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Hi,

Although this vid is mainly about running a multi-card set up on modest means, I do this to run OCTANE faster (for animation). I show OCTANE within DAZ later in the video.

Hope this interests and informs.

Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3z79g7aQlw

I had actually been wondering about how a 2 card setup would work. I currently have a GTX 670 and was wanting to eventually add a 780 as well but was unsure about how to do the power supply upgrade. I think my current Power supply is 750, so would upgrading to something 850+ keep the system stable?

I'd recommend 900W or higher for 2 cards. The temptation to add a third if your mobo can take it is always there so even 1200W is not overkill in the long term. I have 4 x 760's and have a 1300W supply. The 760's use less power than a 780 and probably less than a 670. Better to overcompensate by buying a really good PSU than run into power difficulties such as BSOD with an underpowered one.

It would depend on the particular card you upgrade to, reference would definitely be fine with that, but some of the models would require different amounts.
As a side note, I understand you weren't making a specific recommendation, SciFi, but it might be worth noting that since the 6GB versions of the 780s have been announced to be released pretty soon, it may actually be more beneficial to wait. Odds are, like every other revision release, the value/price of all currently available 780s will drop. Likely significantly. The announced price in the states at least sits a little lower than you just paid for your Ti. So one could conceivably upgrade to 6 GB of vram while upgrading to the same number of CUDA cores for less money. Or, if they only need 3 GB, pay far less on ebay as the gamer kids scramble to get the 6 GB models. To me, it makes no business sense at this point to willingly buy something you know will drop like a stone in value when you want to upgrade later on, and later on is more in the category of a couple of weeks than the usual months, and for roughly the price you would pay now.

My two cents, for whatever that's worth. Nice rig, by the way

Sikotik13 offers great advice. Those 6GB 780's are just around the corner. NVidia is playing catchup with AMD's 8GB card so they'll probably be cutting prices across the range. There's also a 12GB card to be released but at a particularly high price point. It looks like it's the year of the VRAM!

I use Skinflint to check card prices in case anyone hasn't heard of it. It's for UK/EU price comparison. I'm not sure if there's a US/rest of the world version.

http://skinflint.co.uk/

Spectralis wrote:There's also a 12GB card to be released but at a particularly high price point.

If you are referring to the GTX Titan Z then the 12GB thing is just a standard marketing hype as the card will be a dual chip GTX Titan and each chip will have 6GB available to it so in Octane you will have 6GB of VRAM. But maybe I'm wrong as the Tesla K40 has 12GB. But still... The price tag for Titan Z is absolutely crazy ($3000).

birdovous wrote:

Spectralis wrote:There's also a 12GB card to be released but at a particularly high price point.

If you are referring to the GTX Titan Z then the 12GB thing is just a standard marketing hype as the card will be a dual chip GTX Titan and each chip will have 6GB available to it so in Octane you will have 6GB of VRAM. But maybe I'm wrong as the Tesla K40 has 12GB. But still... The price tag for Titan Z is absolutely crazy ($3000).

You're right, the 12GB will be split which isn't worthwhile because I think this card is wider than a standard card (780/Titan) which means only two of these would fit per mobo. Cheaper to buy 4 x Titan but they'd probably run hotter than 2 x Titan Z. If I'm wrong and Titan Z is a standard size, even though it's incredibly expensive, that could mean 8 x Titans per mobo! I've also read rumours about a 12GB gamers card that's not a Tesla.

Good to hear about the increased RAM.

To my mind the material / shader / texture limit is more of an issue. I've squeezed massive scenes into just over 3gb before.

Spectralis wrote:You're right, the 12GB will be split which isn't worthwhile because I think this card is wider than a standard card (780/Titan) which means only two of these would fit per mobo. Cheaper to buy 4 x Titan but they'd probably run hotter than 2 x Titan Z. If I'm wrong and Titan Z is a standard size, even though it's incredibly expensive, that could mean 8 x Titans per mobo! I've also read rumours about a 12GB gamers card that's not a Tesla.

Unfortunately Titan Z is a 3 slot card compared to a 2 slot GTX Titan/Black. That means that I don't think you will be able to fit more than 2 of Titan Z's into any standard mainboard which will leave you with 4 Titans for a price of 6 normal ones.