OTOY Forums

Hello,

A simple question: what is the best video card for Octane Render now? This software will be optimized for 6xx series?

Thanks,
David

software is already optimised for Kepler (6xx) architecture, best card (speed & memory wise) is probably Titan - ~1k€

Do you think its better to run two or three mid range Cuda cards (384 cores) instead of one Titan card? I ask in terms of heat generated per card and cumulative performance.

I can't see any combination of lower end cards that would be better than a singe Titan in my opinion. You would need at least two 680's to beat it's performance, and i'm pretty sure there will be no heat or power usage gains. You would then need to upload the scene to all cards instead of just one before render, and i don't think any other cards come with 6GB, and the ram will not accumulate, you are limited in scene size to the smallest of the cards. Also you would have less room for expand-ability, and you would need a PSU with lots of power connectors.

In my opinion, one more powerful card is almost always a better choice than multiple less powerful ones, even if you get similar performance. If you start analyzing performance per dollar then it may turn out differently, but probably not by much.

Thanks
Chris.

I've been looking at the gt640 with 4GB. I've benchmarked it at .72 for one card.

It retails for ~$105

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=7387

It is a single slot card and only uses 65 watts which comes from the slot rather than additional power connections.

Assuming all is even then it would take 9 or 10 cards to get numbers like a Titan. You lose on price, ram and slots with that setup.

Comparing against a GTX 680 with 4gb it is a little better. You would need 4 or 5 cards and would spend less money but use more slots.

The benefit of the GT 640 card using less power and a single slot might allow you to stack more cards into your system but as long as adding external slots is still expensive then the benefit is lost.

A 1x to 16x PCI-E-Extension Cable or StarTech PCI Express X4 to X16 Slot Extension Adapter might make it better so you could use the older 1x slots for more cards.

I think for the GT640 to be worth while it would need to twice as fast so that 2x GT640 would almost equal 1x GTX 680

Questions for any and all...

Why isn't the Titan just labeled king?
I've read, and it certainly seems, that the Octane team will be able to make the Titan cards provide images faster than any other setup. The (iirc) 680's are what a lot of people have dual configurations of; those don't equal a Titan from what the thread says. Plus, if you want multiple cards, this is a single-space card; a motherboard, like http://www.frys.com/product/7216713 would actually let you get a full four Titan cards in it.
Ha, for that, though, I'd wait for those coppers coming out.

As the Octane team comes to know the Titan, it seems the card to have for 'future thinkin'.
Edit: need another question...
What's your next card?