What to choose for Iray renders? Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti/1060 or 1070

SPadhi89

Hello People!

After rendering in 3Delight for a long time, I am planning to switch to Iray. I have tried some Iray renders, but due to the lack of a dedicated Nvidia GPU, it took almost ages to render a perfect image. I have attached some photos for your reference. The first batman test took a long time.. a very long time to render(I dont remember, but it was frustrating). Postworked in photoshop. The background is a backdrop using 2D image. Complete rendered image size is 2000x2000 pixels. 

But this image of Batman and Killer Crock took just 2 hours or so to render completely. Its 2500x2083 pixels i believe. The third image of Batman again took around 2-3 hours but was still grainy. I changed the Render Quality settings and there was a difference, but quality compromised. You can notice the grainy and unrendered/derendered areas on the cowl.

And now, I am confused as to where I am going wrong. 

Most of my scenes will have 3-4 characters at the max and most of the times I will be using 2D images as backdrops. Image resolution will never exceed 2500x2500. Volumetric effects will be photoshoped. I have a very basic computer with i3 4th gen CPU and 8 GB RAM. Now, my question is: Shall I go for the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 one? Or it will be okay to get the any of the 1050Ti/1060 ones? And do I also need to upgrade my PSU (using 450W at present)? 

Thanks!

 

Ongoing Moment

I traded in my gtx 1060 for a 1070 and don't regret the extra money spent one bit. If you can afford it, get the 1070. The extra 2gb of RAM will always come in handy and it is just outright faster than the 1060.

For instance. If you start a render and stop it right after it starts to draw you can keep that window open. The data will stay on the GPU. You can make changes in your scene and render without the GPU loading all the info from scratch again. That extra 2gb of RAM at work.

My GTX 1060 ran on a 450w psu. Of course everyone's system is different so you may have a different experience. I believe Nvidia says 450w is recommended for the 1060. The 1070 is on a new system with 520w PSU so I can't comment on that.

The 1060 6gb is great. Would cut your render time down significantly. My Renders went from hours to 30-60 minutes. 3 Characters, environment and 2 lights/HDRI.

The 1070 is 1/3 faster but I am also able to create much more complex and expansive scenes. So I still have renders that take 30-90 minutes. 5 characters, environment, 5 lights and props.

My benchmarks on an xps with i7-920 cpu using the starter scene benchmark setup.

EVGA ACX 2.0 GTX 1060 6GB - $249 4 minutes and 52.74 seconds OPTIX ON

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 Mini, ZT-P10700G-10M, 8GB - $329 3 minutes and 30.10 seconds Optix On

nicstt

whatever you get, get the most RAM you can on the card. Just make sure it is a single card, which i believe all are - but check.

I have a 980ti, and when I upgrade (soon), I'll probably get a 1080ti. I don't like the cost, although it seems to be the best value ti for a while, but my 6GB card was idle and CPU active in a scene with one figure yesterday. Some tweaking solved the issue, but it is easy to use the RAM

 

kyoto kid

...also your OS will be part of the equation. 

If you are running wth W7 or 8.1 you will pretty much have close to the card's "advertised" VRAM available.  With W10, that 1070 will actually have about 6.6 GB available since W10 ""reserves a portion of video memory.

SPadhi89

Ongoing Moment said:

I traded in my gtx 1060 for a 1070 and don't regret the extra money spent one bit. If you can afford it, get the 1070. The extra 2gb of RAM will always come in handy and it is just outright faster than the 1060.

 

For instance. If you start a render and stop it right after it starts to draw you can keep that window open. The data will stay on the GPU. You can make changes in your scene and render without the GPU loading all the info from scratch again. That extra 2gb of RAM at work.

 

My GTX 1060 ran on a 450w psu. Of course everyone's system is different so you may have a different experience. I believe Nvidia says 450w is recommended for the 1060. The 1070 is on a new system with 520w PSU so I can't comment on that.

 

The 1060 6gb is great. Would cut your render time down significantly. My Renders went from hours to 30-60 minutes. 3 Characters, environment and 2 lights/HDRI.

