Does anyone use an eGPU set up with Daz/Iray?
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Does anyone use an eGPU set up to boost Iray rendering? I've been slowly slowly trying to find info on the idea but most info I find is games related, and driving displays, which isn't what would be needed here.
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Ouch... that's a lot of money to spend on an external GPU enclosure. And to top it off you still need a notebook with a thunderbolt 3 connector to get decent bandwidth (decent meaning the whole thunderbolt interface is PCI-E 3.0 4x, so just under 4GB/s). And that's even asuming that Studio and Iray will play nice with it.
For the price involved in getting a compatible laptop, GPU, and the enclosure, you might as well build a desktop running two of the GPU that you want to use.
You are looking at:
$1000+ for a quad core laptop with thunderbolt 3
$200 - $500 for the enclosure depending on who makes it.
$500 for a GTX 1080
Logic dictates, that since you will need to be at your desk to render anyways.
Build a modest desktop with an 800w power supply and 2x PCI-E 16x slots for around $700
and then drop $1000 on 2x GTX 1080 cards for ir.
I'm assuming you found this website in your searches, if not here's the link:
https://egpu.io/
These guys talk about DIY solutions as well as the 'ready built' ones.
Well, the thing is..I'm a Mac user...I don't really want to go to Windows. My iMac is very buff on the non GPU side, and has thundebolt (but 1). That's why there's reseach going on :)
The nice thing about a laptop (for those of us on the go) is that you can use it on the train, on the bus, at your friend's house... Desktops (even portable ones) just aren't as good in those situations.
Of course, an eGPU would need it's own source of battery power in some of those situations Hence why this topic interests me as well. The OP has a TBolt port for his IMac, so he's halfway there already.
I have it bookmarked...since 3d rendering is such an obscure topic inside an obscure topic, I was hoping to find some folks who've done it already before diving in with the experts...
I went through this very same process for the very same reason. I have the same iMac model. I ended up buying a custom Desktop PC with the intention of selling my iMac to cover the cost. In the end, I couldn't part with the iMac so the two sit together on my desk at home. I only wish that I could have used my 27" iMac as a screen for the PC but Apple killed off that option for that model.
I've started a thread over there hoping to get some info on proceeding.
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/newbie-questions-before-i-begin-researching-imac-rendering/