GPU upgrade: Am I choosing correctly? [SOLVED]
youngpower_d205a7f2f3
Posts: 24
Hi, I'm planning to upgrade my GPU. After reading many threads here, @tomshardware, and other relevant sites, I hope I'm getting this right, I've landed my wish on a GTX1060 6GB. Can I use this GPU on my current CPU? Here's what I have now:
- MB Gigabyte A55M-DS2
- AMD A4-3400 with Radeon
- 2x DDR3 8GB RAM
- PCI express x16 2.0
- PSU 500W
I know my CPU is super sad but DAZ give us choice of GPU-only when rendering so I figure this GTX 1060 with 6GB is all I need for rendering. But can my CPU handle GTX 1060?
EDIT: - Current GPU Nvidia GT 630
- Windows 7
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From what I understand, there is no limit on your video card imposed by the CPU you use.
If it is iray you are interested in then the more cuda cores you have the more rendering horsepower you will have.
It might be good to look at a card with more memory however, because if your card runs out of memory due to the size of the scene you want to render, the card will turn over the rendering job to the CPU, so then there is no benefit from your new card at all.
If possible, go for a card with max memory AND number of cuda cores.
Also from what I understand, an AMD card will not render iray. If I am wrong on that someone please correct me.
Oh yeah... I forgot to mention my current GPU is Nvidia GT 630. So all this time it's not Radeon that's rendering. Jumping to GTX1060 is like a quantum leap, I imagine.
My money is only good for that GTX1060 6GB and so I have to manage the 6GB well. I'm also using Windows 7. From what I've read in various posts, 6GB is quite adequate for my need so that I don't fall back to CPU in the middle of the render.
Since I'm no hardware expert, I just wanna make sure that my small CPU can handle this GPU.
The CPU can, you'd better check your power supply and what power cables it has. NVIDIA recommends a 400 W power supply or above. The card itself uses 120W and needs a six pin power connector.
Just noticed you said your power supply is 500W, that should have the power connector you need also but it never hurts to check before you buy the card.
The 1060 6Gb is certainly powerful enough to render scenes with a couple of characters. If the indoor scenes arent too complicated it will all work out nicely. You could also use Scene Optimizer to lower the texture memory if need be. All in all it will be a big boost with what you have now. In general every upgrade (1070, 1080) will add about 33% more performance / speed.
"GPU Upgrade: Am I Chossing Correctly?"
No, you are not. Way not.
I'm going to be strong in my wording here, but I've gotta be honest. Besides that, using "weasel words" here would not be doing right by you. You are of course, welcome to do whatever you may. As long as you're using your money and not mine, that is.
But remember, if it doesn't work, then I may say "I told you so". If you can accept that, then we're good. 
Now that the preamble is out of the way, I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Best case, you're wasting the cost of the 1060 card. Worst case, you buy the 1060, find out it won't work (or doesn't work well), then have to spend even more money on other components, which I think you need to do ANYWAY.
Here's the rundown:
If you did decide to do this piecemeal, you could find yourself on a waterslide of increasing purchases and costs. Once you start spending money on any of your system parts, you may find that you're struggling to keep all the other parts working, or making purchases to bring them up to snuff.
If it were me, I'd just start making plans to upgrade / replace the whole system all at once. Plan it with a budget and get something that has more and faster cores, at least 32 GB of memory (I prefer 64, but that's personal choice), an 800 watt (or stronger) PSU. For storage, I recommend couple/few TBs of SSD space, and about 10 times that for backup space (or use a cloud backup service). For the GPU, I'd just go for a GTX 20-something card, but those are definitely a bit rich, so if you can't afford the new 20xx cards, then just make a GTX 1080 a part of that plan. Make sure the motherboard will support at least 64 GB of RAM and make sure it has at least two slots available for GPUs, so that you can add another one in a couple of years if you want more rendering power. If there's a good likelihood of you adding a GPU in a couple years, then bump up the PSU specs now, so you don't have to buy another one of those down the road.
