Video card questions (Forgive me if I did this already, I have children)
rained
Posts: 27
OK so I could swear I posted this question a few days ago and I went back four or five pages deep in the commons, tried searching, can't find anything. If somehow I did post this already and can't find it forgive me, my youngest woke me at 3:00 AM today and I am not my most coherent self today. That said, here's what I need to know:
The RTX 3070 was recommended to me here on another thread for a $1500 build but I forgot to specify $1500 CAD and I was hoping to keep video card costs around $500-600 as I'm looking to keep my prices at approximately $1500 CAD. Most places I've seen this card listed it's $700-800 and usually out of stock.
So, what I'm hoping to do is find some logical step down from that. Typically I render backgrounds and figures separately and I'm happy to continue doing that, as long as it can render something like Urban Future 7 or Jack Tomalin's Winterblack Halls in less than eight hours to something with an "I can acceptably reduce grain in photohsop" level of quality that should be fine. My last card I bought about ten years ago when it was a generation back from current and that was the (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570) it would take 2-8 hrs to hit that mark on single figures with clothes.
Is there a step down from the RTX 3070 that I'm more likely to find in stock at a reasonable price that still be a step up from from what I had and will hold up well for another ten years? I don't want to be replacing this again in three years just to cope with basic stuff.
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Is that the thread you were looking for?
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/448621/spec-advice#latest
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The problem is that all the cards that might be a step down from there are out of production, or not yet officially announced. You might find a 2060 Super somewhere at, or near MSRP. Or you could wait a fwew months till the 3060 comes out. As I wrote in that other thread this is a really awkward time to be building a system. There's lots of great hardware theoretically available but stock is iffy.
Yeah right now any Nvidia card that starts with 30 is going to be a pain to get ahold of without rewarding the actions of a scumbag scalper or being insanely lucky. I bought the parts to build a new computer a couple of months ago and I bought an RTX 2060 Super and it does great for me, renders fairly quickly (to me anyway I am impatient as hell) I render 4k scenes with no noise and I start it rendering before I leave for work and by the time I get home the render is done.
THANK YOU for the screenshot, Sevrin! That gear icon for me right now is just a square so I didn't see it but I was able to locate it when I saw where it was in your image there.
Kenshaw -- Is there an announced release date for the 3060? Do the costs and availability for the previous gen usually stabilize once the new ones come out? I don't need the latest card anyway I did pretty good buying a card one generation back from current last time.
Malandar - Thank you! I'll look into that too. At this point I have no box at all (doing this because my old machine is giving me CPU fan errors) How long does it take just to get a render where you can preview well enough to see if your morphs/lighting/posing/etc.. are on the right track? iRay previews were taking me like 4-15 minutes on my old machine which made getting anything done super time consuming.
Also what's the difference between the various 3070 cards. (For example would I notice a difference between a GeForce RTX 3070 EAGLE 8GB PCI-E w/ Dual DP, Dual HDMI and a PNY GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB UPRISING Video Card)
The GPU itself is the same, what can be different between versions from various makers is if it was overclocked, how the card is setup, what kind of cooling it uses, the size of the card, the connectors it has, ...
For DS probably not. In more general terms, though, there are differences which might be relevant to choose one version or one other for your system: for example the Eagle card is a bit bigger so you need more space in your case, they use different connectors for power, they don't have the same number of output HDMI ports, they don't have the same cooling system...
There is no announcement for the 3060 at all. It is safe to assume it is coming, Nvidia is not going to end it's product stack at the 3070 but when it will come out and will there be enough released that it won't be a PITA? Who knows.
The differences between the various 3070's, and 3080's etc., are generally things that make little difference in iRay rendering. Factory overclocking (clock speed makes next to no difference in CUDA rendering), more/better fans (rendering doesn't draw as much power as gaming so more cooling isn't really needed), bling like RGB etc. I generally by the card closest to MSRP from a reputable brand that I can find. Between those two cards I'd buy the Gigabyte over the PNY because Gigabyte produces a lot more consumer cards and has a much better reputation, in the US at least. I have no experience with PNY's customer support and RMA process which does matter to me on a $500+ purchase.
If it is between Gigabyte and PNY I will go for higher VRAM lower price as Gigabyte or PNY will not compromise quality. Other factors also matter such as nearest service centre or it is onsite or offsite, ports available, size of the card, looks of the card, gamers might prefer RGB etc.
All 3070's are identical in things like VRAM. Price can vary by model. And quality can vary quite a lot and PNY and Gigabyte have both made lower quality offeerings. PNY does not have the best reputation as far as quality goes.
I have no idea what will matter in terms of cooling but the only things I do a lot of are Photoshop, Lightroom & Daz. Might try and get back into blender at some point, but at a very beginner level. I started trying to learn years ago and never got past the first five steps of a tutorial, but if DAZ isn't going to push it to where it needs cooling and basic gaming won't push it to where cooling is super important I guess I'm fine, right? As long as the case itself has enough cooling?
What does RGB mean in graphics card terms, I only know it in terms of photoshop colour spaces but I assume this is different?
