Priority
GPU
Critical
Performs the render. This is where most of the budget should go.
OctaneRender Workstations
Built around the GPU.
OctaneRender changes the normal workstation equation.
Because the renderer runs primarily on the GPU, the graphics hardware inside your workstation has a far greater impact on render performance than simply buying the biggest processor available.
We build Octane systems around your scenes, your VRAM requirements and the amount of GPU performance your workflow can actually use.
Built in Scotland · 10 year labour warranty · Lifetime technical support
Where should you spend your budget?
Octane flips the normal workstation hierarchy.
With many creative applications, the processor sits at the centre of the buying decision.
OctaneRender is different. The GPU performs the rendering, which means your graphics hardware becomes the primary performance component.
Priority
VRAM
Critical
Decides how large and complex a scene the GPU can hold.
Priority
CPU
Supporting
Prepares scenes, feeds the GPUs and runs your host application.
Priority
Memory
Important
Holds scene data and the applications working around the renderer.
Priority
Storage
Important
Loads scenes, textures and caches without keeping you waiting.
Spend where Octane will actually use it.
What matters
What makes Octane fast?
Every component plays a different role. Only two of them render the frame.
Priority: Critical
This is where Octane does the work.
OctaneRender is a GPU based rendering engine. Unlike a traditional CPU renderer, the majority of the rendering workload runs on the graphics card.
That means GPU selection has a direct impact on how quickly frames complete.
For most Octane workstations, we'd rather allocate additional budget to GPU performance than install an unnecessarily expensive CPU.
For Octane, the GPU isn't an accelerator. It's the engine.
Compare Octane GPUs
Priority: Critical
Speed renders it. VRAM decides whether it fits.
GPU performance determines how quickly Octane can process a scene. VRAM, the memory on the graphics card itself, determines how much of that scene the GPU can comfortably hold.
Complex geometry, high resolution textures, larger render resolutions and denoising all increase the memory a scene needs.
- 16GBVRAM
- A strong starting point for many single GPU workflows.
- 32GBVRAM
- Our professional sweet spot for larger scenes and heavier assets.
Priority: Supporting
Fast, not enormous.
Octane doesn't use the processor to render the image. A fast CPU still helps with scene preparation, loading and everything happening in Cinema 4D, Blender, Maya or 3ds Max before you press Render.
What it won't do is make an Octane frame finish faster simply because it has more cores.
Priority: Important
Room for the scene and everything around it.
System memory holds scene data on its way to the GPUs, along with your host application, textures and everything else open during the day. High VRAM GPUs and multi GPU systems need more of it.
Priority: Important
Fast storage keeps the renderer fed.
Large scenes, texture libraries and caches load far more quickly from fast NVMe storage, which keeps look development and scene changes moving.
Choosing a GPU
Three cards we'd start the conversation with.
There isn't one graphics card that's best for every Octane artist. The right choice depends on how large your scenes are, how much VRAM they need and how many GPUs the workstation will eventually hold.
Strong starting point
RTX 5080 16GB
A powerful place to begin.
A capable Octane card where scene sizes remain comfortably within 16GB of VRAM, with strong performance for the money.
Suits
- Individual artists
- Moderate scene complexity
- Single GPU systems
- Strong price to performance
Our preferred high end GeForce option
RTX 5090 32GB
Flagship speed with room to grow.
For serious Octane work, the combination of flagship rendering performance and 32GB of VRAM makes this a particularly compelling card.
Suits
- Professional rendering
- Larger scenes
- Higher resolution assets
- Heavy daily Octane use
- One or two GPU systems
Specialist
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB
When memory capacity leads.
A professional card for scenes that simply won't fit on a GeForce GPU. Max-Q editions are designed with multi GPU workstations in mind.
Suits
- Extremely large scenes
- Very high VRAM workloads
- Specialist multi GPU systems
- Environments where stability and memory capacity outweigh pure value
No card is best for everyone.
Your scenes decide.
VRAM
Speed gets the attention. VRAM decides what fits.