All of this would set you up well for a number of years going forward, and you could even add another 1080 or even a 2080 in a couple/few years if you wanted more GPU processing power.
If you want to see some good starting systems/component lists, I would recommend you take a look at the Techreport system builds. They usually put out a guide a couple or three times each year, and that can give you a good starting place.
I wish you luck!
FYI, rendered in the dark ages on a 1060 with 6GB in a box running Windows 7:
The system is many years old, though more powerful than yours (i5 with 32GB). It is worth noting that the CPU and RAM requirements to support the video card when rendering in DS/Iray aren’t all that well documented, but there are a few people who frequent the forums here that focus on hardware, and I believe I remember one such member advising 2-3 times as much system RAM as VRAM on the card. I believe that your CPU and system RAM will only effect the initialization of the render. Best case scenario is it would simply be slow - worst case scenario is it could cause crashes. Most of this discussion was regarding the new 20 series cards, though.
I would dig up some links for you, but I am on a phone at the moment. Hope this helps.
- Greg
I pretty much agree with Subtropic_pixel.
Algovincian's system i far more capable, so not really a viable demonstration.
New Ryzen and Threadripper systems from AMD are on a par, (and imo better than) with Intel. Intel may have the edge gaming, but we're not discussing that.
... So on to OP's question: yes it is a capable GPU; is it a worthwhile purchase for you? No idea, I'm inclined to consider the system as whole - as I've said already really when I agreed with SP.
Whilst I like lots about W7; it is a concern using an OS no longer supported on any computer connected to the internet.
We can render to CPU; we can chose other render engines; 3Delight is part of Studio and is CPU only. We can use external renderers, which takes some time and effort but shouldn't be discounted. Some are free, and some not.
... It is absolutely NOT the only choice that we use GPU and in particular Nvidia only.
That old A4 APU is going to be brutal running Daz. The CPU still has to run the actual program. The GPU may handle a lot of the tasks of a graphics program but the program does have a core that run on the CPU that hands off tasks to the GPU. Trying to run that stuff on that ancient, and even then terrible APU is just a plain bad idea. Upgrading to a 1060 will make your render times faster but won't change how painful using Daz will be.
And I said as much, but it most certainly is relevant as it clearly demonstrates that windows 10 is not necessary. From what the op said, a new system is out of the question. Windows 10 alone would cost half of what the 1060 costs.
- Greg
It is certainly unclear to me exactly what advances Windows 10 offers.
Frankly lack of support for Windows 7 doesn't seem like a disadvantage.
With the information available to anybody with a browser, there's no excuse for ignorance of Windows 10.
But here's a start with just a little bit of searching in Wikipedia and Google:
There's a lot more. Sure, you can still make stunning art with other versions of Windows, but at this point I think everybody should be thinking about Windows 10.
...I too am running W7 with no issues. Stepping up to Pro to complete a memory upgrade beyond 16 GB on my 6 year old system.
I don't consider it the "dark ages".
That dual core APU will also really slow rendering down should a scene dump from the GPU,.and with 8 GB it may even dump to much slower swap mode. (I originally had 12 GB and that occurred with some frequency with Iray in CPU mode as not only is it using memory resources to render, but Daz with the scene open is using additional memory resources as well).
If you can squeeze it I'd go for a 1070.just in case you become more ambitious with your scenes (and also look into a memory upgrade).
Here's s sample of what I was able to do with my old rig. This was in CPU mode with ony 12 GB of memory (took about 5 hours with a 4/core8 thread i7)
Semantics and literary liberty, my friend. I certainly know you can make great art on your older system and on a Windows 7 system, but as I said in my first post, I wanted to be fair to him. Sometimes "fair" means not holding back. I must tell the truth, even if I have to tell him something he might not want to hear due to cost (buy extra hard drive space for backups!), or if I occasionally use strong words to firmly drive the point home (if you "cheap out" on this build, it might not work right and then I'll tell you so!).
