Just ordered my new machine

[DriesV]

Yes, KeyShot 9 will have GPU rendering. It will be supported on NVIDIA cards from the Maxwell generation (e.g. GeForce GTX 980) and newer.
It will run especially fast on the newest RTX cards, as the GPU rendering leverages the RT cores of those cards for raytracing.
It will not run on AMD graphics cards.

Dries

Hey Dries, 

1. Is there any benchmark for RTX or at least rough estimates of additional processing power RTX will add?
2. Will GPUs be available for Network Rendering or NR will keep working with CPUs only?

Thanks!

Since GPU rendering is still under development, nothing definitive can be said regarding your two questions.
The complete and definitive feature set will be be announced/communicated when the development is done.

Regarding the speedup with RTX, then it will be dependent on the nature of the scene. Scenes that rely heavily on raytracing, and not so much on complex shading, will benefit the most.
There are a number of KeyShot raytracing features that will run particularly fast on GPU. Examples are Occlusion and Curvature textures, (soft) shadows, volumetric rendering.

Dries

[RRIS]

I do hope CPU rendering or CPU+GPU will remain/be an option.. oh well, will be following the updates with a lot of interest

[menizzi]

64c TR are dropping at the end of the year. Ignore the 15% gain on each of the cores and i would put the benchmark KS file at 1000 fps.   

[mattjgerard]

Dang, we are just spec'ing new computers now, and I just read that KS is going GPU? So, does that mean that I should save money on my CPU and dump some in to a couple nice 2080 cards? Or do we need both? This rig has to last me 5 years , which I know is an eternity in computer hardware terms, but that's corporate america for you. Or is this going to be a hybrid type render where some passes will be rendered cpu and some rendered on the GPU?

[menizzi]

Its a real bad time to buy. When the Super 2080 GPU come out that is going to lower the price of the current GPU with the launch of AMD X570 boards coming out that is also going to lower all the current chips and if you could have waited till the end of the year for the 64C to drop that would drop all of the current TR chips or bought a few of those. Not a good time to buy at all. Balance it out if you are buying now or wait till the end of the year to see what AMD rolls out. I don't know what your work load is so anything i say is rather pointless but...I would build out as many 32C as i could because i can always sell the CPU and plug a 7nm in if i wanted power savings and the 15% IPC gain per chiplet and get an ok gpu 2nd because my thinking is a cpu will benefit the whole workload all the time but a gpu will only help in "some case". Let us know what you buy.

[mattjgerard]

Totally bad timing, I know. Corp wants us to have them in place week after July 4th. Current workstation is almost 5 years old, so anything new would be an upgrade. And I also know that there is always something newer/better/faster on the horizon so its never really the perfect time to buy. At least graphics card are easily upgraded. It just depends on if IT will let us go with a third party builder for an AMD 2990wx build or if they will spring for a comparable Dual Xeon Gold CPU HP box for twice the money but will fit within their larger HP platform and support contracts.

[RRIS]

Totally bad timing, I know. Corp wants us to have them in place week after July 4th. Current workstation is almost 5 years old, so anything new would be an upgrade. And I also know that there is always something newer/better/faster on the horizon so its never really the perfect time to buy. At least graphics card are easily upgraded. It just depends on if IT will let us go with a third party builder for an AMD 2990wx build or if they will spring for a comparable Dual Xeon Gold CPU HP box for twice the money but will fit within their larger HP platform and support contracts.

I'd still prioritize CPU over GPU.. depends on what you use for CAD work though? Solidworks is single-threaded, so a fast CPU is still a good way to go for both rendering and modeling.

[mattjgerard]

I don't do CAD in my current position. I'm 60%Keyshot,  30% Cinema 4d (Single threaded mostly for simulations) 10% light photoshop work, so really nothing GPU intensive.

Had the meeting with IT, they said no way in corporate hell would they do anything but HP computers. They already have a huge service contract with them, so the cost of the computer over 5 year replacement cycle is worth spending more on. Currently looking at a Z6 workstation with dual Intel Gold 6142 CPU's (32cores/64Threads) Running at 2.6ghz/3.7turbo. Our Z8 render node with those processors will run the camera benchmark at about 450-460fps. Slight bit better than the 140 I'm getting on my old tired out Z640.

So, if KS goes more into the GPU territory for some things, that's a heckuva lot cheaper and easier to upgrade later than the CPU's. I'm running a gtx980 right now, so any upgrade from that old workhorse would be nice.