GPU performance determines how quickly Octane can process a scene. VRAM determines how much scene data the GPU can comfortably hold.
Complex geometry, high resolution textures, larger render resolutions and denoising can all increase memory requirements. Octane can move some data into system memory when a scene outgrows the card, but that usually costs render speed, so we size VRAM around the scenes you actually build.
16GB
Great starting point
Good for
- Learning and enthusiast work
- Moderate professional scenes
- Many single GPU workflows
32GB
Professional sweet spot
Good for
- Larger scenes
- High resolution assets
- More demanding production work
- Greater headroom
48–96GB
Specialist territory
Good for
- Huge datasets
- Complex visualisation
- Extremely heavy texture use
- Large production scenes
- Specialist professional workflows
More VRAM doesn't automatically make rendering faster.
It lets increasingly complex scenes fit.
Multi GPU
One GPU is fast. Octane can use more.
One of OctaneRender's greatest strengths is its ability to make effective use of multiple compatible NVIDIA GPUs. Octane scales particularly well as cards are added, although real world gains depend on the scene and the system around the GPUs.
However, this isn't simply a case of putting as many graphics cards as possible inside a tower.
One GPU
High performance workstation
- GPU 1: Full scene in VRAM
A single flagship GPU is already a very fast Octane machine, and the simplest to cool, power and keep quiet.
Two GPUs
Serious rendering platform
- GPU 1: Full scene in VRAM
- GPU 2: Full scene in VRAM
A second GPU can dramatically increase rendering throughput. Both cards work on the render, and each holds its own copy of the scene.
Three to four GPUs
Specialist GPU compute workstation
- GPU 1: Full scene in VRAM
- GPU 2: Full scene in VRAM
- GPU 3: Full scene in VRAM
- GPU 4: Full scene in VRAM
Three and four GPU systems turn a workstation into a serious local render platform, and bring power, cooling and platform decisions to the front of the design.
VRAM does not simply add together.
Two 32GB GPUs aren't a 64GB GPU.
Why multi GPU is an engineering project
More GPUs create more than performance.
More GPUs can mean dramatically more rendering performance. They also bring more power, more heat, more physical size and more demands on the platform. The goal is knowing when multi GPU makes sense, not simply fitting as many cards as possible.
Power
Multiple flagship GPUs can draw enormous amounts of power. Power supply capacity, the electrical load on the circuit and sustained operation all have to be designed for.
Cooling
Several GPUs at full utilisation create a huge thermal load. Chassis layout and airflow decide whether the cards hold their performance through a long render.
Space
Modern GeForce cards can be physically enormous. Not every motherboard and chassis combination can safely hold more than one.
PCI Express
The processor and motherboard decide how many usable PCIe lanes and slots exist. This is often where a consumer platform gives way to Threadripper Pro.
Noise
Every additional GPU adds fans and heat. Where the machine sits, next to you or in a server room, changes how we build it.
Platform cost
A four GPU workstation needs a larger chassis, power supply and platform. Sometimes two faster GPUs are the better investment than four slower ones.
This is why our multi GPU systems are designed as systems,
not assembled as collections of expensive parts.
Processor
Don't buy cores Octane won't use.
Octane itself doesn't primarily use the CPU to render the image.
A faster processor can still improve scene preparation, loading and work elsewhere in applications such as Cinema 4D, Maya or 3ds Max. But fitting a 64 core processor doesn't automatically make an Octane frame render faster.
Single and dual GPU
High clock speed first
A modern Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 class processor is usually where we'd start.
Why
- Excellent interactive performance
- Fast host application performance
- Lower platform cost
- More budget stays with the GPU
Three and four GPU
Platform matters more than core count
An AMD Threadripper Pro platform is usually where we'd go.
Why
- More PCIe lanes
- More expansion capability
- A better foundation for multiple GPUs
- Large memory capacity
We don't move to Threadripper Pro because Octane suddenly needs dozens of CPU cores. We move because the platform can support what's hanging off it.
