Hardware Upgrade Help (Unlimited Budget Dream Machine!)
louisjedahs
Posts: 4
Hi guys
Been playing around on Daz3d for about half a year. Loving it so far, I think I'm ready to go hardcore.
I've seen videos online where people are doing IRAY renders almost at real time. I want to do that too. I need some help researching where the best bang for buck upgrades are.
Now I say unlimited budget sure, but if it costs $1,000 to shave off 2% per image...let's not be wasteful.
Currently I have the following rig.
- Intel Core i7-4790 CPU 4.00 GHz (8cpu)
- MOBO: G1.Sniper Z97 (Gigabyte Tech)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 x2 SLI (it says approx total memory 7986, is that SLI or single?) Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WindForce
- 8gigs RAM
- DX12, Win 10 64bit
Thank you!
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Comments
If it's really unlimited you might look at an nVidia VCA rather than a new computer. More practically, to get an idea of what helps with iray rendering and what doesn't you could look at https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/53771/iray-starter-scene-post-your-benchmarks/p18 (obviously older posts are not much use now).
Available in the United States in May from authorized value-added resellers, NVIDIA GRID VCA is offered in 8 GPU or 16 GPU configurations, with pricing starting at $24,900, plus an annual software license of $2,400. More information is available at www.nvidia.com/vca.
25k is a bit steep, especially with only 12gb per GPU. Nvidia already has cards with twice that memory (NVIDIA Quadro M6000).
And what's with the $2400 annual license!? It's like you're renting the thing.
Still, a 16 GPU config! Would every single render occur in 20 seconds or less? Would Iray preview be instanteous, no pixilation during update?
Drool. :)
In all seriousness, just get a machine with a decent power supply so it can run 2x GTX 1080 Ti, 64 GB RAM, and you're set.
Don't SLI the cards if your primary use is Iray. If you use it for gaming too, you can SLI them, but most here recommend not doing SLI when using the cards for Daz3d Iray.
If you have a Micro Center nearby, that store is awesome. They can get you hooked up with your dream machine...just stick with the 1080Ti (or better if Nvidia comes out with something else before you purchase). Those 1080TI's have 11 GB of memory which is extremely useful (note, it doesn't combine into 22 GB for your scenes, but 11 GB is still nice and 2x cards means you'll render quite fast).
Thanks! Can you please go into detail why i shouldn't SLI????? And why do I need 2 if I'm not gonna SLI
Also you mentioned 64 gigs ram, does RAM speed things up?
So actually I went to the local place, looked at all the stuff...decided to get 2 x 1080 Ti
I didn't upgrade anything else.
Immediate test the rendering time halved.
2000 x 1000, 10 frames, 100 iterations
Old 980gtx 2x sli - 8 minutes
New 1080ti 2xsli - 4 minutes
Honestly...not like crazy impressed given the price, but whatever ok for now.
SLI is not used by Iray and can slow it down - fortunately you should be able to disable it for DS in the drivers without needing to physically remove it, if you need it for games. Each GPU is used as a separate "sub-computer" - the scene is loaded into its memory (so no pooling there) and the GPUs work on it in parallel (so, roughtly speaking, two GPUs should be twice as fast as one - as long the scene fits).
Dudes, I just turned SLI off and it was awesome faster! thanks!
Just a thought, i have 1 more PCI slot....what will happen if I stick one of the GTX 980 in there? Since they aren't SLI'd....
if money no object; build a server array, and then you're not limited to the RAM on a graphics card
If not so unlimited, put 4 of the new Titan's in PC able to run them. No idea if Quadros with more RAM than that are viable for Studio, I'd recommend getting official info from customer service not the guesswork of us here.
The 980 is probably only 4 GB or so of VRAM. Not worth it unless you're sure you have a big enough power supply, probably 1000 watt or more with 3 cards. And if you are sure heat isn't an issue.
Even then, if it were me, I'd just use the 980 to handle my display and free up both 1080TIs for rendering. That way I don't have to worry about whether my scene exceeds 4GB, I know I have the full 11GB VRAM.
That's for the Iray Server licensing.
I'm jumping on the Ryzen bandwagon soon. If you've been following the AMD rumormill, tech press coverage, etc. It looks like we have some monster cores coming down the pike on the server end.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11183/amd-prepares-32-core-naples-cpus-for-1p-and-2p-servers-coming-in-q2
With a dual socket board, this could mean 64 cores/128 threads! Of course, this is a server build, so I'm not sure how well that would play out as a rendering machine. Plus, I'm sure it'll be pricey (although not as pricey as the Intel options). Then there is the whole per core licensing thing for some products. 64 cores/128 threads could get expensive as far as per core licensing goes! And most 3D rendering software designers (for products targetted at regular consumers anyways) probably haven't even contemplated having core counts this high...
Alongside this, there's been a few rumors about a 16 core/32 thread Ryzen, and an X399 chipset (with quad channel memory support). These are primarily rumors though (the 16 core Ryzen seems pretty solid though). It'll be interesting to see if these rumors pan out.
As a dream machine for rendering, yeah 64 cores 128 threads is definitely in the clouds there! Could be an option for professional graphics types at least (Pixar, etc.).
My dream machine has Ryzen in it Probably an 1800X, although if the aforementioned 16 core Ryzen pops up soon, I may rethink that!
As for graphics, for Daz it's hard to say no to an NVidia card if you use Iray. The 1080Ti is prcey, then there's the newer card, but yeah I think the 1080 Ti is on a few wishlists...
the 32GB Radeon Pro duo looks very attractive, but 3Delight hasn't jumped on the GPU rendering bandwagon yet... at least as far as Daz's 3D light implementation is concerned.
...if funds are really no object, dual 22 core Xeons and a boatload of quad channel memory (like 128 - 256 GB)
I'm with @kyoto kid in that throwing more cpu and memory at it will work better than multiple graphics cards since you will eventually exceed the memory on the card(s) and it will drop to cpu only. Remember no matter how many cards the memory does not add up, 3x 8gb ram cards still only allows 8gb scenes/textures total before going to cpu only.
..exactly, and as I understand Daz 5.x might support networked rendering for Iray. So just build a big render box. My plan is a little more scaled back: dual 8 core 2.9 GHz (3.4 Turbo) Sandy bridge Xeons with 128 GB of quad channel DDR3.
Iray network rendering also supports Linux so if you build a render box/farm you can install Linux instead of Windows 10 on it.
Then again, don't limit yourself to just iray even though that is the newest shiney toy. Luxrender via luxus or reality works great and has supported network rendering for years. I was using it quite well back in 2011/12 plus it doesn't tie up your DS so you can work on other things while rendering.
...I also use Carrara and Vue Infinite so that's why I'm going for the most CPU cores and memory I can afford as neither render engine supports GPU rendering.