Rebuild thoughts and takeaways
areg5
Posts: 617
Yesterday I did a substantial rebuild on both of my rigs. Popped both of the hoods. As for the Coolermaster (CM) rig, I pulled the 980 Ti and put two of the 1080 Ti's from the Thermaltake(TT) rig into it. Ok, that part was easy. I uninstalled XOC, and using afterburner both cards ran to completion at full power. This was a key point as it meant that I could still render if need be on that, regardless of what happened with the TT build.
As far as the TT was concerned, the plan was to add 2 fans, and two 2080 Ti's one of which is a hybrid, the remaining 1080 Ti and swap the PSU for a 1600 W Corsair titanium. Now, the TT case is a full tower, but that being said it was still like trying to shove 10 lbs of bologna into a 5 lb bag. Mighty tight. Also, a minor concern was the number of fan sockets remaining on the MB, and whether the wires from the fans were long enough to reach.
I installed one of the fans as input in the base. I had to leave room for the PSU, so that took a bit of trial and error. My CPU is cooled by a Floriing, and the radiator for that is up top. I had to move that a bit to allow for placement of the hybrid radiator next to it. The remaining fan was basically installed as input on the right side of the case. Since the case wall are glass and there is space between the walls and the chassis, I figured the airflow would be good. I was finding that in it's previous configuration, to make really sure the renders finished I had to open the case door. The cards weren't overheating but they certainly run cooler with few hitches with the door open.
Next I swapped out the PSU. It's modular, so I left much of the existing cables as is and plugged into it. Then I installed the cards, putting the hybrid in the top slot, the other 2080 in the third slot, and the 1080 on the vertical bracket. There was an issue with the hybrid plumbing not fitting very well behind the bracket, but I squeezed it in.
Then I plugged it in and powered up... or I should say, I tried to power up. Nothing.
I started unplugging things. Unplugged all the cards. Still nothing. I got signs of life from the PSU when I unplugged the MB...
Power Supply takeaway: this is an issue I have not encountered before. In the past, the power cables were all interchangable between my PSU's. That was not the case here. The Corsair would only work with the cables it came with. So I removed all of my existing cables, and used the Corsair cables. When I did that, I put the hybrid on the vertical bracket which gave the plumbing more room, and put the 1080 Ti in the top slot. This all fit much better with no squeezing and shoving. This time it powered up fine...
2080 Ti takeaway: ok, this is the last thing I would have expected or looked for. Neither of the 2080 Ti's had a digital monitor output. All they had was HDMI outputs. I was not aware of that at all when I bought them. To me, that would have been like making sure the car you bought had wheels. I mean, WTF? Ok, progress. I take it that the cards are all moving towrds HDMI outputs which makes sense. To make matters worse in my case is that my monitors do not have HDMI inputs. Hmmm. Ok, well luckily the 1080 Ti has a standard digital jack, so I plugged into that. Then I ordered an HDMI to digital adapter.
Result:
The TT is running great. Now, some of you out there may be thinking "you're mixing cards! That's wrong! Booooo!" I have tons of experience mixing cards of all generations. The architecture of the card is much less relevant than the number of CUDA core. It's mostly about the Cuda's, especially when you are talking about the 1080 Ti vs the 2080 Ti currently. Now what about raytracing? I don't think that the current RTX is particularly good at it, and I don't think Daz really makes use of it. What matters is the number of CUDA cores for the most part, although the RTX architecture may add to it a bit.
So: a test scene! I did a scene that I rendered in 14:55 using 1080 Ti x3. Now if you do the math, that render used 10,752 CUDA cores. The 2080 Ti x2 and 1080 Ti x1 are 12288 cores. I calculated that the rendering spoeed should be around 13. It was actually 9:20. So I was getting some benefit from the RTX architecture. But what about just going RTX? The 2080 Ti x 2 have 8704 cores, so it should be a bit slower than 3 1080 Ti's. But it actually was sitll faster at 11:09, so it turns out that the RTX architecture is faster than the GTX in of itself. However, the 1080 Ti didn't slow it down, it made it faster.
The Sickleyied Benchmark:
1080 Ti x 3: 40 seconds
2080 Ti x 2, 1080 Ti X 1: 29 seconds
2080 Ti x2: 34.62 seconds
So I'm fastest with all cards running, which I expected. What I didn't expect was the increased speed of the RTX setup over the GTX. I had a great system before that's better now, but at substantial expense. So as far as what you want to do with your own system, especially given the cost of upgrading, ask yourself if you are upgrading a system that is already fast enough. Maybe it is. If not, if you have enormous rendering demands as I do given my comic gig, any improvement is welcome.
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Comments
Madman very cool read. I know I could of added the1080ti to my 2080 but I got good $$ over 1/2 after 3 years..
Thanks. It would have made it faster, to be sure, but money is money. I'm putting my 980 Ti up for sale on Ebay. Still works fine, and I was using it in my set up computer until yesterday. I think I might get some coin for it.
Cool I got $600 for my 1080ti that I bought for approx $1050 3 years ago it was part of what made my upgrade affordable. For my needs the boost is already working out well..
That's a really good price for the 1080 Ti! When did you sell it?
Actually the guy who sold me my 2080ti bought it. I looked on my local CL and saw they were ranging from $550 to $1100. I figured it was somewhere in the middle and the fact I sold it quick worked for me.
You bought your card on CL? Cool. Is it an EVGA?
No I bought it new it came with $150 in discounts & 4 yr warranty (good for resale value:) the guy who sold it me me bought mine. I said when I was buying the new one. "If you know anyone who wants a 1080ti for $600 let me know. He took it...I have an i7 10 core processor & 32G of ram.The CL reference was what I gaged what to ask for mine.
I got this one.
Im curious can you cook breakfest on your rig
Not quite, but it does render fast! 4 yrs? Wow! Did the seller give you that or is it from the factory?
Factory upon registation. I have no doubt in regards to your render speed. I used to render using a laptop. I fried 2..
Wow. I thought the EVGA warranty was only 3 years. Yes, I started with a laptop as well, and did all of my 3Delight comics on it. Served me well! Yeah, my rendering speed is certainly not an issue! It's funny how even with two rigs, there still doesn't seem to be enough time to stay on schedule!
Interesting!
So I'll probably mix a 3080 with a 2060 down the line :)
You won't regret it.