System memory
Give your GPUs room to breathe.
A useful starting point for GPU rendering is around twice as much system memory as the VRAM Octane is using, then more on top for the host application and everything else open alongside it. It's a guide rather than a rule, and we size it around your scenes.
32GB
Entry professional
Good for
- Simpler single GPU workflows
- Lighter host application use
64GB
Where we'd start for many professional Octane systems
Good for
- RTX 5080 and 5090 class workstations
- Cinema 4D + Octane
- Maya + Octane
- Professional multitasking
128GB+
Heavy production
Good for
- Complex scenes
- Multi GPU systems
- Very high resolution textures
- Multiple demanding applications
256GB+
Specialist
Good for
- Large Threadripper Pro workstations
- Extreme scene complexity
- GPU compute and visualisation environments
More RAM doesn't make the GPU render faster.
Running out of it makes the whole workflow painful.
Storage
Fast storage keeps the renderer fed.
Large scenes and texture libraries shouldn't keep you waiting before the GPU even starts.
System
1TB NVMe minimum
- Windows
- OctaneRender
- Cinema 4D / Maya / Blender / 3ds Max
- Plugins
- Applications
Active projects
2TB to 4TB+ NVMe
- Scenes
- Textures
- Assets
- Caches
- Current projects
Archive
High capacity storage / NAS
- Completed projects
- Asset libraries
- Shared production data
- Backup
We keep active scenes, textures and caches on fast local NVMe, separate from the system drive, so a growing project never competes with Windows and your applications for space.
Storage isn't backup.
For production environments, project data should exist somewhere else too.
Built around your work
Two Octane artists can need completely different machines.
The renderer is the same. The scenes, deadlines and software around it rarely are.
01 · Cinema 4D / Blender / Octane
Solo 3D Artist
Priority
- 1. Strong single GPU
- 2. 32GB+ VRAM where budget allows
- 3. 64GB RAM
- 4. Fast CPU
Suggested direction: Sonox, a high performance single GPU system.
02 · Long sequences and repeated frames
Motion & Animation
Priority
- 1. GPU throughput
- 2. Two GPUs where appropriate
- 3. Cooling
- 4. Fast project storage
Suggested direction: Sonox G2, our dual GPU platform.
03 · Huge scenes, textures and architectural datasets
Large Visualisation
Priority
- 1. VRAM
- 2. System RAM
- 3. GPU
- 4. Storage
Suggested direction: a high VRAM professional GPU system.
04 · High render throughput
Studio & Production Rendering
Priority
- 1. Multiple GPUs
- 2. PCIe expansion
- 3. Cooling
- 4. Power
- 5. Reliability
Suggested direction: Sonox G4 or a specialist GPU compute platform.
We don't build an Octane benchmark. We build your workstation.
Very few Octane users spend their entire day inside the renderer.
The ideal Octane system can change depending on what happens before and after you press Render.
We'll build around the entire workflow.
Tell us which applications you use, your typical scene size, texture resolution, expected render resolution, current VRAM usage, whether you render animation or stills, and where your existing machine slows you down.
We'll take it from there.
OctaneRender
- Cinema 4D
- Blender
- Houdini
- Maya
- 3ds Max
- After Effects
- DaVinci Resolve
- Unreal Engine
- Photoshop
Current recommendation
What we'd build today.
Reviewed September 2026
Hardware changes quickly, so we don't believe an Octane workstation page should permanently recommend one fixed specification. For a modern Octane workstation today, we'd usually begin with:
- GPU
NVIDIA RTX graphics.
RTX 5080 16GB for lighter, value focused professional work. RTX 5090 32GB for high end professional rendering. RTX PRO graphics for specialist high VRAM and multi GPU workloads.
- CPU
A high clock speed modern CPU for single and dual GPU systems.
Threadripper Pro where additional PCIe connectivity and expansion are required.
- Memory
64GB for many professional systems.
128GB+ for more demanding scenes and multi GPU workflows.