 

The 1070 is 1/3 faster but I am also able to create much more complex and expansive scenes. So I still have renders that take 30-90 minutes. 5 characters, environment, 5 lights and props.

 

My benchmarks on an xps with i7-920 cpu using the starter scene benchmark setup.

 

EVGA ACX 2.0 GTX 1060 6GB - $249 4 minutes and 52.74 seconds OPTIX ON

 

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 Mini, ZT-P10700G-10M, 8GB - $329 3 minutes and 30.10 seconds Optix On

 

Hmm.. so 1070 it is. Will find out if it needs a new PSU and figure out the budget.

In the meantime, I'd like to know the resolution/size of images that you create. It will be nice, if you can post an image for reference.

For most of my scenes (like the batman and killer croc one), do you think 1060 will be enough? If it can be rendered within 30 minutes or so.. it will be a huge advantage. Coz at present it takes 2-3 hours to render it completely using CPU only.

nicstt said:

whatever you get, get the most RAM you can on the card. Just make sure it is a single card, which i believe all are - but check.

I have a 980ti, and when I upgrade (soon), I'll probably get a 1080ti. I don't like the cost, although it seems to be the best value ti for a while, but my 6GB card was idle and CPU active in a scene with one figure yesterday. Some tweaking solved the issue, but it is easy to use the RAM

 

980ti and 1080/1080Ti are beyond my reach at present.

kyoto kid said:

...also your OS will be part of the equation. 

If you are running wth W7 or 8.1 you will pretty much have close to the card's "advertised" VRAM available.  With W10, that 1070 will actually have about 6.6 GB available since W10 ""reserves a portion of video memory.

and I am on Windows 10 :(

Now I want to cry... really. But wait, do I have to downgrade to Windows 7 now? :O

kyoto kid

...as to the PSU.  the 1070 consumes 10 watts less than my old GT 460 (150w vs 160W for the 460).  Nvidia recommends a PSU of no less than 500 W so 520 is "serviceable" unless you look to upgrade other components.  

I tend to err on the side of caution in my builds and usually go for a bit more overhead (about 1/2 again as much).  My current system has a 750W PSU (Nvidia's minimum PSU requirement for the GT 460 is the same as the 1070) .  A PSU is not terribly expensive, but if it blows it can be quite costly as it may take your entire system with it.

SPadhi89

kyoto kid said:

...as to the PSU.  the 1070 consumes 10 watts less than my old GT 460 (150w vs 160W for the 460).  Nvidia recommends a PSU of no less than 500 W so 520 is "serviceable" unless you look to upgrade other components.  

I tend to err on the side of caution in my builds and usually go for a bit more overhead (about 1/2 again as much).  My current system has a 750W PSU (Nvidia's minimum PSU requirement for the GT 460 is the same as the 1070) .  A PSU is not terribly expensive, but if it blows it can be quite costly as it may take your entire system with it.

Oh! I think, I will have to go for the 1060 then. And got it from Amazon. Will be delivered on June 3.

Will let you know how it worked.

JamesJAB

Honsetly, it all boils down to what can you afford.  If you can manage to squeeze a GTX 1070 into your budget, then do it.  You will thank yourself in the long run.
I am running a GTX 1060 6GB card in my main rendering build.  At the resolution you are talking about the 1060 should do a good job as long as you don't go too crazy in your scenes.

Havos

I have a GTX 970 and this runs around 10 times faster than using CPU only, so a 1070 should give you an even better speed up than that. On the subject of memory, I only have 4GB (of which 3.3 is available in windows 10), and I have successfully used this for a lot of pretty detailed scenes with 5+ characters and a complex background. I should imagine a 6GB card 1060, or a 1070 8GB should be fine for the vast majority of scenes you create, even accounting for the 15% or so chewed up by Windows 10.

SPadhi89

JamesJAB said:

Honsetly, it all boils down to what can you afford.  If you can manage to squeeze a GTX 1070 into your budget, then do it.  You will thank yourself in the long run.
I am running a GTX 1060 6GB card in my main rendering build.  At the resolution you are talking about the 1060 should do a good job as long as you don't go too crazy in your scenes.

Thanks for the information. I have already ordered the 1060. Had to compromise with a laptop (loltop) that I was getting as well. 

