gtx 980 ti 3 way SLI- GTX 980 TI for 3D Rendering

[feniks1122]

Hi guys, 

 

So i recently compiled a new high-end PC mainly for Architecture: 3D modelling, 3D rendering, Animation and eventually gaming. 

The basic specs are:

 

Motherboard: Asus X-99 Deluxe 

CPU: Intel i7 5930 K

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 980 TI

RAM: 32 GB

POWER: 850 W

4K display

 

Now I am aware that there are better components for a workstation out there (Xeon processors, Quadro cards, X-99 WS etc..) but I stand to believe that somewhat similar performance can be achieved with consumer products especially by overclocking. (please correct me if I am insanely wrong).

 

Having said that I want to boost my GPU for 3D Rendering on software's like 3dsMax (Octane, Vray-RT etc.). I am aware that the 4k display draws a lot of the 6GB VRAM on the GTX 980 TI.

The GTX 980 TI has 2816 CUDA cores (much more than most of the high-end Quadro cards). Therefore, I was thinking on bridging a 3-way SLI with two more GTX 980 TI's. Now, I am aware that this wont boost up the VRAM but only clone the process to the rest of the cards and make use of the CUDA cores available.

 

My question is how much will a 2 or if necessary 3 way SLI realistically boost the performance? Will (if) rendering time decrease, and how will the rendering workload be distributed to three cards, while running a 4K display simultaneously?

 

Any advice on this would be much appreciated so please let me know your thoughts, comments! 

 

Thank you in advance, and thank you (LinusTechTips) for the amazingly informative videos you guys post! 

 

Best! 

 

 

[xentropa]

You will probably need more than 850 Watts for 3 way SLI 980 Ti

 

Anecdotal but for me, I noticed about a 50 to 66% increase in FPS for 2 way SLI for most of my games.

[asim1999]

Since rendering is different to gaming, scaling will be good. However your PSU is not powerful enough for 3 cards. I would.recommend a 1200W

Also why not wait for the GTX 1080? It will be slightly cheaper than the 980 Ti as well as being better at rendering due to better FP16 and FP64 as well as being better optimised for the new generation of CUDA. 

Pascal will be great as a compute card so it will fit well for your needs 

[VagabondWraith]

Wait for Pascal. 3 new cards rumored to be releasing soon (May/June). Has DP compute and better performance.

[19_blackie_73]

It will be three times the performance for sure: the way I set up multiple gpus for rendering animations is to let each gpu render individual pictures each and create placeholders so that the other gpus know which frames are at the moment rendered. for single pictures it will be a bit less than three times