Help with a rig I'm building for a customer.

[Locut0s]

TO THE MODS: I know this is a double post but I'm hoping this will be forgiven this once, I really need the advice and the expertise in both forums. If not feel free to lock .

So I work at a computer hardware store (NCIX) and build system for customers, well I select the components anyway. Though the bulk of the job is just selling components, HDDs, CPUs, Vid cards mobos etc... Anyway the vast majority of systems that I configure are gaming rigs and home systems and these I'm comfortable with. However I have a guy who I helped build a gaming / game design rig for who is very happy with his system and wants a quote for another system and a rendering box for his company. Now the other system is easy, the rendering box a little harder. I've never assembled this kind of thing before though I know the basics. It's not quite a server though has aspects of one, it will be running 3D rendering jobs for his team 24/7. He wants a dual socket system with lots of RAM of course. The thing is he specifially asked us NOT to use Quadros or other workstation cards as he wants to do this cheaper than that. Instead he wants to use high end gaming cards, possibly in SLI. There are a few 3GB 580s out there that I can use. Thing is these are desinged for gaming workloads, not rendering. They are going to be using Softimage XSI and a bunch of other tools, many of which I think can make use of CUDA even in a 580. How well this will perform compared to a Quadro or FireGL setup I don't know (Anyone know?) So I'm thinking of something like the following:

CPU: Dual Xeon 6 core
Mobo: Dual socket SuperMicro 1366 board, or something equivalent
RAM: As much as he can afford, will probabbly have to be ECC for that mobo
Vid: 2 x GTX 580 3GB SLI
PSU: Corsair AX1200 or something similar
HDD : ?? Not quite sure what will be required here. perhaps a 2TB WD Caviar black
Case: Any solid large ATX case with good airflow
DVD : Anything

Now again this isn't going to be really a server it's just needs the power of one for rendering purposes. So they aren't going to be looking for corporate level stuff, they are a small studio anyway so most of what they are using will be consumer level anyway.

He may even think the above is too expensive. If that is that case then an alternative would be to go with a consumer level dual socket setup with less RAM and i7 970s.


System building threads go in General Hardware but since you've already posted it there, I'm locking this one.

Super Moderator BFG10K.

 

[Locut0s]

He claimed the following in an email to me

Will be using Max, XSI, Mental Ray, VRay, various GPU based render engines, Mudbox, ZBrush, Adobe Master Suite. Max can use cards in SLI format, as can After Effects and most of the softwares we would have to worry about

What I'm sceptical about is if these can make use of a gaming GPU in SLI like a 580???

 

[monkeh624]

Many years ago (Geforce 3 era), I did something called the 'Soft quadro mod', which essentially turns your gaming Geforce card into a Quadro workstation card. I only did it for fun, just to see if it worked. It certainly seemed to, as OpenGL performance went through the roof. I never had any rendering apps though, so I can't verify that it has a big impact on these.
Looks like you can still do it, take a look at this article:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539

This is probably your best bet if you don't want to buy real Quadro cards.

 

[BFG10K]

System building threads go in General Hardware but since you've already posted it there, I'm locking this one.

Super Moderator BFG10K.