We were contacted by this client to build something quite unique. The client mentioned that he is looking for a high-end workstation to do GPU rendering and getting the renders done as quick as possible was the main priority. This obviously lead to us recommending a workstation where no expense was spared on the graphics power.
System specs:
- Hydra Chassis
- Corsair AX1600i Power Supply
- Gigabyte X299X AORUS MASTER Motherboard
- Phanteks PH-TC12DX_BK Cooler
- Intel Core i9-10900X CPU
- Hyper-X Fury Black 16GB x 4 3200MHz RAM
- ADATA SX8200 Pro 2TB SSD
- RTX2080Ti 11GB x 2 GPU
- Windows 10 Pro x64
This PC was intended to run Octane Renderer software which can make use of more than one graphics card, therefore we installed 2 x NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti graphic cards. For the CPU we used an Intel Core i9-10900X 10-core 20-thread CPU and then 64GB Quad Channel RAM.
The client also mentioned that he might want to get two additional graphic cards in the future and have the system running 4 cards, therefore we opted to go for a top-of-the-range 1600w 80+ Platinum efficiency Power Supply.
Since the 2 x 2080Ti graphics cards can easily dump 500w of heat into the case we had to think outside the box when it came to balancing noise levels with good thermal performance. The Gigabyte X299X AORUS MASTER Motherboard we used comes with thermistor wires which we installed at the back of the case where the warm air is exhausted. This allowed us to calibrate the fans according to the temperature at which the air exits the case. Normally fan speed is determined by the CPU temperature but since Octane Renderer uses basically no CPU resources this would have lead to the fan speed not increasing and poor airflow while rendering.
OctaneBench Result: 614.45 Points
Afterwards the client told us that our workstation renders about 25 – 30% faster than a workstation bought from another shop. Both machines were equipped with 2 x 2080Ti graphics cards, however, our system had the correct motherboard, CPU and case/cooling configuration to match the specific task and the other one didn’t.
When rendering for hours, or even days, non-stop these things come in to play and is often overlooked by generic computer shops. Solid proof of how our knowledge and experience delivered a workstation that is unmatched in performance.
