Render bang per buck CPU/GPU

marble

Mouser said:

Here we just call it the Australian tax, whatever it costs in the USA you can double the price here.

Additionly the cards are largly unatainable except through scalpers but that issue looks to be eveywhere.

I checked here in NZ and a 3080 is available (yes, available to click and collect) for NZ$1600. That is still high compared to approx NZ$1000 it was expected to be on release. 

Mouser

The other issue is the new cards may not fit in my PC case.

areg5

Mouser said:

Trying to figure the best render bang per buck using my current system as a benchmark, prices AUD

(stuff here in Australia is heavily marked up after import).

I'm running a pair of 2.1g Xeon (2620 v4) with 32g ram and a Nvidia 1060 with 6g.

Running the same scene with iterations set to 100 max (DS4.12) I got the following results:

1) CPU & GPU render time 76 seconds

2) CPU only render time 130 seconds

3) GPU only rener time 126 seconds

The cost (average) of a Xeon 2620 is about 700$ (x2 =1400$)

1x Nvidia 1060 6gb is about 470$

Conclusion x1 400-500$ GPU smashes the CPU from a $ point of view if I am looking at this correctly by 3-4 times.

Please let me know if I am analysing this incorrectly.

Q: If this analysis is correct, how many GPUs can I squeeze in a PC?

    and which GPUs give the best rendering performance considering their price?

Note: The GPU used over 80% of its 6G memory so I plenty of graphics memory is a must.

I think the best GPU value right now is the 1080 ti.  You can usually get one on Ebay for around 400-450, and it has 11 gig of VRAM.  As for how many cards you can fit in a case, it depends on the case and the cards.  You also need ample pwoer for it to run.  I have two rigs, one of which has three cards and although there is a fourth slot, none of my cards fit into it.  My other rig now has two cards, but it used to have three.  Both cases are full tower.  It would be hard to get three cards into anything smaller.  Also, a smaller case may heat up too much and caused the render to fail. For two cards, you can probably aqueeze that into a mid sized case.

Mouser

When I built my rig GPU based rendering was just starting which was why I went for a twin Xeon build with the GPU being an after thought.

DOH!

TBorNot

I'm waiting for the Apple Mac M2 and the new integral GPU units.  There is a reson why NVIDEA bought ARM.

Mouser

Okay, finally updated from my 1060 6G to a 3060 with 12G.

Ran my largest scene no probs although I was shocked to find that the scene was using up over 10G of my GPU's 12G of Vram.

I'm just glad GPU prices are back to sane sizes;)

charles

Learn to live without fear or worries and buy a Quadro 8k....nuff said

 

Mouser

I buy what I can aford;)

PerttiA

Mouser said:

I buy what I can aford;)

Selling a kidney is always an option  

Mouser

They should be able to 3d print one by now.

Mouser

Weird, I loaded another scene that was a bit high in the Vram usage 5.4 to 5.8 G of Vram using thte 1060.

But when I render the same scene (same machine) but now with the 3060 it uses only 4.1 G of Vram?

For some reason some scenes no longer use as much Vram when rendering?

Both are using default Iray settings and same scene file & machine, only the GPU is changed.

PerttiA

Mouser said:

Weird, I loaded another scene that was a bit high in the Vram usage 5.4 to 5.8 G of Vram using thte 1060.

But when I render the same scene (same machine) but now with the 3060 it uses only 4.1 G of Vram?

For some reason some scenes no longer use as much Vram when rendering?

Both are using default Iray settings and same scene file & machine, only the GPU is changed.

Rendering Iray on a GTX card uses about a gigabyte more VRAM than rendering the same scene on an RTX card due to required emulation of RTX functions.

Mouser

More ram for me.

Woohoo