Planning build for 3D Rendering GPU

[cr0zzb0w]

Hey guys!

 

I am part of a small VFX production house in South America and need some help to figure out a configuration for one or more render only render stations.

 

We need to build some hardcore render nodes to do GPU renderers on RedShift and Arnold GPU (not even released yet). they scale very well with multiple GPUs. 

 

We were thinking of doing a 3 X 2080ti or 3X 1080ti per node. I've heard Linus talk about not being able to run the 2080ti on 3X SLI configurations in a video, but as far as I know, I don't think SLI is required for GPU rendering. Please share your view and experience on this as it would be greatly appreciated.

 

this is going to be a future build so hoping to have a thread ripper 2nd or 3rd gen and a shitload of ram (again, advice appreciated) . But nothing is set in stone, so please advice based on your experience especially with regards to CPU bottlenecking on multiple GPU stations, and other complications we can run into.

 

FYI. currently, we have 8 X Dual Zeon render stations doing CPU rendering and we want to get on this GPU rendering bandwagon. 

 

Thank you all for your time.. Greetings from Chile!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[TH3R34P3R]

so, if you want performance per dollar, the best card for redshift is the rtx 2070. it is almost equal to what the 1080ti can do. 

 

best card overall tho disregarding money? 2080ti is slightly worse than the titan v, but for $1800 less. 

 

now, the titan rtx might outperform them all, but thats still $1300 more than the 2080ti. 

 

(all $ amounts in USD)

 

when you double the number of gpus, it roughly halves the time it takes to do a certain task. 

 

looking at redshift benchmarks (time in min:sec)

1 1080ti - 11:44 

2 1080tis - 6:15

4 1080tis - 3:07

8 1080tis - 1:57

 

a single 2080ti - 8:38

a single titan v - 8:50

 

the scaling falls off at 4 jumping to 8 GPUs when looking at the 1080ti benchmarks. 

 

@cr0zzb0w

 

 

 

[cr0zzb0w]

Processor and motherboard ideas? how important is the processor in a GPU reader station? I've heard of GPU bottlenecking in games, but I have no idea how it applies to GPU rendering!!! 

[Happycowdance]

do you have a budget in mind? 

48 minutes ago, cr0zzb0w said:

Processor and motherboard ideas? how important is the processor in a GPU reader station? I've heard of GPU bottlenecking in games, but I have no idea how it applies to GPU rendering!!! 

Threadripper because it has more pcie lanes which means you can use more gpus at full speed

read this article 

https://www.cgdirector.com/best-hardware-for-gpu-rendering-in-octane-redshift-vray/

[cr0zzb0w]

1 hour ago, Happycowdance said:

do you have a budget in mind? 

Threadripper because it has more pcie lanes which means you can use more gpus at full speed

read this article 

https://www.cgdirector.com/best-hardware-for-gpu-rendering-in-octane-redshift-vray/

This is for work so the budget would not be a big issue. Id say anything around a 1000$ or so would be getable  The idea is so that the GPUs can do their thing without being bottlenecked.. So what would your recommendation for a threadripper and MB combo be? that would be able to take two or three GPUs without having issues! We also need 10GB networking, so something with that would also be saying a few bucks off an additional card!

[brob]

Redshift does not need SLI to run multiple gpu. In fact it can use different gpu models in the same system.

 

Not a lot of concrete information about Arnold gpu rendering but I doubt SLI will be necessary. I do believe Arnold will work with NVlink. This may make RTX gpu the more attractive option.