Workstation / Render for C4DVray and Houdini (Two Graphic cards and Mirror Desktop)

[acidnoid]

Hi,
I need to get an new machine - and as the new Mac Pro's are about to be released, I thought of buying a 2nd hand Mac Pro 6.1 12core ... so far so good (as long as you have better ideas).

However, I just saw that theses sometime have two graphic cards available - will this accelarate the Vray wit RT production? In addition I need a fast machine for Houdini calculations... will Houdini also profit from this?

Then I am working a lot on my Macbook - is there a way to mirror my Macbook with the Macpro, hence Destop, Data, Software is all identical? I could save all files in the cloud, but not sure if the texture path and so on is the correct if I switch machines.

Thank you.

[sirio76]

Vray won’t use the dual GPU of the 6.1, you can add an eGPU and use Nvidia cards(you are limited to 1080ti and HighSierra OS though), is not officially supported but other engines works with this setup. Houdini should use the GPU just fine(not sure if will use both). In general I’m not sure is a good investment right now, especially if you plan to use Vray GPU renderer is not a good platform, that being said Prorender already use the GPU and Octane and Redshift will work very soon. If you want to stay on MacOS, realistically an entry level iMacPro(used or new) will be a lot faster in almost every way compared to a fully loaded 6.1 and you will have a very good screen too. Even an high end 2019 MacBookPro will be a better fits, it will be louder under load though. I’ve a 6.1 here and it has been a nice little silent robust machine but today there’s no reason to invest money on a 6 years old system, especially considering that Mac resale value is quite high and will not find one for cheap. IMO go for an iMacPro, save for a 7.1 MacPro or migrate your platform to Windows.

[acidnoid]

Hi, thnks for your answer, well ... I guess I will then wait a bit and decide in January 2020. Guess you are right and I will invest in an IMac or etc. - I have to stay to OSX - no option. Also I will check eGPU and how this works.

[sirio76]

It’s extremely likely Chaosgroup will remove the CUDA option from future MacOS version and they have no plan to support AMD GPU. So no matter if you use Nvidia, AMD, internal or eGPU, you will not be able to use GPU rendering with Vray under MacOS, other GPU engine will work fine. That being said, Vray CPU is so fast that even without GPU you will be plenty fast provided you have a decent CPU, you can also offload the render tasks to an external render node or use the Chaos Cloud service.

[acidnoid]

Thanks Sirio, ... Guess maybe I will wait for the MAc Pro. lets see. Sad news about OSX, but I will stick to it, or have to

[sirio76]

MacPro is not a good choice in basic configuration, I mean.. price/performance ratio is not that great, so unless you plan to spend at least 8/10.000$ you will get far better performance from an iMacPro.