Dual GTX 1080 in a laptop?!? There are options...
tj_1ca9500b
Posts: 2,048
So, I was looking for a good 1080 option in a laptop, and (for those that have lots of cash), there are SLI options apparently...
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154447
18.4" screen, 2 SSD's in a raid config, plus a HDD, although why would they only put in a 1 TB HDD while maxing everything else out? WTH? Oh, and 2 1080's (8 GB ea). Decent port options, including a TBolt 3 port, and a Blu Ray drive. Battery life sucks of course (2 hours), and it takes 2 power packs to run it apparently...
Not really a fan of the trackpad that doubles as a 10 key, but points for ingenuity I guess... I'd prefer mechanical keys, but they had to move things around to accomodate the dual 1080's,,,
Anyways, Acer has an even bigger (21") option apparently, but it's backordered at Newegg... No CD/Bluray though...
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834316078
These might make for decent portable rendering solutions... if you have that sort of cash of course. For that sort of cash, you could buy multiple desktop systems... or one quad SLI destop solution, but if you need something more portable with it's own screen, well there ya go!
I'd love to see an AMD solution along these lines (but with Geforce instead of Radeon), but that's a few months out at the earliest, IF the manufacturers would even make an AMD rig along these lines. We could also hope for a decent Radeon 'cuda emulator I suppose, but so far no decent options there.
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Comments
Can the SLI be disabled? Being a laptop, I wonder if they even have that option. That might be an issue for Iray since it doesn't use SLI. And of course, to be clear for any who may think this has 16 gb of VRAM, the VRAM from multiple cards does not add together. This goes for both SLI and Iray. So this machine only has 8 gb of usable VRAM.
My opinion on a great portable rendering solution: STREAM from your desktop to a laptop. Then the laptop spec does not matter so much (though a 1080p screen to match the desktop would be ideal.) AC WIFI will make a bit better experience, but even that is not required. I have streamed to a pitiful i3 laptop with no dedicated graphics. All you need is a decent connection and a remote desktop app. Since most people are doing this in the home, your home wifi is often good enough. You don't even need a laptop. You can use any device capable of streaming. I've personally used smartphones and a Kindle Fire tablet to stream Daz, and even used a mouse with them. So you could invest $80 in a cheap Fire tablet and use Daz on it if you so desired.
Streaming does not seem to make a big impact on rendering performance. Though rendering might effect your streaming performance a bit if your hardware is weak.
This is a realllly bad Idea. Laptops are not designed for the super cooling nessasary for Iray. Technically, this is a great laptop for gaming and VR, but for Iray you need a desktop with extra cooling and a way to turn on Video Card cooling to 100%. Just to keep video cards running Iray from burning up.
Cooling is a big question mark in laptops, but being a gaming machine, it should be designed with cooling in mind from the start. Looking at this laptop, there are vents all over the thing. The back has huge vents, and there more vents on the sides. So it has 4 large vents all around it. It also quite large, the 18.4 inch screen means there is more space inside, meaning there is room for heat dispersion, and it looks to be quite thick. I'm sure it has fan control in software, like MSI's own Afterburner should control the fans and allow you to set a fan curve. Gamers can play for hours at a time, too, and some games can push a card non stop. VR games are even more demanding. Iray is not the only thing that can push a GPU to 99% for long periods of time. Plus Pascal is quite efficient, remember how shocked people were when the 1080 was released with just one 8 pin connector?
All that said, however, I would not want to actually hold this on my lap......yikes.... toasty.
I just saw that the Acer is 19 freakin' pounds! And a 21" ultra wide screen. At least it has 5 fans inside. It also has a monster case that looks like something the TSA would take extreme interest in, LOL. "What is that?" "My laptop." "Sure it is, we'll need to take a look at this." You will quickly regret telling your friend that your laptop is the "total bomb, dude."
I don't really understand the desire to own such a beastly laptop...that's not really so portable.
MSI does know how to cool these things; I have the Apache Pro with a single GeForce GTX 1060 and it's also got cooling ports underneath, along with heat pipes for the GPU and CPU.
I would think that dissabling the SLI would be possible since it's software controlled. Sure the cards are physically joined by a bridge, the SLI isn't actually activated until SLI is enabled and the cards to be used in SLI are selected via the Nvidia control panel.
