I am just finishing up building a workstation that I will be using to work on my software project with UE4 and World Machine Pro. I would like to know what is recommended as the best video card setup.
The motherboard has 4 full PCIe 16 slots, so quite a variety of setups could be implemented and I am getting confused as to the best path to choose. The system is a duel Xeon (32 hyper-thread cores),
1 Tb SSD raid primary drive and 12 Tb HDD storage, 128Gb ECC DRAM, Windows 10, 4K 50" monitor.
Well, I would ask for your budget but it seems like you don’t have one :D. But honestly, that is one sick build. If I we you, I would prabably get at least one Titan Z assuming money isn’t an issue. Some people may disagree, but I think that you should want to run everything at 60fps, and with a 4k monitor, that will be difficult.
Don’t get a Titan Z. That is perhaps the worst GPU in history. A Titan X is far better and two Titan X’s (same amount of GPUs as Titan Z) destroys it. Also with DX12, your SLI Titan X’s will have 24GB VRAM.
A bit hyperbolic, no? Worst value for money, perhaps. But AJ seems not to be affected by this.
UE4 doesn’t support SLI at the moment, so there is no point getting two. Also, even with what we are hearing about DX12, I don’t think VRAM stacks like this. (It certainly doesn’t, currently). It would be great if I am wrong, though.
I’m not a fan of multiple GPUs, anyway, so I would go with your suggestion of a Titan X.
I’d go with a Titan X, perhaps upgrade to two if UE starts supporting SLI.
I’m curious to what you intend to use all that ram for though? Ram disks? Or do you plan on doing very ram intensive tasks other than game development? I had a hard time using all 32gb I had, let alone 64gb now that I moved 32gb from my old server (that I’m not using after buying a new one) into my development computer. And I’m using tons of very resource heavy softwares at once.
Thanks, the TITAN X is what I am leaning towards. The ram is used in the World Machine renderings, as it is quite large tiled landscapes we are working on, along the lines of the recent demo UE4 released (the 100sq mile one) we have also noted that in intensive shading rendering in UE4 it has used up to 384Gb of memory for certain tasks during the test builds, so the 128Gb works well with an SSD backing it up for the virtual memory demands (the board can take another 128Gb which I will install if necessary)
With DX12 games will have the option to support multiple GPU’s without using SLI or crossfire, and the GPU’s can be completely different. But–it’s a feature that has to be implemented in the engine, it’s not an automatic thing since the developers will have to adjust the engine to allocate jobs based on the GPU configuration.
Ok, thank you, it sounds like the best choice is the TITAN X as it will be several years until the game is available in ALPHA, so DX12 will be a good base to have it work with now.
You may want also to have a look at NVidia’s Gsync technology and perhaps consider a lower resolution/faster refresh monitor. 4K is a lot of work, even for the ‘supercomputer’ you are buying, and 1440 seems plenty. And most reports seem to think a higher refresh (120?) makes perhaps a bigger/better difference than resolution – especially for games.
I’m not suggesting Gsync is a must but everything I have read, so far, implies that it can be very useful. I do not have personal experience of Gsync, but I do have experience of buying expensive gear only to find out a little later that I missed something.
The Titans are very expensive. If, as seems may be the case, multiple GPUs can be fully exploited there is also the possibility of using three or four ‘lesser’ Cards. The GTX980 are reported to scale well.
50 Inch monitor! Wow.
(Apologies, my brain seems incapable of thinking about computer gear without using price as a major component of the sweet spot. I would be looking at PUNK’s Suggestion - but only with two monitors.)
Man, I’ve never even looked at a 50 Inch monitor. It simply hasn’t appeared in my light cone. How far away do you have to sit? I had to go look them up.
Sorry, just read your post again and you already have the monitor. I suspect that quad Titans are the way to go.
Whatever you get, that system should do the trick.
Well yes… Titan Χ because UE4 does not currently support SLI but… as far as I have seen 980 SLI outperforms Titan X and they are at a similar price (or so?) also 980 Ti is coming out so that would make an even better SLI.
Which means if the dx12 no-sli thingy get’s implemented in UE4 (which could take forever and it’s questionable if it actually works and scales properly) then the SLI setup will turn out to be better.
12 GB is something that might be important in the far future but as of right now (and in the near future), I doubt you can find a scenario where it makes an actual difference (don’t quote me on that… but yeah… it’s probably true :p).
I bought a Titan X recently, and it works INSANELY well with UE4. That would be my number one recommendation, and you could always get another one (if I understood correctly from what I’ve been reading about DX12, you could utilize many cards without SLI, even different models) if you need even more power.
I just read 980 SLI with 6 GB is quite similar than 980 Titan X (12 GB ) and $300 cheaper. I want to know what you opinion is to get one or another to use it in the next 2 years or so…
Also, someone can tell me which configuration could work better as a development platform, a strong intel i7 system with 8 cores/16 threads or a Dual Xeon as AJ is going to get?
but… as far as I have seen 980 SLI outperforms Titan X and they are at a similar price (or so?) also 980 Ti is coming out so that would make an even better SLI.