Given that, I wouldn't spend good money trying to upgrade his 7-going-on-8 year old system. Telling him to do that would be like whispering sweet nothings in his ear. That would be unfair to him. It would also a waste of my time, his time, your time, and everybody else's time here. It would also be unfair to anybody else who is also considering the same thing as he is and just dropped in on this thread from a curious Google or Bing search.
His system would be fine if he asked us about building a basic web browsing system, doing his finances, and maybe doing some light (very light with a 2011 APU) gaming. Or maybe even if he was going to do raster/line-art work in Illustrator, CorelDraw, or the included Paint program in Windows 7.
But he wants to use DAZ Studio and he wants to render his work. I want him to have a good experience, not frustration.
I rather think that the good question is : can my PSU handle the GTX 1060 ? You may not have the 8 pin connector needed for the GPU to run
You'll have to change your PSU or buy a 6 Pin To 8 Pin Adapter
I think you know it already, your CPU is very weak. But still even without HW upgrade, your system should handle the GTX 1060
In worst case you could upgrade the CPU for relatively little money https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-A8-Series-A8-3870K-3-GHz-Quad-Core-CPU-Processor-AD3870WNZ43GX-Socket-FM1/131965529755?epid=115939795&hash=item1eb9c22e9b:rk:1:pf:0
One of the other problem you may run into with your actual CPU is that it may have some hard time transfering datas to the GTX 1060. You wont get optimal performance but still; it will work
Last point, and I'm going against what Subtropic said : Do Not Upgrade to Win 10. You don't need to do that, and you may run into problems because your Hardware may not be supported. From Gigabyte support page you can see that many components do not have drivers for Windows 10. And last point, Windows 10 may reserve more VRam than Win7
With 16 GB Memory, that should be enough in most case but that may be tight for "big" scenes
I think folks are missing the point.
It isn't about what can be done with any specific system, but about answering the question the OP asked.
In it, he posed a simple question. Whilst the 1060 is a capable card, and presuming his system will run it, and continue to do so for sometime, it should improve his rendering experience, and quite possibly by a considerable margin.
Upgrading that system is not the correct choice. The OP asks if he (or she) is making the correct choice. Now it may be the only viable choice, which would then make it the best of a poor lot of choices. (Far too many choices in that sentence.)
It was a poor choice new, for rendering; seven or so years later, it is still poor.
I actually support what you said, and I should have been more clear. Windows 10 may indeed not run well with that hardware. There is a Windows 10 upgrade compatibility checker that can tell the OP the answer. He should do that first before spending any money. If upgrading the hardware (or buying a new computer), then in my opinion, Windows 10 is a must.
He asked if it was the "correct choice", yes. But his premise is flawed, so I said "no". Wholeheartedly, NO. A purist might say that I answered my own question and not his, but as I said, I can't honor a premise that I think is totally wrong.
If I asked you, "When did you stop kicking your dog?", how would you answer that question? "I've never kicked my dog!" is not a valid answer to that question, but it IS a valid response to a false premise.
And that's what I did, respond to what I believe is a false premise, and that is always permissible. He can do whatever he wants, of course.
Whilst the OP may have meant something else, we're not in a position to know that; it is confusing to answer baseing our assumptions of anything other than the questions asked. If we do we should be clear. You were: both in your short and concise answer and your more protracted, but nevertheless useful and informative answer.
I apologise, I generalised in my post; I had posted my support of your post previously but perhaps wasn't sufficiently clear.
There are a lot of good points made, some of them don't answer the question, or expand on previous answers that didn't address the question clearly enough.
No problem; we're good.
We'll see if the OP comes back for continued conversation, and we'll go from there.
LOL, most of that I never even touch with Win 10 and other than the security concerns, I would go back to Win 7 in a heartbeat as I find Win 10 to be bloated and a memory hog, even after turning of many of the features it tries to force on me. As for the Edge browser, I have FF, Chrome and safari installed along with it and after trying Edge many times, see no reason to make it my default.