I found a 2060 on sale at a good price, does anyone have an idea on average render times for say a reasonably detailed scene like Winterblack Halls or Urban Future 7in iRay on that? I can't tell how the benchmark scene equates to real usage. (Using those for benchmark because it's the last thing I remember getting frustrated with on my old card but any comperable scene would give me an idea. I also like to do single figures with clothes with the figures skin on HD with subd pushed up to 3-4 which used to take like eight or more hours to get a useable render for me. Any improvement on that would be golden.) I want to make sure anything I get will support dforce and iRay and won't become useless to me right away as software moves forward, but I don't mind being one generation back from the "latest and greatest" either. This is for the moment still mostly a hobby. (Possibly a passion haha. I feel like I've thrown enough money at assets to call myself fairly invested now but not getting paid for any of it kind of limits how much I can sink into it.)
As always, you are all wonderful and helpful people. Thank you all very much for your help so far! I've learned so much and you have really helped point me in the right directions to better understand what I'm trying to do. It's so great to have this community to lean on for advice. (Can hardly wait to get back to rendering.)
RGB in this case means lights on the outside of the card.
Ther benchmark should reasonably scale. Run the benchmark on your current system. It will take x time. The card you want to buy does the benchmark in y time. That will be comparable to the time difference in doing the renders you care about.
Your card vs. an RTX 2060 Super is, roughly, a hamster in a wheel vs. a nuclear powerplant. It will blow you away.
The new RTX 3080 is again 3x faster vs. the 2060S, for 2x more money. If you take the long view (keep it for many years), this might be the better deal. Check your PC though, for size/power/cooling.
Note that the 2060 and the 2060 Super are different cards. The latter is faster and has more memory, which really matters.
One of your criteria is a card that would hold you for a long time. Ten years is a lot to ask, but in any case, regardless of the 2060 being an improvement over your current rig, going back a generation is not the best way to future-proof your system. I'd wait until 30-series supply has stabilized and then pick up one of the newer cards.
Sevrin -- That's a very good point, and normally I would take that advice and just wait. Only the problem with waiting for a 30-series to come down is that my current computer is giving me a CPU fan error and I'm not comfortable running it right until it dies, so I am basically forced to get something now or live without a machine for an unknown and possibly very extended period. On the plus side though even if it's not a whole ten years, if the only thing I have to upgrade in the next four or five is the video card I might honestly be fine with that too as long as the card itself still works with newly released content here I don't mind if everyone else leaps ahead of me if I can still plug along just fine at "light years faster than I am currently" haha.
Cajhin -- I love that comparison. Very strong mental image, and it actually helps me visualize how far behind my old rig was haha. Do you know how big the difference between the 2060 and 2060 super is in practical terms, though? I'm curious because I've just found the 2060 Super I was looking at (which was nicely in my price range at about $560 Canadian) is an EVGA which has terrible reviews about coil whine which has soured me on it a bit. I'm not super keen on loud metallic noises while I try to make art so now I'm back to either compromising on just a normal 2060 or or waiting to see what other good models come down in price at some unknown point in the hopefully near future.
Haha, sorry for the gloom. Just a frustrating thing to have happen right now. Oh well. If anyone has further insight do lay it on me. I'll just be here compulsively refreshing newegg.ca and cursing the fact that tigerdirect doesn't do business in Canada anymore. (Thus far the only shops with decent prices I've found have been newegg and memory express but memory express only carries the 2060 not the super and even that is, of course, temporarily out of stock.)
The 2060 is 6Gb and the 2060 Super is 8Gb so there is a major difference in that. The CUDA difference is also significant, 1920 vs 2176.
Make sure to check is that review for that specific model? If not I wouldn't get too worried. I've owned many EVGA cards and never heard any whine. At worst wear earphones while rendering.
GPU manufacturers already declared https://www.techpowerup.com/268211/amd-declares-that-the-era-of-4gb-graphics-cards-is-over
Therefore 6GB VRAM going to be minimum and 8GB VRAM might future proof or I can expect at least for 5 years. Audible coil whine is a normal thing for high-powered components e.g. gpu.
Also there is a possibility of gpu revolution for PC as Playstation 5 contains 16GB GDDR6 also Xbox series X contains 16GB GDDR6. Compared to those gaming consoles current majority of PC gpus are tiny and insufficient to run future games with current insignificant VRAM of PC GPUs. Golden era will come within just few years for us who need lot of VRAM withing affordable price range..
Alright, so I think I have a lead on somehwere that should have a 2060 super in stock soon and you have sold me on the idea that it's probably a better move than the regular one. Besides, this place has a decent price on it so it won't hurt me to wait a few weeks for it to come in. Next question -- What's the difference between a AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor, 3400 Mhz, 6 Core(s) and an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor? I can't find the 5600X in stock anywhere anytime soon and I believe it is fairly new, is that right? I'm wondering if there is a lower model that would do fine? I'm not sure what exactly a better CPU will do for me and how much difference it will make. I know rendering is primarily CPU. Are posing and dialing morphs and such done on CPU?
