When it comes to rendering, there’s really no such thing as ‘too fast’. I know every artist has a secret desire to put as much eye-candy as possible in their projects, so we’re working hard on providing you with the tools to accomplish that. As part of this process, we are performing periodical upgrades to our infrastructure, to give you constant access to faster, better hardware.
We upgraded our GPUs offering three years ago, and at that time the upgrade doubled the speed. We are doing it now again, to almost the same effect. This means the GPUs that are rendering your jobs now are about twice as fast as the old ones, and four times as fast compared to the ones we put at your disposal just 4 years ago.
The good news? Your projects are already using them automatically, and you don’t have to do anything special for that. The other good news? They come at the same price as the ones before them! Want more good news? The new GPUs have significantly more RAM: 11GB compared to 4GB for the old ones.
So what does this mean for you? It means that, for the same project rendered on our GPUs, you now pay only approximately half the price. And, because of the extra memory, you can render more complex scenes on GPU. Plus, you’ll get everything delivered faster – both still images and animations.
If you’re eager to see the numbers, here’s how the new GPUs (NVidia Tesla K80 – green bars) compare to the old ones (NVidia Grid K520 – orange bars) in the Blender test scenes suite. We have tested both with Blender 2.79b (the official release) and with the current beta of Blender 2.80
1. BMW27, 960 x 540 px, 1,225 Samples (35 squared)
Benchmark 1 – BMW. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
The K80 GPUs complete the first scene in 57% of the time needed by the K520 GPUs in Blender 2.79b, and in 59% of the time when using Blender 2.80 beta. This is the least complex scene in the suite, with a very short render time.
2. Classroom, 1,920 x 1,080 px, 300 Samples
Benchmark 2 – Classroom. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
For the second scene, the new GPUs need 54% of the time to complete the render when using Blender 2.79b and 57% of the time when using Blender 2.80 beta.
3. Fishy Cat, 1,002 x 460 px, 1,000 Samples
Benchmark 3 – Fishy Cat. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
Third scene, a similar result with the BMW: 56% of the original time for the new GPUs in Blender 2.79b and 58% of the time when using Blender 2.80 beta. Again, close to double the speed for the new machines.
4. Koro, 720 x 1,280 px, 500 Samples
Benchmark 4 – Koro. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
The cute guy is being completed in 56% of the original time with Blender 2.79b and in 53% of the time with Blender 2.80 beta. The same trend is maintained.
5. Pabellon Barcelona, 1,280 x 720 px, 1,000 Samples
Benchmark 5 – Pabellon Barcelona. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
Same here, 56% of the original time for the Pabellon Barcelone scene in Blender 2.79b and 58% of the original time in Blender 2.80 beta. Interestingly, this is the only scene in which Blender 2.80 is slower than Blender 2.79b.
6. Victor, 2,048 x 858 px, 600 Samples
Benchmark 6 – Victor. Render time in h:mm:ss, lower is better
In the Laundromat test scene, there is no competition. The K520 GPUs weren’t able to complete the render because the scene was too memory-intensive. The K80 ones fly through it in a hair under 12 minutes (in Blender 2.79b) and in seven and a half minutes in Blender 2.80 beta. For comparison, the same scene renders on our CPU servers in 21 minutes when using Blender 2.79b and in 14 minutes with Blender 2.80.
The new GPUs are running on our farm right in this moment. In fact, we have been gradually putting them in production over the past month. So, if you were wondering why your scenes suddenly cost less to complete, that’s the answer. Enjoy your late Christmas present from RenderStreet 🙂
We have updated our price estimator, too. So if you have a project that needs to be on your client’s desk yesterday, by all means, check the numbers and send it our way!
Happy fast rendering and have a great 2019!
Note: The currently available beta version of Blender 2.80 produces renders that are a bit different than 2.79b. For more details and more comparative benchmarks, including CPU+GPU results, see our dedicated article.