...and if the OP cannot afford a new system at the moment (as he/she mentioned that there were only enough funds available for the 1060), is it fair to say they shouldn't upgrade the GPU for now to get a little better performance until the resoruces are there to get a more up to date system? That 1060 can always be swapped into a new machine.
While upgrading the GPU only may not be "optimal" given what others have said, it will improve your rendering experience dramatically! Almost all of the images that are less than 5 years old in my gallery were done with GPU rendering, my current GPU being a GTX 970M (6Gb like the GPU you are looking at, only my GPU is in a laptop), using Windows 7 (I have a Quadcore i7, so my CPU is a lot faster). Sure, I would love to upgrade to a faster system, but that simply isn't in the budget right now. So like you, I have to make due with what I have, and I'm able to make images I enjoy, and have fun doing so (no disgrace in not being able to afford a full upgrade, in fact, I applaud your effort and desire to improve your experience rather than giving up because you can't afford the latest-greatest hardware).
Be sure to check the connector cable from your PSU to make sure it has the right one as noted above, and that there is enough room in your case for the GTX 1060 you want before ordering (you can easily find/order an adapter on line). As others have mentioned, this new addition won't speed up how responsive DS is, and trying to work in Iray preview mode may be extremely slow (something you are probably already used to) but rendering will be much more enjoyable.
As noted by KK, the 1060 can always be swapped out and put into a new system should funds become available down the road
You will eventually need a new machine, but there is nothing stopping you from using a 1060 in what you have now. Your 500 Watt power supply should be up to task, but like stated you might want to double check that it has a free 8 pin connector for it.
I think it is obvious that the poster would love a new PC, but it should be also obvious they lack the funds for one. Not everyone can afford this hobby so easily, we can't all have GTX 1080's. I think it would be fair to say that the overwhelming majority of users in this forum have less than a 1080, MUCH less. I only had 4GB with a 970 until just one month ago when I finally made an upgrade. And I had started with Daz using only 2GB with a 670. So I know what its like to deal with this. It sucks, but I lived. You teach yourself to be creative with the limitations you have. 6GB is pretty darn good, just think, most GPUs had much less until Pascal came along.
There are also people who have proven it is possible to render with such unbalanced machines. Core 2 Quad and even a Core 2 DUO machines with just 6 and 8GB DDR2 respectively were outfitted with a 1070. Not only did the 1070 work, it worked very well. It rendered the Iray benchmark scene at the same speed as 1070's do in brand new machines. So NO, the CPU is not bottlenecking. Iray don't care about your PCIe lanes, it doesn't care about RAM speed or hard drives or any of that stuff. Iray only cares about the GPU running it, and the CPU if the CPU is rendering, and that it has enough RAM to do the job. That is all. And "enough RAM" is entirely an opinion that is based on each user's own usage. If the user wants epic battle scenes, that is not going to happen. But a couple of people in a simple scene, totally. The Daz program itself may have usability issues with such an old CPU, but should function. Make sure to use the 1060 as the driver for the viewport, otherwise the weak CPU might struggle and the app might be a slideshow. Daz Studio does not run any better with Windows 10, and it might even be worse if Windows 10 is reserving a bit of VRAM, causing a scene to boot to CPU that otherwise would fit. And I am probably one the bigger cheerleaders for WIndows 10, LOL.
Another big potential issue is 32 bit. If you machine is 32 bit that may be a problem. Nvidia has stopped issuing drivers for 32 bit. There are 32 bit drivers for the 1060 up until about June 2018 when they ceased, so you will be able to get a working driver. But you will not be able to update further without a 64 bit OS.
If you are not opposed to buying used, you may find a better value. The market is always in flux, so it is very hard to say what you can get for X amount. But you can get a 1060 or maybe even a 1070 now, and save up for a better machine to install that GPU into down the road. You might even find used items that still have warranties. A number of companies will honor warranties for 2nd hand owners, its always good to double check. AMD Ryzen is a better all around deal than Intel, especially for content creation.
