Lighting programming build

RenegadeXB2 · May 16, 2018

Hey guys, First time posting to the forum.

My name Is Evan and I work in the event lighting industry. I'm currently building a new home PC for working at home and would like some input. (yes i need power for this!!!!)

First off I'd like to talk about what i'm currently using and what i'm doing with this. then what my plan is and would like feed back.

CURRENTLY
i7-3770
8gbram
shit dell oem mobo
512gb ssd
gtx970 4gb

The pc is in my closet.
From there, the main screen on is hdmi 1080p 60hz split, then sent to 3 rooms over cat 6, bedroom, living room and office. each equipped with a usb hub over ethernet and a wireless mouse keyboard and some game controllers.
at the moment i will never use more then 1 station at a time. this is why have 3 keyboards, and 3 screen that are not independant works for me (until i get a gf and said gf moves in and wants to use the living room tv while i work on lighting projects)

the office has a secondary screen (who doesnt use 2 screen for work right?) which soon will be 3 screens. *therefore need a gpu able to do 3 screens with EASE)

This setup works..... to say the best.... its kinda just loosely sitting in a circa 2001 gaming pc case and airflow is less than optimal for a machine i plan to NEVER turn off.

so the real problem is doing WORK with the PC. the software i use that overload my pc are the following.
1) adobe premiere (hobby)
2) GMA2 3D, A stage lighting simulator.

In GMA2 3D, right now im trying to work on the EDC las vegas stage, and because its so big, at max settings I get about 30fps with a output delay of about 30ms. this is pretty BAD. we want closer to 60fps at 10ms delay.
This can be done with a gtx1080 (tested on the i7-7700 gtx1080 rig we have at the office for shows).

SO I want to build a dual gtx1080 rig ( or maybe something better will come out before i have money for GPUs)

the OEM dell mobo doesnt have 2 GPU slots and i know its BS, there fore thats why im building from ground up.

SO i ordered these parts from my friend as step one

i7-8700k
Asus z370-e gaming mobo
32gb Kingston fury 2400mhz cl15
Samsung nvme m.2 960 512gb
crossair h100i water cooler
2x 2TB WD blue drives for the FTP.

I already have:
crossair cx750
asus gtx970 ( for now)
crucial 512gb SSD for scratch drive.

if i ordered 1 wrong part i dont mind selling it on kijiji and swapping it out. but i dont think im gonna change my mind and go for a x299 build unless you guys are REALLY convincing. (also im already a tad over my budget)

so my questions are the following:

1) general opinions

2) whats the best way to raid the 2 hard drives, id like them to double as a back up of the server at the office. there we have a dell poweredge with 2x 2tb drives in raid1 i setup a while ago. how can i have these mirrored at home?
2.5) whats the best way to FTP these drives so that i can see them anywhere, i use windows FTP right now with limited success, and surprisingly im also the IT department at the office ( we are 6 so no need for a whole department just yet)

3) GPU recommendations.

4)anything i might not be considering that bottle necks the whole setup.

THANKSSSSSSS

hconverse02 · May 16, 2018

Your 8700k should be fine, sli is dead so rather than spending $1200 on 2x1080s, either get a single 1080ti or wait for the 1180/11xx series to come out and get that instead. A 1080ti will be plenty for your needs, but the new gpus coming out may be pretty cool to have too, you'd just have to wait a month or two.

RenegadeXB2 · May 16, 2018

the point of dual gpu wasnt for more power, it was to have one screen per gpu. i figured id have the best results like that (maybe?)

and honestly a gtx1080 is pretty much bottlenecking for what im trying to do. so i figured one gtx 1080ti cant be much better I have no idea how other ppl do it but 1080 crap out when i put my settings on anything but the lowest.... and even at that its useable but not optimal.
so i figured ill probably need more gpus and also wait for wait nvidia comes out with next. but of course i want to make sure im not bottle necked on PCIE lanes and can upgrade to multiple big gpu in the future etc etc

i did say what im trying to do works on our office computer with an i7-7700 gtx1080 but thats on lowest settings.(lowest settings looks like a pc game from early 2000 so its not presentable to clients)
and also thats with only about 1/3 of the lights in the project appearing in 3D

I did have a project last summer for electric forest festival and our i7-7700 with gtx1080 was only able to get 45fps with 20ms delay all settings on low.
When you're timing lighting to music a 20ms delay, its crazy difficult, 10ms is the max acceptable.

The software I use unfortunately eats gpu processing power many folds what AAA games do on max settings at 1080p

so im figuring a gtx1080 isnt gonna go very far so i might need more than one. Also the lighting community have told me that quaddros are worst for this software cause it actually uses the similar 3D engines to gaming, so gaming systems are gonna work better. even the manufacturer specs GTX series over quaddro.