OctaneRender rig

Budget:
< $10,000

Expectations:
Considering joining Otoy's RNDR network as a node operator (a.k.a. "miner") -- assuming they would approve my application, of course. I want a system that performs as efficiently as possible with enough 'power' to be worthwhile in a profitability sense. The system would run 24/7, though perhaps 16/7 during hot summer months. So, advice on the cooling system, including case. I'd prefer to avoid non-sealed liquid cooling, HydroLux, if plausible.

Usage:
OctaneRender. If possible, also run Folding@Home (CPU-only) at the Low setting.

Special Needs:
I would intend to access the system via local network Remote Desktop -- to occasionally check status, perform software updates, etc. Additionally, dust collection would be nice to prevent, although, in my environment it's primarily fine particles. Therefore, I don't know how realistic that would be.

Saved Ticket #: 3807234

Specifications:
Chassis
Chassis Model: Digital Storm Velox

Core Components
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (6-Core) 4.6 GHz Turbo
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming (Wi-Fi) (AMD X570 Chipset) (Up to 3x PCI-E Devices)
System Memory: 128GB DDR4 3200MHz Digital Storm Performance Series
Power Supply: 1600W EVGA Supernova 1600 (80 Plus Gold)

Storage / Connectivity
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD M.2 (2TB Samsung 970 EVO) (NVM Express)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)

Graphics / Multimedia
Graphics Card(s): 2x SLI NVLink Dual (GeForce RTX 3090 24GB (VR Ready)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio

Digital Storm Engineering
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex Liquid CPU Cooler (Dual Fan) (Fully Sealed + No Maintenance)
Cable Management: Exotic Cable Management - White - (Cable Combs with Custom Color Sleeved Extension Cables)
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Digital Storm LED Lighting System

Digital Storm TwisterBoost Technology
Boost Processor: Stock Factory Turbo Boost Advanced Automatic Overclocking

Software
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit)
Recovery Tools: USB Drive - Windows 10 Installation (Format and Clean Install)
Virus Protection: Windows Defender Antivirus (Built-in to Windows 10)

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did a little more thinking about the cooling situation and case, plus did a bit more research.

The Aventum seems to be focused on liquid cooling efficiency.

What I've read about liquid cooling, including AIOs, still reinforces the stigma for me: liquid cooling is worth the expense, effort (installation, maintenance), and damage risk (leaking) if you manually overclock. Otherwise, not really.

For me... A product's automatic, factory "boost"/"turbo" function is plenty fine.

That said... Does this seem logical?

1. Stay with the stock CPU cooler and maybe swap it out later if actually necessary -- the CPU won't be fully loaded much of the time.

2. If the case doesn't already have them, add two 140 mm fans to the top

Not only would this move more air in general, it should significantly help with cooling the graphics cards because... Based on the images, the Velox has the layout partially flipped, causing the graphics card(s) to sit near the top of the case rather than the bottom. Therefore, dependent on the spacing, those fans could push cooler air over the cards or pull the hot air the graphics cards generate out -- I'm guessing the former.

Indeed, when it would come time to order, I would ask similar to someone at DS -- as a second opinion, possibility, whatnot.

3811006

Chassis
Chassis Model: Digital Storm Velox

Core Components
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (6-Core) 4.6 GHz Turbo

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming (Wi-Fi) (AMD X570 Chipset) (Up to 3x PCI-E Devices)

System Memory: 128GB DDR4 3200MHz Digital Storm Performance Series

Power Supply: 1600W EVGA Supernova 1600 (80 Plus Gold)

Storage / Connectivity
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD M.2 (2TB Samsung 970 EVO) (NVM Express)

Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)

Graphics / Multimedia
Graphics Card(s): 2x SLI NVLink Dual (GeForce RTX 3090 24GB (VR Ready)

Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio

Digital Storm Engineering
Extreme Cooling: AMD Standard Factory Heat-sink and Fan

