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Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 5:34 pm
by cfrank78
Hi Render friends i need your help!

I am planning a new machine and do some research at the moment. I look at different Motheborads, but for sure i will use Titan Grapic Cards. I need a case where i have plenty of space, can build in a huge mainboard like for example a dual cpu xeon server mainboard and maybe up to 7 Titan Cards. It shall be a beast! Also my Problem is, that i need space between the last PCIE Slot and the Power Suply, so that i can bild in a Titan on the very last PCIE Slot.

Do you guys have any tips which case i shall take, which is really good cooled and as silent as possible? I really need some help from guys who have allready build sutch machines!

Thank you for your help, kind regards Chris!

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 5:53 pm
by glimpse
Question is, how much You want to spend =) cases do cost from 50$ to 500$

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 6:23 pm
by tonycho
How about silverstone temjin 11 :lol:
Very big case

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 6:25 pm
by cfrank78
I shall be one thats fitting for my needs. I have to buy 7 titan cards, so the 500 more or less is not so important :-). I want one thats really good and will last a few years. where i can quickly and easy change hardware, have plenty of space and so on! And where i can give octane the power it needs with all gpus that fit in the mainboard. also playing with riser cards should be possible!

Have you some ideas/links Glimpse?

Thanks for your help - chris!

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 6:46 pm
by pixelrush
Maybe you would be a customer for Octane cloud edition instead? A few hundred gpu on demand... :arrow: :geek:

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 6:52 pm
by cfrank78
Pixelrush you are definetly right. I am sure one of their customers, when the service is ready. But how long will that take? 1 Week. 1 Month. 1 Year? I have the jobs now. And a lot of them too. But i also want a Machine thats by my side for doing quick projects and doing my motion picture editing in After Effects, Premiere, Sony Vegas and so on! Thas why i will choose a dual CPU Machine.

So....which one shall i take? The Temjin looks great, but has onyone an idea of using a 7GPU Mainboard in a case? Who has some experience? I need advises from guys who have sutch a mainboard with 7 gpu and which case they use :-)

Kind regards chris!

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 7:47 pm
by glimpse
firstly, You'll not fit 7x Titans on any regular /ATX, EATX, etc..motherboard - for such use there are only special servers like those from tyan or treton systems /& others/ with something like up to 20 slot pci bacplate designs that You can use with hostboard or expansion kit
image.jpg
/unless You're willing to hardmod Your Titans /cuting some conectors and equiping them with waterblocks..- Your dream of fiting seven or eight dual slot cards in regular motherboard will face-slap-the-wall, 'cos mayority of high end boards have single slot spacing if the count of pcie is more then four & last true single slot GTX card out of the box /that is usable for octane/ was 580 HC from EVGA.
image.jpg
You'd probably have to use backpate and host card/or expander/ option,
to conecting rest of Your cards not on the motherboard itsef.

though if You go for flexible conectors /I might be wrong/ but
You'll not find a case that wouldn't need any moding to stuff Your cards.. & most sensible soluions would be to make smthn' like this:
image.jpg

..with all this in mind, if You're not goig to take specialised server, then no mater what route You're going to chose..the best option I see is - case labs http://caselabs-store.com/ there are a lot models, that would help You to fit crazy systems, with multiple PSUs or even multiple motherboards/ or expansion backplates if You wish -though You migh need some modding/ & then even if You want You can easilly find enough place for radiators if watercooling becomes interesting /since introduction of Titans, personally I don't see a reason - involved cost doesn't give back so much benefit & actually hurts the value, unless noise is an issue =)

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 8:06 pm
by ChrisVis
Hi cfrank78,

I have the TemJin TJ07, it is the predecessor of the TJ11 and I really like it. It is robust, really big and has enough space for watercooling radiator and so on.
But I think even with the TemJin TJ11, what definetly is a good choice, you will not be able to put 7 Cards in one case (at least not double slot cards like titans)
Have a look at the pictures, there are only 9 card slots at the rear front, so you could install 4 double size cards in there.

http://www.caseking.de/shop/catalog/Cas ... anguage=de

Also you would need at least 2 PSUs to power 7 Titans...

