Advice for a new user / new rig

[OuterGamut]

Hi Everyone,

I am a new octane user and relatively new to CG in general. Spent a lot of my professional life in photography and now I am branching off into CG and Octane rendering. PC user at birth, switched to apple 15 years ago... now things are pretty uncertain from apple for the high end.

I am at the point where I need to build something... anything really that can get my render speeds faster so animations can run in the background during the day and overnight. I would love a headless box that is just a render farm / data management box. This means it could be PC or Mac. I am not averse to switching my whole setup over to PC with some macs attached to the network as workstations. Before I dive into PC I want to exhaust my options on mac. This also means I'm basically starting from nothing and want to build everything the right way first. I used to build PC's as a kid but haven't in awhile, it's not extremely scary to me.

I currently have 2 mac pros. They are a 3,1 and 5,1. The 5,1 has a flashed 780 6gb and 12 cores, 96gb ram in it and that's what I have been testing octane with.

I'm looking at 980ti / 1070 / 1080 (all hybrids) for the GPUs

I have run through a lot of possible options on the forums and here is my current understanding of what options are available:

1. GPU expansion for mac = limited by macOS to 3 GPUs ( or is it 4? ) and expensive ( not a great option considering my machines don't even have native usb3 ports )

2. GPU Cluster via amfeltec = interesting/affordable though again limited by macOS / seems like a good expansion for existing PC

3. Lightweight multi-GPU network render slave PC = does anyone do this? would love to know more if so. i.e. a box of GPUs that has windows / octane installed and that is all it is. does all hardware have to be tops to make this work well?

4. New multi-GPU PC workstation = most bang for buck, the downside for me is switching OS. I would have to switch up c4d licenses and also lose speed from familiarity with macOS

5. Rental / cloud farms = good if you are in full production but why not build your own server, way too expensive for learning and testing.

I know this is covered well in some areas already on this site but there is not a whole lot of resolution around the idea except to buy a PC / switch to PC. I agree that is a great option, I am overly exhaustive about this and looking for all other solutions before I buy things.

If I could buy a headless 3gpu box and 2nd license for octane I would be done already. Apple peripherals are notoriously pricey.

I am all ears for any other creative solutions to getting an octane score that is around 300-500 in a single box as a slave renderer in 2k or less

Thank you for any advice and help, and gaps in my understanding of the GPU rendering landscape or PC hardware.

[Liketheriver]

Hi OuterGamut,
In my opinion the best buy is a scalable pc workstation, with a motherboard like the asus x99-e ws, or a server grade motherboard (Now there are various alternatives on the market) with 7 pci-e slots, you can add through time up to 4 cards in dual slot configuration, or 7 in single slot (but in this case it get tricky, you have to modify the cards, add liquid cooling etc). with 64 gb of ram and a decent cpu (like 6850k, to provide 40 pci lane) you have an upgradable and lasting workstation (just search some post of Smicha, they are very instructive).

A little advice, don't save on video cards, if you can go straigth for the best you can afford, like , 980ti, 1080, or the new Titan, so you don't need to upgrade too soon, furthermore choose an AIO (very easy to setup) like EVGA Hybrid, or similar, or an air cooled solution and a liquid cooling kit like those from EKWB, because temperatures are really important for a durable workstation and best performance.
In the set up the PC think of future upgrades, because when you need to add a new gpu, you won't have to change radiators, or replace the pump with a more powerful etc, but only add water block for the card and some tubing.

just my two cents

Ciao
A.

[Liketheriver]

double post

[OuterGamut]

thank you Liketheriver, appreciate the feedback

[OuterGamut]

In case anyone is wondering I am using an Amfeltec splitter on a cMP.

Before this, I was using a flashed 780 with 6gb ram. That had an ob of around 75.

With the Amfeltec and 2x 980ti's I am scoring around 330.

For my purposes, educational and self-directed work so far, this is a big jump. Enough for me to reasonably produce some animation.

The Amfeltec is a pretty weird product that lets Mac users expand their GPU capabilities. I am still on my way out with Apple but this is a great stepping stone as it is OS-agnostic.