A lot of good and informed points by all, just wanted to add, this guy here, Sven, at http://www.render4you.de/renderfarm.html recently became the first official Redshift GPU render farm and have used him already on a few jobs with very tight deadlines. Essentially he has a rack of 7x Tesla K40st - so 1 node is the equivalent of a 6x single 980gtx which I find is pretty cost effective solution of adding a decent online GPU render node, that works with hardly any setup if you have a redshift scene ready to go
best Rob On 5 August 2015 at 11:56, Tim Leydecker <bauero...@gmx.de> wrote: > Hi Morten, > > you may find it helpful to register in the Redshift3D.com forums, afaik > you´ll need to have > at least one registered license to get access to the "Registered users > only" forum area. > > There´s a few threads there about Hardware, multiple GPU systems and some > user cases > of testing single gpu vs. multi gpu rendering plus some Developer info > about roadmaps and such. > > Personally, I´m a big fan of Redshift 3D. > > Still, here´s a few things to consider you may find useful: > > - Compared to Arnold, there is no HtoA or C4DtoA equivalent, e.g. no > direct C4D or Houdini support > - Compared to Arnold, rendering Yeti is not yet supported in Redshift3D - > it´s looked at, no ETA. > - Maya Fluids, Volumerendering, FumeFX e.g. Fire&Smoke&Dust&such isn´t in > Redshift3D sofar > > - Multitasking, compared to CPU based multitasking and task switching > (e.g. switching between > rendering in Maya, Softimage while simultaneously comping in Nuke and > painting Textures in Photoshop > or Mari) may pose GPU specific limitations with multiple applications > fighting for a very limited GPU VRAM. > Redshift3D can utilize system RAM for VRAM but there can be headache when > other, "dumber" apps go ahead > and just block VRAM for their caching. It´s well worth running a good few > hard tests in typical workflow scenarios. > Maya, Substance Painter/Designer, Nuke, Photoshop, they all offer one > type or another of GPU caching or GPU > acceleration option. My personal feeling is, such stuff never gets tested > in real-world, multiple-applications-running scenarios. > > At a glance, it would sound easy enough to have separate, dedicated GPUs > run headless for rendering and reserving one GPU > for viewport display and other apps but to be honest, all this stuff is so > new, even thought it´s great, it´s still pushing grown > legacy workflows and boundaries and in doing so, it may sometimes hurt. > > My very personal suggestion is: > > - a starter kit is just one GPU, optimally a Titan X with 12GB VRAM. > - step 2, adding a second GPU, running headless, reserved for rendering > - step 3, adding a third GPU, comparing speed to step 2 > - step 4, price/performance balancing, comparing a 1-2-3 GPU GTX970 render > rig with the above > > Could be you find out you like to run 1 Titan X for viewport display and > multi-apps, and 2 GTX970 for a render job. > > > Another thing. > > Multi-socket CPU boards and PCIe slots. It seems easier to get solid > single socket CPU boards with lot´s of PCIe slots. > > Again, from my personal experience running a current generation dual > socket Xeon rig, it is annoying how many CPU > cycles I see wasted away in idle in most of my daily chores, except for > pure rendering with Arnold or the likes, I find > myself mostly having one CPU and even most of the other CPU´s cores just > not used properly by software. > > I think a good sweetspot would have been to just go for one fast, solid > 6-core(budget) or 8core (current) CPU, unless of course for a dedicated > render slave... > > > Cheers, > > tim > > > > > > > > > > > > Am 05.08.2015 um 12:05 schrieb Morten Bartholdy: > > I know several of you are using Redshift extensively or only now. We are > looking in to expanding our permanent render license pool and are > considering the pros and cons of Arnold, Vray and Redshift. I believe > Redshift will provide the most bang for the buck, but at a cost of some > production functionality we are used to with Arnold and Vray. Also, it will > likely require an initial investment in new hardware as Redshift will not > run on our Pizzabox render units, so that cost has to be counted in as well. > > > > It looks like the most priceefficient Redshift setup would be to make a > few machines with as many GPUs in them as physically possible, but how have > you guys set up your Redshift renderfarms? > > > I am thinking a large cabinet with a huge PSU, lots of cooling, as much > memory as possible on the motherboard and perhaps 8 GPUs in each. GTX 970 > is probably the most power per pricepoint while Titans would make sense if > more memory for rendering is required. > > > Any thoughts and pointers will be much appreciated. > > > > Morten > > > > >