Havos said:

I have a GTX 970 and this runs around 10 times faster than using CPU only, so a 1070 should give you an even better speed up than that. On the subject of memory, I only have 4GB (of which 3.3 is available in windows 10), and I have successfully used this for a lot of pretty detailed scenes with 5+ characters and a complex background. I should imagine a 6GB card 1060, or a 1070 8GB should be fine for the vast majority of scenes you create, even accounting for the 15% or so chewed up by Windows 10.

Yup so, 1060. Thanks!

fastbike1

The 1070 is well worth the cost difference over a 1060. Also the physical size of a render is not diirectly related to Vram usage. Render size will impact render time but not Vram usage (as much). Vram usage is most depdendent on number of polgons in the scene and lighting.

SPadhi89

fastbike1 said:

The 1070 is well worth the cost difference over a 1060. Also the physical size of a render is not diirectly related to Vram usage. Render size will impact render time but not Vram usage (as much). Vram usage is most depdendent on number of polgons in the scene and lighting.

if i go for 1070, i will have to buy a new psu as well :(

Havos

spd0089_3293e62e1f said:

fastbike1 said:

The 1070 is well worth the cost difference over a 1060. Also the physical size of a render is not diirectly related to Vram usage. Render size will impact render time but not Vram usage (as much). Vram usage is most depdendent on number of polgons in the scene and lighting.

if i go for 1070, i will have to buy a new psu as well :(

The 1060 will still give you a massive boost compared to CPU use, certainly enough to get a 2-3 hour render to your stated aim of 30 mins or so. Naturally a faster card is better, but the critical point is how much you can afford. If you are mostly going to use this for fight scenes between a couple of superheros/villians with no background, then there is no point getting hardware that is high end.

Bendinggrass

Why not wait and save and get the 1080ti.

SPadhi89

Bendinggrass said:

Why not wait and save and get the 1080ti.

i can understand what u r saying... but sometimes its hard to save.

Ongoing Moment

I think the 1060 will be great for you. I render around 2000x2000. It will be So much better than CPU rendering you will wonder why you weren't doing it earlier.

Taoz

Here's a comparison of 5 GTX 1070 cards (note that there are 8 pages):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-graphics-card-roundup,4751.html

HorusRa

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kyoto kid

...while one of the most important components, again PSUs are not terribly expensive. This is why I stay away from "off the shelf" prebuilds as they often scrimp on parts like the PSU usually installing one that is just barely adequate. Also off the shelf systems will most likely have some version of W10 (usually Home edition which pretty much puts you at the mercy of MS with few options) that will also mean your 1060 will only have about 4.8 GB of memory for rendering. For my needs I won't consider anything less than a 1080 Ti as I create fairly "epic" sized scenes and need all the VRAM I can get (which also means no to W10). If you can swing it, go with a custom build house and make sure they offer a W7 or 8.1 "downgrade"

HorusRa

.

kyoto kid

...apologies for the big block of text above. I am on the Daz mobile app and adding paragraph breaks is a real pain.

Nyghtfall3D

kyoto kid said:

...apologies for the big block of text above. I am on the Daz mobile app and adding paragraph breaks is a real pain.

You're fine.  It just looks like three full-length lines of text on a desktop.

To anyone wanting to invest in a new PC designed specifically for rendering 3D art with Iray, I strongly recommend not going with any off-the-shelf brands.  If you don't know how to build your own, then buy from a boutique brand like Alienware, or Falcon Northwest.  One of Alienware's Aurora models includes an 8 GB GTX 1070 for a base price of $1550.  For that, you get a Core i7-7700 running Windows 10 64-bit with 16 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD.  For $200 more, you get an 8 GB GTX 1080 with the same system specs.

kyoto kid

...actually Alienware is now owned by Dell and no longer quite the cutting edge builder they once were (they also remain rather pricey). There are a number of good custom build houses out there. Again, if you want to have the most graphics memory available for rendering, I would avoid W10 as it "reserves" about a quarter of your card's VRAM.

