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GPU Mining Cards for Software Rendering

JohnDelaquioxJohnDelaquiox Posts: 1,197
in The Commons

I've been thinking of using a retired mining rig, with mining spesific cards, for Iray Rendering. In essence these are still 1080TI cards with less ram and no video outputs.

Comments

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805

    There were not mining 1080ti's. The P106 was a 1060.

  • KitsumoKitsumo Posts: 1,222

    That's a shame. Generally speaking, the mining cards didn't have a lot of memory. But all the other hardware is going at fire-sale prices. Those mining motherboards with 6,12, and 18 PCI-E connectors are going for less than $100 now. And the open air cases are selling for less than the parts it would take to build one. I just wish DS or Poser supported AMD cards, that would make things a lot cheaper.

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Kitsumo said:

    That's a shame. Generally speaking, the mining cards didn't have a lot of memory. But all the other hardware is going at fire-sale prices. Those mining motherboards with 6,12, and 18 PCI-E connectors are going for less than $100 now. And the open air cases are selling for less than the parts it would take to build one. I just wish DS or Poser supported AMD cards, that would make things a lot cheaper.

    Nothing says you can's slap as many regular GPU's into one of those mining mobos. iRay does need one CPU thread per GPU so those mobos do limit how many GPU's could be installed for iRay (because they only work with older Intel CPU's that top out at 4c/8t).

  • KitsumoKitsumo Posts: 1,222
    Yes it's certainly possible. I keep forgetting about the CPU/GPU limitation. My biggest wish is to be able to use AMD cards. That would bring NVDA's prices down quite a bit if we had another option.
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    Kitsumo said:
    Yes it's certainly possible. I keep forgetting about the CPU/GPU limitation. My biggest wish is to be able to use AMD cards. That would bring NVDA's prices down quite a bit if we had another option.

    It would have no effect. iRay is a very limited user base. If you mean CUDa in general that will never happen. Nvidia makes just absolute piles of money in datacenters from CUDA.

  • JohnDelaquioxJohnDelaquiox Posts: 1,197
    edited December 2019

    There is this one https://1stminingrig.com/nvidia-p102-100-mining-gpu-ethereum-mining-difficulty-bomb-alert-47-mh-s/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA03VdoXcy8

    I can get them very cheap. I was thinking of getting maybe two or three. Which should not be an issue when it comes to the CPU/GPU Limit

    Also AMD has ProRender which blender does support. There is also a plugin that converts materials

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk7PIFwmLiE

    Post edited by JohnDelaquiox on
  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805

    They're 1080's not 1080ti's and they only have 5Gb of VRAM. Why you'd pay $200 to $250 for that I have no idea plus, since they were only ever sold in China, buying them on eBay etc. is a crap shoot that they'll even be what is claimed.

  • JohnDelaquioxJohnDelaquiox Posts: 1,197

    I can get them cheaper than that from a vendor in the states. They're actually selling the whole rig. Three cards with a decent looking board and I think it was a 6700k.

    It looks like it would make for a fun project.

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    JohnDelaquiox said:

    I can get them cheaper than that from a vendor in the states. They're actually selling the whole rig. Three cards with a decent looking board and I think it was a 6700k.

    It looks like it would make for a fun project.

    It really doesn't matter how cheap they are, unless free. 5Gb is tiny for DS/iRay. But there is no vendor in the US that is selling them that didn;t get them from China. These cards were only sold there.

    The fact is that I cannot imagine a scene that would fit in 5Gb that would make even 2 1080's meaningful.

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