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External Video Cards 101 (Help needed)

404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I have a new system coming in a few days that comes with a GTX 1060 6 GB video card. If I wanted to add another external video card to my setup for Iray renders to boost speed, what all would I need to make that happen as far as components? And also, what would be other considerations I should be mindful of when shopping?

Also, to make sure I'm understanding correctly, if you render in iray with multiple video cards the CUDA cores are combined but not the amount of VRAM..right? So an extra video card WOULD improve my rendering speeds, but would not increase the size of the scenes that I can render using VRAM. Thanks!

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,845

    Do you need external GPUs? Most desktop cases, given a sufficiently powerful power suply, can handle at least two GPUs at once.

    Yes, each GPU works on its own to contribute to the render, so the RAM doesn't add.

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Richard Haseltine said:

    Do you need external GPUs? Most desktop cases, given a sufficiently powerful power suply, can handle at least two GPUs at once.

    Yes, each GPU works on its own to contribute to the render, so the RAM doesn't add.

    I'm not entirely sure, I just figured adding an external one would be simpler. I don't know if the case would be large enough to fit since I haven't received it yet..and truth be told once I do get it I don't think I'd know how to check! I do know the stock power supply that the system is coming with is 500 W

  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,766

    You would be better off checking your motherboard for an extra PCI-E 16x slot and adding a seconf GTX 1060 6GB card in.
    The GTX 1060 is rated to use 120W, so 2 of them in your system will total at 240W, so as long as you are not running a monster of a CPU, your 500W should put out plenty of juice.

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    JamesJAB said:

    You would be better off checking your motherboard for an extra PCI-E 16x slot and adding a seconf GTX 1060 6GB card in.
    The GTX 1060 is rated to use 120W, so 2 of them in your system will total at 240W, so as long as you are not running a monster of a CPU, your 500W should put out plenty of juice.

    Ok I checked the specs and it says it only has a free PCI-E 1x slot.. So I'm guessing external is the route I'm going

     have to end up taking?

  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,766

    To get a good E-GPU setup going, you will need to make sure that your motherboard has a thunderbolt 3 port (2 will work but it's slower)
    Theunderbolt 2 add in cards start at around $60 and only run on a PCIE 4x slot
    The E-GPU enclosure itself will run your at least $200 then you still need to buy your GPU to put into it.

    Honestly for that money, you might as well buy a GTX 1080 or 1080ti and sell your GTX1060 while the price is still inflated by cryptocurrency miners.

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