Have you thought about an external solution? I have only one GPU in my case but built a 4 card watercooled external rig with a netstor NA 250A.
I documented it here...
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... r+turbobox

You can power 4 cards with one PSU... better use a 1500W, if noise and heat isn`t an issue.

Now Netstor has a new turbobox 255A, with PCIe Gen3. (But as far as I experienced, the Netstor NA 250A is fast enough)
http://www.netstor.com.tw/_03/03_02.php?MTEx

So if money doesn`t matter, you even could buy 2 or 3 or 4 of them and build your own render cluster, connecting all to one Motherboard. So if you buy a 7 pci slot board, install one internal oneslot Graphic card (for GUI), you have 6 slots left to connect 6x4 Titans to render with...hehe would make 24GPUs in total on one board... that might be insane, but should work :).

You also can start with 3-4 Graphic Cards internal and add external rigs later.
I also have had to decide fast because of client work. So you might build up the core system with 3 or 4 titans in the next 1-2 week and the netstor expansion within the next 3-4 weeks (depends on where you can get the netstor from, I had to wait 2 weeks until delivery).

But with all of that you should be aware, that this machine system eats up a lot of energy and produces a lot of heat, you might need different power connection when it comes to 5000-10.000 Watts.

Even my 4 card system with watercooling radiator heats up my 20qm room by 3-4 degrees while rendering several hours ;)
So better plan a server room or at least a large room where to put your system in.

Hope that gives some inspiration...
would be nice to hear, which system you will end up to work with.
Greetings,
ChrisVis

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 8:47 pm
by cfrank78
Chrisvis you solution sounds Promising!

If i understand you right you tell me that if i, for example have a motherboard with 5 gpu (4 titan and 1 gtx 670 for display) in the tj11 i can also use the extender so i can have 8 gpu´s for octane(4 in the main machine + 4 in the extender). is that right? that would be the machine i dream of. the computers will of course be in a seperate room, this is the way i work for several years now, so heat is no problem. that room is regulated by a air condition!

Do i understand you right?

Thank you all for your help. I really appreciate it!

Chris!

Re: Which case shall i buy?

Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 12:22 am
by ChrisVis
Hi cfrank78,

the Tj11 has 9 PCI slot blends, so it can handle up to 4 double space grafic cards like the Titans and one grafic card with only one space PCI slot... but in this case there wouldn`t be a slot free for the PCI Expansion Host Adapter Card without any modding. So if you need 4 Titans in the case, then you might be able to use the Mobos internal grafic card for Display, if it has a physical output (not every board has it).

Better and faster way for Display is to go with 3 Titans and 1 single space card internal,
so you have 2 Slots left to put 1 or even 2 Host Adapters for the Netstor Turbobox in. (I couldn`t find a GTX 670 with single slot, but I know there are GTX580 with only single slot - at least watercooled ones -, and they are quite good for OpenGL realtime preview for 3D and CAD work.)

Or go with 4 Titans and 1 PCI Expansion Host Adapter, use 1 Titan for Display and 3 for rendering while working on projects, and if you do final rendering and nothing else with the pc just use all 4 internal titans to render together with another 4 in the turbobox... so you have 8 GPUs alltogether.

If you go for more in the future, just take out 1 of the 3 or 4 internal Titans and put it together with another 3 Titans or upcoming cards in another Turbobox... and so on :)

The cable of the turbobox expansion is only 1.5m, but thats not a problem when the whole system is together in another room.

If you go for the Titans and the air conditioned server room, I think you can go completly without watercooling, what will save cost and lots of time building the system.
You should also be fine with only one 1500W PSU for every part of the system I think.

Depending on if you find a distributor near you for the netstor turbobox, I definetly would go for the new NA255A with the Titans. You can through out the internal 1000W PSU and replace it with any better ATX PSU.

Hope that helps...
Which Mobo do you think of putting in?