HydroLux Tubing Style: - Not Applicable, I do not have a custom HydroLux liquid cooling system selected
HydroLux Fluid Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a custom HydroLux liquid cooling system selected
Cable Management: Premium Cable Management (Strategically Routed & Organized for Airflow)
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Digital Storm LED Lighting System

Airflow Control: Digital Storm Thermal Management Control Board & Software

Digital Storm TwisterBoost Technology
Boost Processor: Stock Factory Turbo Boost Advanced Automatic Overclocking

Software
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit)

Recovery Tools: USB Drive - Windows 10 Installation (Format and Clean Install)
Virus Protection: Windows Defender Antivirus (Built-in to Windows 10)

Edited by MrCheetah - 12 Mar 2021 at 8:37am

I totally agree about custom cooling. I suggest the Aventum case because of the extra room and and all the extra airflow which can be set up push/pull in any or all directions. The fact you will have 2 350W GPUs going full on 24/7 has to be addressed IMHO. For NVLink to work, the cards have to be right on top of each other don't they? Perhaps there is an extended NVLink bridge that could allow the cards to be a couple of slots apart, but I doubt it.

An AIO CPU cooler will take all the CPU heat directly out of the case via the radiator fans. That leaves the MOBO, RAM and storage and 700W of GPU pouring heat into the case. My TOTAL GUESS is that the more room and flow, the better the dissipation, but you very well could have a better way with proximity to the top of the smaller case. It seems like a problem a DS tech would love to work out for you. They may have or could work airflow math that would define the solution perfectly.

That's the best I can do to help define the problem. Just a humble gamer who's never needed more than one GPU at a time, I have nothing left but guesswork.

Originally posted by Acetylide The biggest concern would be keeping BOTH 3090 cards properly cooled. Most of them are 3-slot cards so the room they take up could also be another issue with that particular motherboard.

Indeed, thermals have been one of the major factors I've been seeking to address.

I was checking/researching other boutique PC builders for options, ideas, such... One of them was **********. They don't offer any dual 3090 configs but do offer SLI/NVLink Quadros. However, from my research, the RTX Quadros have lower power consumption and higher VRAM options, which is good, but haven't held up well performance wise to the GeForce RTX 30 series, plus aren't exactly loads cheaper. So, still a significant sacrifice, just different.

After that, I did try **********, which allows for choosing specific models of components. And after sifting through, I noticed, for example, the EVGA XC3 Ultra GeForce RTX 3090 is only a 2.2 slot card -- versus, as you mention, the now quite typical 2.75 to 2.9 slot cards like the FTW3 and RGG Strix. Basically, I think, that 0.8 slot gap could be sufficient.

I still think the Velox/Velox X's component layout would favor the air cooled dual graphics card setup. However, with ********** offering a similar speced system for ~$2,000 less, the Velox is yet a tough buy.

Originally posted by Acetylide If you're just going to be Butcoin mining

No. Cryptocurrency mining might be a backup option -- it still generates money -- but I don't like the concept. Digital currency is fine, but crypto has become something of a raffle system of betting chips, so to speak like some kind of crappy underground betting system.

My interest is in...

What is the RNDR Network?

Getting Started on The RNDR Network - Mining Side
* They refer to it as "mining" at times but it's really not as I understand -- probably just because mining is a relatable term right now for distributed/decentralized services.

With that said, I've decided to take things in smaller steps.

I've ordered this as something of a test system:

****** ****** R12 Gaming Desktop - 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 11700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.5GHz to 4.9GHz w/Intel® Turbo Boost Max) - NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3090 24GB GDDR6X - 64GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz; up to 128GB (additional memory sold separately) - 2TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD - Lunar Light - Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, English

I figure, supply and demand isn't going to change for the better any time soon thus not really a high-risk loss purchase.

