OTOY Forums

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.

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.

double post

thank you Liketheriver, appreciate the feedback

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.