I am starting a tech start up doing Photoreal VR walk throughs for Architecture. As the new oculus rift is not compatible with laptops. I am building a semi portable compact rig so I can easily take the system to my customers to assist them in their VR presentations.
So here is my problem. I need a system that will perform well in Maya for the rendering of high quality stills so i’m looking at a Quadro K4200.
But it needs to be versatile enough to be able to do real time renders at 90 FPS at above HD resolutions using unreal engine. Its safe to say that we will be using techniques to keep our scenes poly count relatively low for the best performance in unreal.
So far i am wondering whether a double K4200 sli will be able to do this? Im finding it difficult to find reliable benchmark info on this.
-Corsair Carbide Air 240 Windowed Cube Case - Black - This small case will Support Two Cards I have checked
My budget is around 3000 for the entire system and that is the maximum i can go.
Could I make do with a TITIAN X? I recently read that the new series does not support parallel computing which would make it not very useful for use in maya.
What are the pros and cons for going with a motherboard that has 2 ram slots over 4?
Quadro is not a good choice then. For games and GPU rendering you’ll want a gaming graphics card, Quadro is built for reliability and to be able to manage complex scenes in programs like Maya/3ds Max.
Maya/3ds Max and UE4 don’t support SLI so a multi-GPU system isn’t an option either. The best value is the GTX 980Ti which is very fast and has 6GB of memory. If you have money to waste then the TitanX is more powerful, though not as good of a value for how much more you pay for it than the 980Ti.
Also, getting a micro-ATX case is probably a bad idea, I’d rather have something heavy than to have to get bad hardware. Also, if you’re interested in GPU rendering (iRay/VrayRT/Redshift/Octane) then you can use as many GPU’s for that as you can get into your computer.
As far as the number of RAM slots go–you’re likely limited to using 8GB memory sticks so if you only have 2 slots then you can only have 16GB of RAM.
Most x99 mATX boards have 4 ram slots, like that Gigabyte X99M, which has a maximum of 32GB of ram anyway.
There’s nothing inherently worse about having a mATX computer vs a full ATX, although with X99 there’s a lot less options for motherboards in that size. I’m using a mATX x99 build right now. And Malachi93 asked for it to be portable.
Although if I wanted to have a rig to bring to clients, I’d probably just go ahead and have 2 builds, a beastly x99 for working in the office, and a super portable ITX build that you could literally throw into a backpack. And you could setup the portable PC as a mini render box, for lightmass or anything else.
A mini ATX case might not even fit the graphics card, and by limiting to that form factor it’s going to mean less choices for motherboards. For example, that motherboard does not have good reviews.
As far as the RAM slots, he was asking about it so that’s why I answered.
For some reason X99 motherboards in general have very mixed reviews, on Newegg, half of them have a 3 star rating, and the other half have a 4 star. I’d read the reviews instead of just picking the one with the most stars in this case. And pretty much any mATX case will support a 11 inch GPU, the Corsair Carbide Air 240 Malachi93 mentioned supports up to 12.5 inch GPUs.
I had thought of having a full atx and a itx solution as I do have a full tower atm which could do with some upgrading. It has a i7 4770k 16gb ram and a gtx 650. However, whatever it solution I come up with is going to have to have atleast a 970 gtx and 8gb of ram for reliable vr. At this point it just felt like a waste to spend that kind of money on system without having it increase our productivity. Another workstation computer means one more machine to render on, one more machine to perform tasks and this early in the game having our machines be flexible is very important.
When talking about sticks of ram I was referring to whether I should worry about the system being in a quad channel configuration or a dual channel which one works better in this situation?
You can get 16gb ram sticks now so I can still obtain 32gb of ram on a board with only 2 slots . But the only reason m going for a matx over a itx is because I’m not sure which would perform better interns dual or quad channels when it comes to rendering.
I recently saw this solution.
An itx board with 32gb ram and a titian x in a case basically the size of a shoe box is something I would like to emulate. Without the xeon processor aha.
I was not aware that unreal, maya and 3ds max did not support sli. Just because it seems a little counter productive. As I know you can get octane for maya which defiently allows for multiple gpus and I would of thought unreal with its real time rendering would.
Has anyone used a titan x with maya? And can contest that to it being a bad ***? Do you notice that it no longer support parrell computing like it’s previous generations?
I was considering a titan x slightly configuration. Which I guess means nothing if my chosen software doesn’t support it.
The software should support the TitanX just fine, and it should be better than most Quadros for viewports in Maya. For GPU rendering (Octane) gaming cards are the fastest, and you can use as many as you can plug in your computer–just make sure SLI is turned off.
Not all systems support 16GB sticks so that’s something you have to check in the motherboard stats for Max RAM. I would also think that Quad Channel would work better than Dual Channel, 4x 8GB sticks should be good. And for UE4 it’s good to have 32GB for building lighting.
Also remember as far as cases go, gaming cards run fast but they also run hot, so cooling can be an issue. That’s one reason to use Quadro since they are more reliable in the long-term.
You can build great VR computers in a small mini-itx case. I’m in the process of getting the parts for a tiny rig with i7, 32 GB ram and a 970. Could probably use a 980 ti as well, but it would be a stretch for the 500 w PSU.
I’m going to need a portable VR setup I can bring on the subway, so a standard midi tower is out of the question.
I have done further research and come up with the following system
i7 6700k 4.00ghz
32GB Ram
ASROCK Mini ITX board - Some of you may have picked up that using an itx board would limit me only dual channel memory rather then a quad channel that comes with most CPU’s. However after lengthly research i have found that actually in practice the jump between quad and dual channel doesn’t make much different. Please read this article - Quad-channel RAM vs. dual-channel RAM: The shocking truth about their performance | PCWorld
Plus the i7 here only uses two memory channels anyway with a band width of 34.1 GB/s.
2 x 1TB ssd’s - really wanted a 1 x ssd and a 1 x hdd solution but had to compromise on space
Silverstone Sugo Mini ITX Case - Awesome case that takes standard 10 inch gpus
A single titian X - I found that this card will give me the best of both world. A decent performance in maya and a outstanding performing in UE4 and Virtual reality. As non of the softwares i am using support Sli linking i do not have to worry about outgrowing the case either in order to beef up the GPU. Which is always a plus.
