Anyone have experience using a graphics card in a usb enclosure for iray rendering?

Chakradude

So I bought a new laptop 2+ years ago (Del inspiron with i3 processer) and it does quite well for all my graphics including scene building in Daz but it has the built in g card and so of course no iray with anything close to reasonable render times. Just wondering if using an nvidia card in an enclosure like a sonnet etc is actually viable and what the potential bottlenecks would be? does the usb (bus?) have the flowthru to make use of the card? I did note some of the enclosures have fans which sounds optimal since cooling is a major issue for laptops as well as graphics cards.

edit: dang, it looks like these enclosures require Thunderbolt 2 or 3 which is probably a new plugin tech different from USB?

any insights appreciatec! 

 

 

bytescapes

Yes, Thunderbolt is a different technology from USB (although, confusingly, Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C use the same connector, and any Thunderbolt 3 port is also a USB-C port ... but not vice versa). If I understand correctly, USB doesn't have the bandwidth needed to drive an external GPU. In fact, some Thunderbolt 3 architectures aren't up to the task either, because they don't have enough PCI 'lanes'.

To learn more about this, the site you want is egpu.io. They have some great explainers and some very active forums, which will tell you everything you need to know.

I have not (yet) tried rendering Iray on an external GPU, although I have a Sonnet box sitting on my desk, waiting for me to gather up the courage to hack my system so that I can use it (I'm a Mac user, with a slightly elderly laptop, and Apple don't support Nvidia eGPUs, so the process of getting everything working involves hack piled on hack). However, @macsavers reports successfully using scripts from that site with his Mac laptop and an eGPU.

If you're a PC user, you may have a slightly easier time of it (because the makers of the hardware and OS aren't actively fighting to prevent you using an Nvidia eGPU). However, you will -- as far as I know -- require a Thunderbolt port, which may mean getting a newer laptop (eGPU has a list of recommendations).

Chakradude

Thanks, I was afraid of that. if I go to a new computer it is going to be a dedicated pc tower for the very reasons you stated so I can finally render my images. My laptop works great for all my other graphics needs and I, as well, have a 2010 imac that does the job more elegently but as you say it seems mac is not likely any time soon to support nvidia cards so.... I will have to check but I don't think I have thunderbolt in my usb.

 

Chakradude

Wow- great website on enclosures.   Also I love your design site!