my new beast

[gabrielefx]

Now it's filled with 4 GTX680s but I've ordered 4 Titans yet

Specs:
PSU Silverstone Strider 1500W
Processor 2X Xeons E5-2660 2.20GHZ 8C-16T
Raid 1 boot 2 X Intel SSD 120GB
Raid 0 data 2 X Intel SSD 240GB
Ram 32GB ECC Kingston ddr3 1600
Motherboard Asus Z9-PE D8 WS

Pro:
monstrous super silent case, it's huge! (well designed)
680 power consumption is less than the 580 systems
Maximum temperature measured: 74° (it's a sandwich config, only one fan on the back) (on GTX580 systems I previous measured 85°)
monstrous power with V-Ray and Live
very good power with Octane (sometime better than my other GTX580 based systems)

Cons:
heavy and big, can't stay under the desk.
expensive (9.000€ about with included mounting and accessories: monitor Samsung 2560x1440, mouse MX logitech, keyboard with display)
rebooting the os (Windows 7) it sees only three gpus, restarting it sees all gpus (Asus bios issue) (I will see with Titans)
The motherboard doesn't support 4 x full bandwidth PCI channels
Slow rt performances using the gpu for monitoring, the 4X580 systems are faster. (Octane issue or pci bandwidth?) (I will see with Titans)
Sloooow GTX680 performances with Nitrous driver in Max (my old Quadro CX is 10X faster) (GTX580 is slight faster)
Not good for Octane because it doesn't use the processors.

[smicha]

Not good for Octane because it doesn't use the processors.

Does Octane use Xeons for voxelizing?

I've started dreaming about TITANS Great rig gabrilelefx!

[Refracty]

cool, keep us updated when the Titans are in

[gabrielefx]

Not good for Octane because it doesn't use the processors.

Does Octane use Xeons for voxelizing?

I've started dreaming about TITANS Great rig gabrilelefx!

I can't wait to install the Titans, on paper and tests are really fast....

I don't know if Octane supports multi threading during the geometry translation, for sure doesn't use cpus with Cuda.

Post processing effects could be processed by cpus.

[t_3]

Not good for Octane because it doesn't use the processors.

Does Octane use Xeons for voxelizing?

I've started dreaming about TITANS Great rig gabrilelefx!

voxelizing is done on the cpu, and since the last standalone update also done multithreaded = much less ram use, much, much better speed. the plugins need to get updated as well, but since karba released a 1.11 max version today, i guess it already provides multithreaded voxelizing...

[cbapog]

good config. very fast.

[mbetke]

Impressive workstation. Where do you need such a big computer for?
So many jobs to render? Hobby? Just because you can? I see very nice renderings from you posted here but nothing where you would "need" so many GPUs for.

Wonder how long it takes until you get your return of investment if we consider the hardware will drop in its worth over 50% the next 12-15 months. Or even more.
Its like a sportscar.

Just curious here.

EDIT: For the case. It seems it wastes a lot of space with those top handles and bottom stands. I have a LianLi Case. Also very huge with lots of space. Really can recommend it: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... ming-tower

[gabrielefx]

Hi,
I'm converting (switching) from cpus to gpus.
In the background you can see several workstations equipped with 3-3.2Ghz Xeons, they are switched off for 2 years about.

I used that renderfarm to create several animations and still life with vray

When Arion, Vray and Octane standalone were out I decided to invest in this technology.
Luckyly I have had a lot of work to do for my clients.

Now I got 3 gpu systems and I can create in one night 3 (or more) high res render or long animations.

Also the passion is all for me, I love all the new technologies.
Because in Italy few persons do investments I'm proud to spend all my money for research.

[mbetke]

How long do you render for a fullhd frame (if you do so and not smaller) in average with such a setup?
I know it is very vague to estimate.
On some making-off articles people say with vray sometimes 15min for one frame in 720p. Which sounds long to me.
Maybe you have a sample to share and some numbers.

[gabrielefx]

I will post soon an apartment animation done with my 3 gtx workstations. 5 days of rendering, 3000 frames about. (direct AO) res 1024x512 (16000M/s)