1-Machine GPU System...

[Alan Iglesias]

Vlado, would it make sense to stick a single GTX480 in a machine for rendering only and then keep the existing video card in for the display? Wouldn't that help keep the interface from slowing down during rendering?

Also, if in your tests you are getting apporximately 20x rendering speed improvement over CPUs with 4 480s, then would I expect to see a ~5x improvement with the above single 480 configuration?

Thanks very much,

-Alan

[vlado]

Vlado, would it make sense to stick a single GTX480 in a machine for rendering only and then keep the existing video card in for the display? Wouldn't that help keep the interface from slowing down during rendering?

Yes, it is a good solution. Keep in mind that you will need to have something attached to the second card (a monitor or dummy plug) to make it available to Windows.

Also, if in your tests you are getting apporximately 20x rendering speed improvement over CPUs with 4 480s, then would I expect to see a ~5x improvement with the above single 480 configuration?

That depends on the CPU as well I guess My tests were done with a single quad-core i7 processor with hyperthreading and in that case the GPU is easily 5 or more times faster (usually more than 5 times). Obviously if you use a more powerful CPU, the numbers will be different. Now that V-Ray RT GPU is available, I would really recommend to test it first before making any significant hardware investments.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Alan Iglesias]

Excellent! I'm using the i7 as well so grabbing one card to start with should be a great way to easily and inexpensively render much faster during RT/GPU testing.

Thanks Vlado,

-Alan