- Storage
A fast NVMe system drive plus dedicated active project storage.
The GPU count is the beginning of the design conversation, not the end of it.
The platform is designed around the number, size, thermal output and power requirements of the GPUs, then balanced against the host application and the rest of your workflow.
Recommended systems
Start with Sonox.
Not every Octane artist needs the same machine. Sonox scales from a very fast single GPU workstation to specialist multi GPU platforms, so we can start where your work actually is.
Sonox
Single GPU. For independent artists and professional creative work.
Sonox G2
Up to two GPUs. For heavy Octane rendering and increased throughput.
Sonox G4
Up to four GPUs. For specialist rendering, simulation and compute workloads.
Looking at the wider range?
Explore all workstationsBeyond the workstation
Need more than a workstation? The conversation changes.
When rendering demand grows beyond a desktop, Utopia can design GPU compute systems and render infrastructure for studios that need greater local capacity, up to our Sonox G6 with six liquid cooled GPUs.
Built in Scotland
Designed, assembled and tested by our team in Kilmarnock.
10 year labour warranty
Long term support without labour charges hanging over the workstation.
Lifetime technical support
Speak to real people who understand the machine we built.
Built around your software
Configured around Octane, its host application and the rest of your workflow.
Frequently asked questions
Is OctaneRender CPU or GPU based?
OctaneRender is primarily a GPU rendering engine.
The graphics card has a much greater direct effect on render performance than the CPU, although processor performance still matters for scene preparation, loading and the applications running alongside Octane.
Does OctaneRender require NVIDIA?
On Windows and Linux, yes. Octane renders through NVIDIA's CUDA platform, and at the time of writing OTOY doesn't support AMD Radeon or Intel graphics for rendering on those platforms.
Octane X, OTOY's Mac version, runs on Apple's Metal instead. Platform support can change, so check OTOY's current compatibility information if you're planning something unusual.
Is an RTX 5090 good for OctaneRender?
Yes. Its combination of very high GPU performance and 32GB of VRAM makes it particularly attractive for demanding Octane workflows where GeForce hardware is appropriate.
Scenes that need more than 32GB of VRAM may call for a professional GPU with a larger memory capacity.
Is 16GB VRAM enough for Octane?
For many workloads, yes.
VRAM requirements depend heavily on scene complexity, textures, geometry, render resolution and other factors. Professional users working with larger scenes should consider 32GB or more.
Does adding a second GPU double Octane performance?
Octane scales particularly well across multiple compatible GPUs, and a second card can dramatically increase throughput.
Real world scaling varies with the scene and the system configuration, so we wouldn't promise an exact doubling.
Does VRAM add together with multiple GPUs?
Generally, no.
Each GPU participating in a render needs access to the scene data, so two 32GB GPUs shouldn't be treated as a single 64GB memory pool. If GPUs with different VRAM capacities are mixed, the card with the least memory can effectively limit the scene size.
How much RAM do I need for OctaneRender?
We'd normally start a modern professional Octane workstation at around 64GB. 32GB can suit lighter workloads.
Complex scenes, high VRAM GPUs, multi GPU configurations and memory intensive host applications can justify 128GB, 256GB or more.
Is Threadripper better for Octane?
Not automatically. Octane doesn't need huge CPU core counts to render.
Threadripper Pro becomes valuable when its PCIe connectivity, memory support and expansion are needed for multi GPU systems.
Can Octane use multiple graphics cards?
Yes. Multi GPU rendering is one of Octane's major strengths.
Power, cooling, PCIe connectivity, card spacing and chassis design become increasingly important as the GPU count rises.
Can you build an Octane workstation for Cinema 4D, Blender, Maya or Houdini?
Yes, and that's exactly how we recommend approaching the specification.
The host application can materially change which CPU, memory, storage and GPU configuration makes sense. Tell us what you use and we'll build around it.
Render more. Wait less.
Tell us what you create, what software you use and where your current workstation slows you down. We'll design the machine around the work.