SPadhi89

Guys, you all are confusing me. 6GB will come down to 4.8 GB. Losing 1.2 GB is a disaster :( And how will I know/find the exact VRAM avaiable to render?

Second thing, getting 1070 or 1080Ti is a huge investment on my part, And on a i3 4th gen processor, I fear the BOTTLENECK thing. I will be buying a laptop too, hence my budget is too tight. I have divided the budget exactly at 50% for each. Second reason not to go for 1070/1080

Third reason, if I get 1070/1080ti I will have 3 extra GPUs and 2 PSUs which will be lying unused. I can sell them, but no one will buy them in my country. Some may consider the Radeon GPU, but the other 2 Nvidias will never be considered, outdated models. And no one will go for an used PSU. They will prefer new yet inefficient/no-name PSUs rather than buying a used Cooler Master one.

*I may have to revert to Win 7. 

kyoto kid

...ah, thought you were getting an entirely new aystem. Also didn't realise you were not in the states (many other nations have a VAT that adds significantly to the price of hardware and software). Wow an i3, not the best for CPU rendering. One question, what version of Windows do you have? If it is W7 or 8.1 you will be OK and pretty much be able to use the 1060's full 6 GB. The VRAM reserving issue is only a W10 thing. As to that older Nvidia card, you can use it just to drive the displays freeing up the 1060 (or 1070) for rendering.

SPadhi89

kyoto kid said:

...ah, thought you were getting an entirely new aystem. Also didn't realise you were not in the states (many other nations have a VAT that adds significantly to the price of hardware and software). Wow an i3, not the best for CPU rendering. One question, what version of Windows do you have? If it is W7 or 8.1 you will be OK and pretty much be able to use the 1060's full 6 GB. The VRAM reserving issue is only a W10 thing. As to that older Nvidia card, you can use it just to drive the displays freeing up the 1060 (or 1070) for rendering.

Hmm, I am using Windows 10. Someone forced me to upgrade to Windows 10 when I got Win 8.1. I believe, they were having this free upgrade to Win 10 Promo event at that time.

And I'm not building a new system. Just upgrading the parts. Got thr Radeon GPU to play DC Universe :P it worked fine. It worked fine with games, but failed while rendering. 

After considering all the aspects, I will still stick to 1060 and revert to Windows 7 later, perhaps after 10 days.

Nyghtfall3D

Sorry for the confusion, spd.  I'll try answering your question as best and clearly as I can.

First, your CPU is clearly outdated, which tells me your motherboard may not even support the kind of GPUs you're considering for Iray, nevermind your PSU.  That means you're looking at possibly upgrading three components instead of two: Your motherboard, PSU, and whichever GPU you decide to get.  Worse, if you have to upgrade your motherboard, you may not find one that will support your existing CPU and your new GPU.

Second, if your're able to keep your other components, then your CPU will only create a bottleneck if you tell Iray to use it in conjunction with your GPU, and I'm reasonably certain you won't be able to do any multitasking while it's rendering if it uses both.  I'm running a home-built Core i7 with dual 980 Ti's.  If I tell Iray to use my CPU, my PC slows to a crawl until it's done, depending on scene complexity and whether more advanced render options are enabled.  Since Iray relies primarily on CUDA cores for speed, I always leave my CPU un-checked.

Finally, if your budget is that tight, then I would suggest looking for something even less powerful than what you've expressed an interest in.  My Ti's replaced a 780 that I had when DS 4.8 came out, and it handled Iray just fine.

 

SPadhi89

Nyghtfall said:

Sorry for the confusion, spd.  I'll try answering your question as best and clearly as I can.

First, your CPU is clearly outdated, which tells me your motherboard may not even support the kind of GPUs you're considering for Iray, nevermind your PSU.  That means you're looking at possibly upgrading three components instead of two: Your motherboard, PSU, and whichever GPU you decide to get.  Worse, if you have to upgrade your motherboard, you may not find one that will support your existing CPU and your new GPU.

Second, if your're able to keep your other components, then your CPU will only create a bottleneck if you tell Iray to use it in conjunction with your GPU, and I'm reasonably certain you won't be able to do any multitasking while it's rendering if it uses both.  I'm running a home-built Core i7 with dual 980 Ti's.  If I tell Iray to use my CPU, my PC slows to a crawl until it's done, depending on scene complexity and whether more advanced render options are enabled.  Since Iray relies primarily on CUDA cores for speed, I always leave my CPU un-checked.