One thing that often gets overlooked in these topics, is that putting a new component that is worth a bit of money into an old machine can be risky.
To be more specific, running a system that is ~7-8 years old, chances are you have some parts that are nearing the end of their lifespan. Power supplies are perfectly capable of taking out pretty much your entire system if they fail, and you have to consider the fact that rendering is a high usage task, requiring your power supply to work hard (especially if its max output is borderline for the hardware being powered by it) for long periods of time. That increases the risk. Most power supply brands i have looked at offer between 3-5 year warranties, and they do those timeframes for a reason. Corsair i believe are one of, if not the only brand who have 10 year warranties on their PSU's - and one of the reasons they are the only PSU's i buy.
So OP, i think there is a risk that if your PSU is the first part to fail, it will take your new GPU into the bin with it.
....that's what my system has, a Corsair 750w.
PSUs are not all that expesnive, particularly in the 500w - 600w range
Just be aware with the recent release of the RTX cards from Nvidia, that buying a new Pascal based video card (since Turing is not all that it is cracked up to be right now) will soon be impossible.. So if you can grab a 1080Ti, 1080, 1070Ti, 1070 and so on grab it now before they are discontinued..
Hi guys! Apologies for the late reply. I had to shut down in the middle of replying to your responses, and unplugged all my electronics because of lightings and thunders. The lightings and thunders in my country are vicious. Thanks for all the responses. Very much appreciate them.
In 2011, I stumbled upon a program called DAZ Studio and I was like "I want this!!!!". I want to create my own scenes, my own characters. I know almost nothing about DAZ. All I remember, from this very DAZ website, I need at least 4GB of RAM. So I ran to the computer store with 400USD, and told the guy to build me a PC with 4GB with a good VGA card. The rest, I'm at his mercy. What I do know is with $400 I'm not gonna get the best PC for DAZ. Not in my country anyway. But it's okay. You don't buy a Ferrari because you want to learn driving. Although some people do, but that's fine.
There are two problems that I have.
#1 is the CPU running DAZ, and some of you have pointed out that problem. Yes, I have problems with the CPU running DAZ. But it's not merely because the CPU is old. The CPU is underpowered since day one I bought it. The problems are minor, for me at least. Things like loading/clearing my scene can take 1-2 minutes. That's alright. I can go check the kitchen or check my Whatsapp in the mean time. Worst case is I have to modify my scene because there's a prop or hair that have too many polys, making camera movements look like a slide. That's also fine. I can change the hair or prop.
Problem #2 is huge, big. It's godzilla!. That problem is: rendering time. Before Iray, I rendered in 3Delight. When light emission is involved, my CPU takes 2 hours for a 3Delight render. I switched to Iray around a year ago because I like the result better. But Iray render takes far longer. I thought I can get away by sleeping or going to the mall, but soon realize this is ridiculous. I can't do this all the time. Hours and hours, and after all that, the render is still too grainy.
I have been saving money to buy new, more powerful computer. But that fund is only available for another year. Hopefully. So, can I put up with problem #1 for another year? Yeah I can. Can I put up with problem #2 for another year? Absolutely not. I might as well not touch DAZ for the whole year.
That's why I was thinking about upgrading the GPU first, while waiting for the new PC to arrive.
Painbox: Thanks. I already have Scene Optimizer.
Subtropical Pixel & Nicsst: I'm saving... I'm saving.
Algovincian: Cool work on W7. Is that The Ring girl? Nice Asian touch.
Kenshaw: Yes, sometimes I put my A4 processor in brutal situation. But so far it refuses to quit. Amazing isn't it?
Thanks to Diagonese, TakeoKensei, DustRider, and Outrider42 for pointing out the PSU connector. I certainly missed that part.
Joseft: I changed the PSU 2 years ago. The current one should do well until new PC arrives
As TakeoKensei and Kyoto Kid pointed out: "That dual core APU will also really slow rendering down should a scene dump from the GPU..." I also missed that part. Thanks for pointing that out guys. How bad is it? Will it significantly make the upgrade useless?