The 2600 is a fine CPU. It is subtsantially less powerful than the 5600x but it is still a fine CPU. If you want a system that will begood for a while, I'd try to get the 3600 instead. It is an upgrade over the 2600 and is a better fit for the X570/B550 chipset motherboards that I recommended prices should be comparable.
Would that be the 3600, the 3600X or the 3600XT? Went looking and found too many variations and I'm not sure on the difference.
Differences are minimal. Only negligible fps gain.
Some comes with cooler, some comes with inbuilt graphics, some draw less power etc.
I would get the regular Ryzen 5 3600. The only thing the X and XT get you are a small clock speed bump. The extra price jump on either of those two would be better spent towards RAM or Graphics Card upgrades.
All of the Ryzen 3000 or newer CPUs get you PCIe 4.0 support when paired with an AMD 500 series motherboard or newer. That the important bit.
Motherboard selection is not easy for AMD, you need to follow an future feature upgrade planning, there are huge selection. Those are backward and forward compatible!
plain 3600 is better if possible. It should be cheaper as well. Get X570 motherboard if possible. It has the better feature set.
Thank you all again so much! I'm actually leaning towards another motherboard just based on recommendation from a friend who uses it and the price point being a little lower. I was told the only big difference was I wouldn't be able to control the fans (I'm not sure in what circumstance I'd really want to) and it had a couple less ports but still all the ones I actually need. Would anyone mind looking this over and telling me if they can spot any obvious compability problems (both with DAZ studio and between the parts themselves haha -- I'm so worried I will pick things that won't play nice together.)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro Tempered Glass ATX Full Tower Case
GPU: PNY Technologies RTX 2060 SUPER XLR8 Gaming OC Edition Dual Fan Graphics Card
PSU: RM750 Gold Fully Modular 80+ Gold ATX Power Supply, 750W
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8 GB)
Motherboard: PRIME B450M-A/CSM w/ DDR4-2666, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit LAN, PCI-E x16
CPU: Ryzen™ 5 3600 Processor, 3.6GHz w/ 35MB Cache
Also not sure if it matters but here's a list of the old hard drives I'll be adding to the box from my old machine as they all still seem to be in fine condition (I will eventually be replacing at least one of them soon just to have bigger storage but it can wait for now) :
298GB Seagate ST3320620AS (SATA ) < - To anyone wondering why the crazy woman has this tiny old drive in here, it's literally just a scratch drive for photoshop. Totally empty. I just keep it because supposedly it makes it run better. Not sure if that's still true but I guess it doesn't hurt any.
3726GB Western Digital WDC WD40EZRZ-00GXCB0 (SATA )
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD2002FAEX-007BA0 (SATA )
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARX-00PASB0 (SATA )
223GB KINGSTON SV300S37A240G (SATA-2 (SSD))
You can save $20 in a lot of ways without doing that.
mATX is, IMO, a terrible form factor. First it is a terrible one to build. It is tiny which is hard to build and that makes for a frustrating experience. It also limits your you ability to expand your system. It has only one full length PCIE slot so you'd never be able to add a second GPU.
While B450 is supposed to support Ryzen 5000 it has none of the features that Ryzen 3000 or 5000 have and it's memory support is weaker than B550 or X570.
If you really feel like you need to save some money on the motherboard look at something like this instead:
Amazon.com: ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 Supports 3rd Gen AMD AM4 Ryzen/Future AMD Ryzen Processors Motherboard: Computers & Accessories
ATX will be easier to build and will give you more expansion options in the future.
Honestly, I've never had a computer with two video cards in it and I'm not sure I'm likely to reach a point where I'd want that anytime soon. I tend to run one video card till it's dead or so out of date I won't be able to recycle it. If that isn't a concern, would you still recommend a different board? I've just discovered the one I was looking at may not be compatible without some kind of mucking about in the bios which feels intimidating so I don't mind switching to another board if its well reviewed. I thought MATX was the standard form factor for mother boards, is it ATX that is the standard? I'm a bit out of my depth here. A friend of mine had the prime board so I assumed it would be relatively easy to put together but if there's a larger, compatible board that isn't super expensive I'm less concerned with having a second graphics card but definitely concerned about ease-of-build, so I'd be interested if anyone has recommendations on something that will work better.
I'm also not sure what features of the Ryzen 3000 or 5000 I'd be missing out on or what you mean by memory support, though. Could you clarify for me? Again, appologies. Software is really much more my thing.
Mostly for poor quality or entry level systems.
You need an ATX motherboard for those disks. MATX are also called feature compromised motherboard hence only 2 to 4 SATA ports available within congested location.
Suppose in future or some years later you decided you will upgrade a better CPU or processor or high speed NVME drives for better performance or PCIE components for additional features etc. then you will thank him later for X570 motherboards. Because this motherboard will support even future generation components.
ATX is the standard as much as anything is.
mATX is micro ATX and it is what it says. The boards are small, usually cheap, and have less of everything. It is common in prebuilt systems becuase it is cheap, they don't care about expansion and they use cheap labor to build them and don't care if that labor hates the experience. If you're building a computer yourself it is pretty rare that you'll feel that way. The very last thing you want is to spend 6 or 8 hours struggling with the build because everything is cramped and hard to deal with.