around this problem.

I have a quadro 4000 card for the display.
Do you think I need a driver For the nvidia card (680or690) (in the turbobox)
?(almost impossible To find for a Mac )
I just want To use the cuda power from this cards.
PS: I have cuda 5.x

Thank you

[FrankPooleFloating]

Did you buy this: Dynapower USA Netstor NA250A TurboBox?

Please be more specific...

[alvanh]

Yes I bought this box. More precisely it is the NA255A-XGPU

[alvanh]

The XGPU can receve 4 GPU up To 1200w

[FrankPooleFloating]

I'm sure some of the guys with four 590s or 690s will want to chime in, but 1200W should be sufficient power for either. It appears that 600 series use less power (perhaps 50W each - or more) than 500s.

Man, you really spent a pretty penny on that thing.. myself (even if I were still a Mac guy -- not since my 8600), I would have built a 2nd (PC) workstation for far less than what that "box" cost. Plus getting a 2nd Octane license (on top of price of workstation) would still be well below what you likely paid for that... Perhaps you just want convenience etc.. but being able to copy over stuff from Mac to render workstation would not have been difficult. I'm sure there are folks here doing just that. Plus you would have had 2 machines that could be rendering in a pinch (provided your Mac has at least one GTX)... like when a client is going to be there in a couple hours and you are sweating bullets...

I personally just do not see the justification of the prices for these render boxes. A couple grand (or more) is just silly for a box, a small mainboard, a PSU, a PCI-E card w/ cable and presumably some drivers... when you could have a 2nd machine for less. I understand the convenience and niche factor of the whole thing - and the fact that these did not make themselves and R&D was certainly involved... but dang!.. that is a lot of dough.

[alvanh]

Ok you have a point there.
The box is still not ready to ship right now. I Will ask on monday for for a Pc thing who can accept 4 gpu.
For the CG is 690 still the right choice? Is its memory enouf ?
Thanks

[FrankPooleFloating]

Others are going to need to help you nail down which cards..

As you (and others) have probably guessed by now - I am somewhat of a tightwad. I like making money
much more than spending it. Although I am (for the record) a staunch liberal, I'm pretty conservative with
my dough -- and almost as much so with my polygons.. I have always had a good habit of making the
most of my scenes with as few polys and as low res as possible for my textures.. And in all of my test -
with pretty darn complex scenes - like a living room with sliding patio doors that has a large deck and
backyard outside - I have not come even close to maxing out my 1gb cards.. not even by half I don't think...
I can barely even conceive of a 4gb scene in Octane... my god, what that must look like!

Edit: Okay.. now I get 4GB cards.. until today, I had not rendered anything higher than maybe 2800 pix wide.
I needed to bang out a rather complex scene for a brochure spread (5300x3500)... eeks!.. cards started maxing!!
Had no choice but to render at 4000 wide and scale in PS. (Octane stuff scales much nicer than anything I have
ever seen. Period.)... But yeah - looks like I will need a couple four-giggers after all.