* GOODIE BAGS TO YOU ALL *
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As mentionned by some other posters, even if you won't have optimal performance, your rendering time will still be greatly reduced and thus enhancing your DS experience
In my opinion, you should just do it. It would be a shame to stop using DS just because you don't have a "dream machine"
One more point :I am going against Outrider's opinion to use the 1060 for the viewport. Rather use the AMD integrated GPU to drive the viewport/monitor and the GTX 1060 just for rendering. The system will be more responsive this way espescially since AMD's iGP are better than Intel's
That thing is ancient. I'd use the 1060.
Just to give you an idea about what is possible on a 6Gb GPU, the attached scene was done on a 6 GB GPU (gtx 970M), rendered at 2533x1425. The only problem you might have with a scene like this would possibly be running out of system RAM, there is a significant amount of "Iray" data that is stored in system RAM in addition to your DS scene data. But, it sounds like you are already used to managing the RAM usage of your scenes, so you should be able to at least get close to the same number of figures and props without filling your system RAM. Dumping to CPU only happens when your scene requires more memory than you have on your GPU, as you can see below, you can fit quite a bit on a 6Gb GPU (I didn't do any scene/texture optimization on it either). It has two G3F figures, one G2F, and one Genesis (the guy just barely in the scene on the right edge).
I think you would be very very happy with the rendering speeds of the 1060 compared to what you are experiencing now
I used to have a 630 on my old rig, I know your pains. The minimum recomended by DAZ is 4 gb for iray. The 630 is half that. As long as your Power supply is sufficient I think it will be fine. I would try and squeeze an 8 GB card if you can but 6 GB exceeds min specs and should be fine. Once you put the new card in it it will porabably render better in GPU only than GPU + CPU. As long as the schene fits in GPU it should be fine.
My old PC was not far off you current rig. I did the following:
I had a stock 2010 ASUS cm5571 with a 630 card in it and a 620w seasonic Power Supply. I put an NVDIA 1070 Ti In it.
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
CPU: Pentium Dual Core CPU E5400 @ 2.7GHTZ
MEMORY: 6 Gig DDR3 @ 1666 GHTZ'
GPU: Nvidia 1070 Ti
Here are my benchmark tests with that setup.
Original SY Test:
GPU ONLY: 3 min 25.58 sec.
CPU+GPU: 5 min 41.62 sec.
Outrider42 Test:
GPU ONLY: 8 min 42.63 sec 84.33% converged
CPU+GPU: 13 min 0.92 sec 84.39% converged.
On an old pc just be careful, swapping GPU's. The Motherboard's component may be more fragaile then when originally manufactured. I know this from experience as the hold down on my PCIe slot failed when I was removing the old card. The new card still held as the other end was bolted into the case frame but I dids not trust it. I have since replaced mine with a new PC.
One thing to think about for the future. Get an el cheepo special with a CPU you are happy with and upgrade it as funds become available. Upgrade the PSU and GPU on your current system first. Both PSU and GPU would be usable in your current PC until funds for a newer unit are available.
Your existing PSU may be adaquit for now especially since its only 2 years old. In the long run your going to want a better PSU than will come with a new prebuilt system. I think a 1060 recommends a total system power of atleast 400 watts or 500 watts depending on manufacturer but only uses 120 watts itself. While their are many ways to cut costs in a computer build, I would not cut costs on a PSU. A good PSU can cost a couple hundred dollars but will last multiple builds. As others have said, a bad or low quality PSU can take your motherboard and GPU with it if it dies. A PSU that it not strong enough for your computer system can also take other complonents with it when it fails, been their done that also. Thankfully I knew it may be an issue and was only 2 days from replacing the entire PC when it died. You will want more than "just enough" watts. I would plan on atleast 650 watts, 850+ if you want to support multiple GPU's. I would also go for atleast a gold rating.