I have an MSI laptop and I can turn my fans on full speed when I'm rendering (they sound a bit like a jet warming up...lol).
Laurie
Just to be clear, according to everything I've read up until now, you DO benefit from multiple GPUs, just not the 'extra' memory as each GPU has to be able to hold the entire scene in it's own memory. Having double the GPU cores however, does reduce render times substantially. Here's the 'official statement' from the Daz Helpdesk regarding system recommendations.
https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207530513-System-Recommendations-for-DAZ-Studio-4-
In the case of the 1080s, the 8 GB of memory can hold some pretty good sized scenes, and you have the two 1080 GPU's to plug away at the renders, thus helping to get things get done faster (I've seen multiple threads now of people talking about reduced render times with multiple NVidia GPUs).
For example, Mattymanx has noted improved render times with two cards, here in this thread:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/127091/adding-a-another-graphics-card-to-improve-render-times-worth-it
Of course, if the Daz helpdesk is unclear on this, please feel free to enlighten us (and them).
As for using your laptop as a 'remote keyboard and monitor' for a desktop box, that's all fine and good as long as you have your desktop system with you. My point in bringing this up was for those looking for truly self contained options in the semi portable front. Emphasis on the semi (yeah you might want to have some padding between the laptop and your legs, and be ready for some fan noise...). Some people here have pretty deep pockets, so this might actually be an interesting solution for them when they are 'on the go'.
As I mentioned before, no question that you can build some truly kickass desktop render stations with even a 'mere' $5000. And with what you'd shell out for that Acer, I agree that might be enough to build a mini render server farm...
$9000? Geez. Many years ago, our first house cost $11,000... crazy!
You can get a dual 1080 laptop for much less than $9,000. Check out this one at Prostar (http://www.pro-star.com/index.php?r=product/configure&model=P870KM1-G). Very good quality laptops, at more affordable prices (I have a Prostar with a 970M that I use for Iray - the GPU seldom goes over 60 degrees, and the fan doesn't run even close to max speed while rendering either - 2 years old and still working very well, longest Iray render so far took over 30 hours). I've actually run an Iray render in DS, and a CPU render in Carrara at the same time for about an hour, turned the fans on high, and the system stayed quite cool. Your average consumer laptop is not a good option for rendering (Iray or 3Delight), but well designed gaming laptops will typically have much better cooling than smaller form facter (mATX) desktops (unless of course it is a "custom" build for gaming).
True, you can get a better desktop sytem for less. But if you need mobility, desktops simply don't work too well.
Thanks for sharing DustRider!
...crikey I remember when you could buy a totally pimped out Cadillac and have 3,000$ change.
Or a Cessna 172.
I think a better option, if viable would be a decent enough laptop to compose scenes, and then remote to a desktop rendering station at home and kick off renders. For that kind of money you could have a nice laptop and a quad 1080 Ti system.
Just need a little bit of cloud storage, the amount needed easily free and RDP access opened up or something like Go to my PC.
And mine only cost $15,000; but the dolllar was worth a lot more and salaries were proportioately less back then.
Games are resource intensive, but they are nowhere near as resource intensive as a system that Renders.
Games do not run at close to 100% for hours on end, Renders can do, and can run continuously for days.
With a laptop, you pay more for less; and it will wear out quicker than the equivalent desktop. Further, there are far fewer upgrade options, and they usually cost more.
If the need is something portable, then that is a different set of criteria, and the question becomes how portable and how heavy can I put up with; and what compromises am I going to make?
Acer's 21" laptop seems to have disappeared entirely, so the $9000 price point is empty for now.
HOWEVER, Asus has just upped the ante for the $6000 bracket with a Liquid Cooled (yes you read that right) 18.4" dual GTX 1080 laptop...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/07/asus-rog-gx800vh-review/
It has a 3840 x 2160 screen, and a mechanical keyboard. The MSI I linked earlier also has a mechanical keyboard, but not for the 10 key. The MSI also has just a 1080P screen... Not sure how the benches stack up between these two, but apparently the Asus runs very hot if you just go with the air cooled option (the liquid cooling unit attaches externally, and isn't required but helps a lot). Also, unlike the MSI, you can run the Asus with just one power supply (with throttled GPUs of course). The MSI is about $1000 cheaper with all the bells and whistles, at least at Newegg.
Well, at least they have mechanical keyboards... Chiclet keys annoy me...