If all goes as hoped, I'll replace it a couple/few months down the road with something such as:

- ******* ******* P400A Digital, Tempered Glass, No PSU, E-ATX, Glacier White, Mid Tower Case - ROG Strix Z590-E Gaming WiFi, Intel® Z590 Chipset, LGA 1200, DP, ATX Motherboard - (Delayed Shipping) Core™ i9-11900 8-Core 2.5 - 5.2GHz Turbo, LGA 1200, 65W TDP, Retail Processor - Pure Rock 2, 155mm Height, 150W TDP, Copper/Aluminum CPU Cooler Pure Wings 2 120mm, 1500 RPM, 51.4 CFM, 19.2 dBA, Cooling Fan - Arctic Silver 5, 12g, High-Density Polysynthetic, Silver Thermal Compound - (Delayed Shipping) 2 x GeForce RTX™ 3090 XC3 ULTRA GAMING, 1395 - 1725MHz, 24GB GDDR6X, Graphics Card - GeForce RTX NVLink™ Bridge (4 Slot Spacing) 81.26mm - For RTX 30 Series - 128GB Kit (4 x 32GB) HyperX FURY DDR4 3200MHz, CL16, Black, DIMM Memory - 2TB Black SN850 2280, 7000 / 5100 MB/s, 3D NAND, PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe, M.2 SSD - 1600 G+, 80 PLUS Gold 1600W, ECO Mode, Fully Modular, ATX Power Supply - Windows 10 Pro 64-bit USB Retail

.... Removed competitor's names ....

Edited by Snaike - 06 Apr 2021 at 7:54pm

Originally posted by Snaike @MrCheetah... sorry to edit your post here but Digital Storm has a standard rule about not allowing competitor's names etc as a professional courtesy to them.

So posting guidelines extend to signature blocks as well. Very well. Good to know that censoring outside of posts exists in the DS forums. Good job, Snaike. Really appreciate the clarity in helping me recognize the value of this forum.

Well you are indicating in your OP that you want to avoid exotic water cooling or any other water cooling solutions that require maintenance(periodic coolant change/refills, flushing, etc.). If you want to run two RTX 3090s in SLI where both are going to be almost constantly running, I don't see an alternative; especially if you have any concern for the cards' longevity.

One of the reasons for the performance difference is the RTX 3090's have a higher clock speed, and as such, aren't really intended to be used for the same long drawn out tasks as a similarly spec'ed Quadro card. Either way, you're going to be spending money. I didn't see you mention anything about gaming, so you might as well go for the appropriate hardware.

2x RTX 3090s will yield you just under twice the amount of CUDA cores with 48Gb VRAM using Nvlink but you're going to be spending extra for an exotic liquid cooling solution and/or at least a motherboard that would allow you to somehow space them out far enough(riser + Nvlink & PCIe 4.0 compatible?). A 2.2-slot card is still big.

1x RTX A6000 will have just over half the number of CUDA cores of two RTX 3090s combined, will consume less power, and will not need exotic water cooling.

I don't know how big your scenes are or how long your typical renders take to complete, but for rendering, I would take a single RTX A6000 over 2 RTX 3090s any day because that's one of the things they were meant for.

I found some actual benchmarks/scores

2 x 3090 (Average: 1313.16)

2 x A6000 (Average: 1070.78)

1 x A6000 (Average: 627.94)

2 x 5000 (Average: 424.83)

Again, the A6000 is even more expensive than the already not cheap 3090 yet can't hold up against it. At about the same performance, the A6000 is way more expensive. In fact, reconfiguring to a dual A6000 rig brings it to $15k. That's not worth the possible thermal limits.

I'm open to other sources but these have been the type of results I've seen from several sites.

Edited by MrCheetah - 10 Apr 2021 at 4:09am

I'm sorry to be vague, but I read something recently about Nvidia designing some new GPUs specifically for "mining". It referred to something called a "hash rate". Is that employed in your pursuit, or is it specific to crypto? I seem to recall Nvidia wanting to curtail "hash rate" in the consumer GPUs so that there will be less of a scramble from that community for "OUR" killer cards. If it has anything to do with you, it could change everything you're mulling over. Thought I'd mention it.

BTW, it would seem the above system will surely LOOK like money!