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Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:30 pm
by A Polish Ginger
I'm trying to decide between the 780 ti, 980, Titan (Original, Black, and maybe the X)

If I go with the 780 ti, 980, or the (Original Titan, possibly, if I can find 14) I will get 14 of them.

If I go the Titan Black or X I will only get 7.

As for the type of projects that this machine will be rendering it will be half an hour to an hour long productions. Basically will be rendering out a TV show.
My goal is to have each frame render in, a average of, 5 seconds. Yes I know it depends on the scene, samples, resolution and other variables. Though I don't want to wait a month to finish one EP. My desire would be able to do it in roughly 2 weeks

So my question is which GPU would be well suited for this situation out of the ones listed.

Also does VRAM make that much of a difference on this scale, I know it doesn't stack.

Other info:
As for the Motherboard I was planning on using the ASUS X99-E WS since it has 7 PCI-E slots running at x8, when filled.

CPU: 5930K for being able to support that many PCI-E slots

Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you do reply I high appreciate the knowledge, Thank You.

Sincerely,
A Polish Ginger

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:05 pm
by FooZe
You may find that compiling the scene and sending it to the GPU (and any network transfers if your using network rendering) will take longer than 5s so you may also end up limited by CPU and network speed.

Each octane session will only allow you to use a maximum of 12GPU's so to use all 14, you would need to split the job up into sections and render different sections simultaneously on different machines.

If you want an idea of GPU performance take a look at the OctaneBench results: http://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php
14 780ti's or 980 will out perform 7 Titan,Titan black or X's

The primary benefit of the Titans is the amount of VRAM which means you can render more complex scenes, although with the out-of-core textures feature this isn't so much of a deal-breaker anymore.

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:13 am
by A Polish Ginger
Thanks for the Reply FooZe it is very informative.

I have been monitoring the OctaneBench Results and I see that the 780 ti seems to be the best choice, and is going to be my main choice.

I didn't think that the CPU/network would bottleneck so thank you for the info, I'm still learning :D. But I'll use them as 2 different machines. Might hook up my current build to one to slightly improve render times, unless it gets bottle necked. Do you know of a site that I can read up on network rendering so I can learn about it if you don't mind.

Thanks for the assistance, I just wanted to asked more experienced people about this before I foolishly spend money so thank you.

Sincerely,
A Polish Ginger

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:40 am
by FooZe
Not a problem.

There is information about octane network rendering here: http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalo ... ge_id=1248
and here: http://render.otoy.com/manuals/Standalo ... ge_id=1269

In a nutshell you run the octane_slave.exe on machines with GPU's that you want to use, then in your master machine (either the standalone or a plugin) you can select the slaves and all the GPU's will work together on the same image.
The downside is that the scene will need to be sent over the network to the slaves, then they start rendering and return the results to the master.

Depending on the complexity of the scene, it can be a couple of GB or so that will need to be transferred over the network to each slave, which will take longer than 5sec for sure.

It sounds like your best chance to get as high frames per minute as possible is to split the job up into a few chunks and render on a few boxes with 2-4GPU's each.

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:48 am
by A Polish Ginger
Thanks

As for the machines I was going to use the ASUS X99-E WS for both of them which has 7 PCI-E slots though if you fill them all up they would run at 8x rather than 16x, but I have seen little to no difference between the 2 for rendering purposes. So instead of having 4 Motherboards I'd only have 2. As for the power supplies, would be connected through that Add2Psu connection so I think that would work, could be wrong, but that sounds good.

Draft Build
2- ASUS X99-E WS
14- 780 ti
4- EVGA 1200W PSU
2- i7- 5930k
2- 32GB Ram

Just divide it by 2 and you have one machine. But with your assistance I am pretty sure I can buy this confidently, thanks.... Unless you think differently :|

Sincerely,
A Polish Ginger

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:49 am
by glimpse
hi there =)

how You're going to connect 7x dual slot cards into motherboard?

You need something like ribon cables those will set You between 5-50$ per piece depending on the quality..interesting fact though, same cables that work for some completelly not usable for others =) so if You buy them, get two or three sets of different skus & then sell those You're not going to use =)

what is Your case option? are You getting some kind of open frame?

P.S. top end results on OctaneBench are performed by Guys who OC those cards heavily, so You might not get the same output if would not have a propper cooling/tweeking.

P.P.S consider getting few cards that have more than 3GB of vRam, maybe one system with 3 other with 4 or even 6GB in order not be stuck if You get heavy scenes to render..

Re: Assistance on Render Farm Build GPU

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:04 pm
by A Polish Ginger
Hey glimpse

For connecting the cards I was going to use PCI-E Risers (Which look like they are the same thing as Ribon cables) and as for the case I'm not going to use a case.

I'm going to get one of those wire mesh storage racks and have one row have GPUs then one row have Motherboards, and the last on have PSUs. I am somewhat concerned about wire length and how far I'll be able to space the GPUs, but I'm sure me and my friend will work that one out.

As for the price of the PCI-E risers/ Ribon cables I'll have enough. Also I thank you for the info on some cables not being compatible.

Regarding the top end results of OctanBench I know those guys have wicked OCs. Example Tutor (back on the old benchmark fourm) was going 85-90 Degrees Celsius but he was running max samples and still was doing absolutely great. Will I want to achieve that, yes. Will I do that as soon as I get my machine, no. I'm going to take it easy I might do light OCs but nothing as heavy as mentioned above.

As for the VRAM I was actually somewhat concerned about which is why I labeled my choices above. FooZe was talking about the out-of-core textures and making the Titan not a deal breaker anymore which its why I thought the 780 ti would be the best. Maybe 1 Machine 780 ti and other 980? Eh still brainstorming.

As always thank you for the information.

Sincerely,
A Polish Ginger