Recommended internal RAM for 12gb Titan X?

[allemyr]

Hi,

I'am having a quite old computer with a 2600k processor (4-core 3.4ghz). Anyway, the maximum ram of that motherboard is 32gb which probably is a bit on the low side for a Titan X 12gb which I'am using right now for GPU rendering.
The internal ram on my build is quite fast maxed out when I start a render, even if I only use 5gb Vram on my GPU. So I wonder how much ram you would recommend for my next build? is 64gb enough or is even 128gb a plus? i know it's a huge step from what a 2600k can handle memory wise.
How is your experience in this case between used Vram and processor RAM?

When doing renders a big part of the time is going to getting the models and textures and files transported to the GPU itself right now.

Best Regards

Karl Allemyr

[padre.ayuso]

Hey Karl,

On my new builds I have it at 64GB with enough space to go 128. I also use Two Titan X. I have yet to max out my RAM, but that depends on the type of scenes you do and the sizes of your maps, etc. The pluspoint on going 64 is that you can always add. If you go 128, you can't decrease, but it never hurts to have a bit more RAM. There you go, that's what I think.

Alex

[allemyr]

Hey Karl,

On my new builds I have it at 64GB with enough space to go 128. I also use Two Titan X. I have yet to max out my RAM, but that depends on the type of scenes you do and the sizes of your maps, etc. The pluspoint on going 64 is that you can always add. If you go 128, you can't decrease, but it never hurts to have a bit more RAM. There you go, that's what I think.

Alex

Thank you very much! Do you think there is a difference between using 1 or 2 GPU in processor ram use? Is it bad to go with a processor that only can handle 64gb ram? 6800k 6-core with a decent motherboard is quite expensive but maybe cheap compared to adding two Titan X cards. If I buy a 6800k I will start of with 64gb for shure. The price difference here in Sweden between two 4 way "sli" setups (motherboard, ram and processor) is 60% I can get a 6700k setup for 900euro and a 6800k setup for 1400 euro both with 64gb ram.

Best

Karl Allemyr

[padre.ayuso]

Thank you very much! Do you think there is a difference between using 1 or 2 GPU in processor ram use? Is it bad to go with a processor that only can handle 64gb ram? 6800k 6-core with a decent motherboard is quite expensive but maybe cheap compared to adding two Titan X cards. If I buy a 6800k I will start of with 64gb for shure. The price difference here in Sweden between two 4 way "sli" setups (motherboard, ram and processor) is 60% I can get a 6700k setup for 900euro and a 6800k setup for 1400 euro both with 64gb ram.

Best

Karl Allemyr

Karl! My future workstation for someone here in the office is going to be an i7 with 3.4 GHz, two 1080's and adding a 970 here for vizualization purposes (two 1080's for rendering). The cores are 6, hyperthread to 12. My thinking here is that I don't need the cores, I just need the speed. Anything above 3.0 is plenty and I spend instead on my GPUs. 1080's are good enough in terms of RAM for 90% of my scenes, the other 10% I just do it in another computer and that handles that. For you, perhaps you want to go with the two Titan X because of the VRam. If you are at a pinch, go for the 900 euro computer which seems to have plenty GHz. If you want to use it for CPU rendering, then go for the more expensive one. That's the best I can give you right now.

[allemyr]

Karl! My future workstation for someone here in the office is going to be an i7 with 3.4 GHz, two 1080's and adding a 970 here for vizualization purposes (two 1080's for rendering). The cores are 6, hyperthread to 12. My thinking here is that I don't need the cores, I just need the speed. Anything above 3.0 is plenty and I spend instead on my GPUs. 1080's are good enough in terms of RAM for 90% of my scenes, the other 10% I just do it in another computer and that handles that. For you, perhaps you want to go with the two Titan X because of the VRam. If you are at a pinch, go for the 900 euro computer which seems to have plenty GHz. If you want to use it for CPU rendering, then go for the more expensive one. That's the best I can give you right now.

Great tip! Maybe 6700k with a Z170 WS motherboard suites me well. Appriciate your answer and thoughts.

If someone now if there is a difference between loading to say three GPU instead of one GPU in terms how much internal ram is used I would be even more thankful!

Would be super if 64gb ram is enough for say three Titan X Maxwell's.

Best

Karl Allemyr

[padre.ayuso]

Great tip! Maybe 6700k with a Z170 WS motherboard suites me well. Appriciate your answer and thoughts.

If someone now if there is a difference between loading to say three GPU instead of one GPU in terms how much internal ram is used I would be even more thankful!

Would be super if 64gb ram is enough for say three Titan X Maxwell's.

Best

Karl Allemyr

I can answer that too. You will be fine. It depends on the scene and not how many cards you have.

[padre.ayuso]

Hey Karl,

Just saw your chat with the guy that is promoting Octane in Ronnen's website. I think I used Octane once to try it out. I was impressed by it although I'm sure VRay will get there soon. As a matter of fact, I know they are currently working on some things to improve the speed and memory usage for both, VRam and CPU RAM. I understand also that you are a student or just graduated, so I have a feeling that you have to get your feet wet before you spend money in some other renderer and may not have the finances to go around trying out renderers while you have VRay.

If you have Titan X Maxwells, you will not be disappointed with 64GB of RAM, remember, that's the set up that the Octane guy has, and he said that it was not much RAM... I have just upgraded to that much myself! I'll probably upgrade my RAM by year end but you will not find it necessary to do so just yet.

32 GB is currently what you use, perhaps you want to ensure that your maps in your scenes are not crazy high unless you need them to be. I have found sometimes myself adding carpets at a size of 50MB when one of 5MB would have been enough, stuff like that will make your renders chew a lot of RAM. I can tell you right now I'm using two Titan X for Rendering and one 970 for my two screens and I'm using a total of 19GB, which includes 5 PDFs open and microsoft and then some other stuff. So there you go, hope that calms your fears a bit.