Finally, if your budget is that tight, then I would suggest looking for something even less powerful than what you've expressed an interest in.  My Ti's replaced a 780 that I had when DS 4.8 came out, and it handled Iray just fine.

 

Ok, after listening to what you've said, I think I should not get any f***ng GPU. Because my B**Ch PC with SH***Y i3 CPU and MoBo won't support it. I will deal with the ever slow CPU renders. I will not use Iray. LIFE S**Ks. 

Thanks to all who helped me.

Nyghtfall3D

If you're still interested, but aren't sure about how much of your hardware will be compatible with either GPU you're looking at, I'd be happy to do some research for you.  I just need the make and model of your motherboard and CPU.

SPadhi89

Nyghtfall said:

If you're still interested, but aren't sure about how much of your hardware will be compatible with either GPU you're looking at, I'd be happy to do some research for you.  I just need the make and model of your motherboard and CPU.

CPU: https://ark.intel.com/products/77480/Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor-3M-Cache-3_40-GHz

MoBo: http://www.gigabyte.in/Motherboard/GA-H81M-S-rev-10#sp

PSU: http://www.coolermaster.com/powersupply/office-home-thunder/thunder-450w/

None of my scenes will have complex settings. Just some 2d image backdrops, 3-4 characters, some props (as less as possible). Environment maps will also be JPEG images lol, not even HDRIs (if that affects the render time). Render quality 1.00 or 2.00 at max.

BTW i've cancelled my order with Amazon now. Patiently waiting for your response.

***************************

I too did some research on the motherboard and PSU. Found that my MoBo can handle 4th gen i5 and i7 processors as well. So good news for me. Now, I don't have any additional thing in my system apart from 2 4GB RAMs and 1 500 GB SATA HDD. Calculated the Power Supply Requirements on Cooler Master Website and ... I put the processor as i7 - 4771 and GPU as Nvidia GTX 1060. Other things remain same. The total power I need is 334W at max. Another good news for me :)

Now what to do? Confusion again.

kyoto kid

spd0089_3293e62e1f said:

Nyghtfall said:

Sorry for the confusion, spd.  I'll try answering your question as best and clearly as I can.

First, your CPU is clearly outdated, which tells me your motherboard may not even support the kind of GPUs you're considering for Iray, nevermind your PSU.  That means you're looking at possibly upgrading three components instead of two: Your motherboard, PSU, and whichever GPU you decide to get.  Worse, if you have to upgrade your motherboard, you may not find one that will support your existing CPU and your new GPU.

Second, if your're able to keep your other components, then your CPU will only create a bottleneck if you tell Iray to use it in conjunction with your GPU, and I'm reasonably certain you won't be able to do any multitasking while it's rendering if it uses both.  I'm running a home-built Core i7 with dual 980 Ti's.  If I tell Iray to use my CPU, my PC slows to a crawl until it's done, depending on scene complexity and whether more advanced render options are enabled.  Since Iray relies primarily on CUDA cores for speed, I always leave my CPU un-checked.

Finally, if your budget is that tight, then I would suggest looking for something even less powerful than what you've expressed an interest in.  My Ti's replaced a 780 that I had when DS 4.8 came out, and it handled Iray just fine.

 

Ok, after listening to what you've said, I think I should not get any f***ng GPU. Because my B**Ch PC with SH***Y i3 CPU and MoBo won't support it. I will deal with the ever slow CPU renders. I will not use Iray. LIFE S**Ks. 

Thanks to all who helped me.

...don't dispair, I have an old P6T mb and a first generation i7. I could still install a GTX series 10 GPU even though my PCIe slots are only 2.0. All it will mean is the scene may load a bit slower, but render performance itself will not suffer. If you still have your original OS install disc make a back up of all the data on your HDD and do a clean re-install of your original OS. Currently not at home and on the Daz mobile app (which has some bad limitations). I'll be back home in a bit and better able to help.