Video Card Recommendations
Robert Freise
Posts: 4,615
I'm currently using 4 liquid cooled GeForce GTX 1070s with 8GB GDDR5 each
Upgrade recommendations card doesn't have to be liquid cooled
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Are you running out of memory on those? How often, and if you trim the scenes down to fit how much trimming do they need. The recommendation would be "more memory" up to the point where you generally have enough, but unless you have money to burn going much beyond that is of relatively little benefit. Bear in mind that an RTX card will, simply by not having to emulate the RTX featues, give you about an extra GB compared to the current card regardless of having more total memory or not.
Actually I'm asking due to Nvidia dropping Iray support for them
As Richard says, the general advice is "more VRAM" (because the card can't be used at all unless the scene fits into its memory), but there is an upper limit, because having more than you need for a given scene has no tangible benefit... at least to that scene. That said, it's definitely possible to fill up even a large card's VRAM pretty quickly if you want several characters or a complex background in a scene. And in theory, if you have lots of VRAM to spare, you can turn off Iray's texture compression and improve quality as a result. My personal advice/experience is currently that I would consider 12GB a minimum and 16GBs a recommendation, but 24GB+ definitely isn't silly.
This partially depends on your overall system configuration though. Due to technical details of how Iray initialises, you need more system RAM than VRAM in order to be able to use all the VRAM. At a minimum you seem to want about twice the VRAM you're using, but in some cases you might need as much as four times. In any case, I wouldn't recommend a card where the VRAM is over half your system RAM.
You can also definitely get more mileage out of a card's VRAM if you're also not expecting it to run the monitor as well. With my 16GB RTX 4070TiS and 8GB RTX 4060 combination, although I cannot add those to get 24GBs of VRAM for rendering, I can offset the monitor, other applications, and even DS's OpenGL resources onto the 4060 in order that Iray can play with the entire 16GBs of the 4070TiS, which in theory makes it act like it's got at least a couple of GB more than if it were my only card.
I will also add that although the RTX 50 series is the latest stuff to play with, it doesn't seem to have a significant boost over the 40 series (with the exception being the 5090, which gets an extra 8GBs of VRAM over its 4090 predecessor), but it loses the capacity to work with DS4's version of Iray, so personally I'd probably advise sticking with the 40 series (although the 3060 and 3090 are also worth consideration).
As far as when to buy... I don't think there's going to be a better time until the AI bubble bursts. Component supply is trying up because of AI data centres (and as a result it's looking like rumoured higher VRAM additions to the 50 series that might have made it more interesting are probably either cancelled or delayed), so prices are going up because of that, and it's not going to get better until AI's appetite is gone. (More manufacturing capacity would take years or *decades* to develop, so we're in for a real shortage).
RTX 5090
If you want to stick with Studio 4.2x, get any old Nvidia card with at least 16GB VRAM like the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Just be careful since there are variants that have only 8GB VRAM.
I should have included this in my first post
System ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME sTR4 motherboard, 128 mb ram, AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX 24 Core, 48 Thread Processor, 4 Nvidia 1070Ti video cards, 2 50 inch 4K Vizio tvs for the monitors
I have two RTX 3090Ti with 24GB 384-bit GDDR6X that I could use
But I wanted more input in case there was a better option before going with them
I recently upgraded my GTX 1080ti to a RTX 3090 and I am pretty happy with it.
Why are you using multiple 1070Tis when a single RTX 3090Ti will beat it in performance and efficiency?
Machine was built before the RTX's came out
Unless Daz did something different with Iray, Iray usually renders faster with more cuda cores. So you might have a trade off with:
Watch out for power & thermals, newer cards are bulky, hot, and need a strong psu. If you have those 3090s already, maybe you can swap to one of those first and see if it'll suffice.
...this is part of why I have been looking at the pro grade cards like the RTX Pro 4000 and 4500 as they have a much lower TDP than the comparable GTX ones. Yes they have fewer CUDA and RTX cores but they run cooler and often are the "blower" style cards that exhaust the heat out of the rear instead of into the case, Not a gamer and don't work with animation so the better frame rate is not as important.
As I mentioned in another post the Pro 4500 has the same VRAM as the 5090 (32 GB) and currently is about the same price but draws abiut a third of the power.
Alphacool are currently selling off 3090ti fe and strix/tuf waterblocks cheap. That's the route I'd go if you allready have the cards and a custom loop. Plenty of vram, not slow even by today's standards and avoids messing with 50 series compatibility issues. You could undervolt them and knock a fair chunk off the power usage.
Unfortunately due to the AHIC I can't order from Alphacool as they aren't shipping here. Looked on the sites they listed but none have any that will fit the model I have
That's a pity, maybe drop Titan Rig a line and see if they have any ideas? Heard good things about them.
Going through similar at the minute importing leathers to the UK after getting rear ended before xmas. No one here has the size I want and shipping is needlessly complicated now.
According to the blender benchmarks a 3090ti is going on 10 times quicker than a 1070ti so I'd be tempted to try and get at least one in there with the original cooler to try out.
They still have some resale value if you want to move them on and go 40/50 series.
I think I'm going to go ahead and use the 3090's.
I looked at the 40 and 5090s ouch, one of them costs as much as the system cost me to build
I upgraded to a 40xseries card with 32gb vram, and a 12tb secondary drive to put daz and all my assets on. I have a 1060 now, so I am expecting it to be a good deal faster. I also upgraded my moniter to 29 inches. I should have it in January, the secondary drive is back ordered.
Well so much for liquid cooling just found out that there's no compatiable waterblock for the GV-N309TGAMING-24GD
I couldn't see any either, even looking at the outliers like bykski and barrow. The Corsair XG3 4090/4080 is supposed to fit 3090ti models but it only covered the die and vram and the rest of the card was air cooled, sort of. There are still a few about but they're not great at cooling, the only real benefit they have is size when trying to use multiple cards.
Two air cooled 3090ti in a single case is going to get tight and probably noisy.
I am using two of these setup in a stack configuration Thermaltake Core X9 Black Edition E-ATX Stackable Tt LCS Certified Cube Computer Chassis CA-1D8-00F1WN-00
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TQI9BY8?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1
Nice setup. Looks like you've got plenty of options for getting the 3090ti cards running.
Thanks
Not sure if it helps, but I got a RTX4090 a couple of years ago when there was less AI madness. That card can handle everything I have asked it to do, including having six characters at a time. And, playing Cyberpunk (polish PC game) is just fabulous. No need to go to 50xx series, I think
Would the Founders edition be good or another model
they are hard to get though, fun story I bourgt a new computer upgrading my grapphic card on the way in November, specifically looking for the 4070 or the 4090, found one rare offer and went for it. (specifically for the use on the current DAZ studio version)
When I got it I looked ont o the setup an loo and behold, it had a 5070 installed ...
Went to the DAZ alpha version along with that then in the end
...yeah prices for the 5090 are creeping upwards while the pro grade cards (formerly Quadro) are remaining fairly stable for now. The 24 GB Pro 4000 is still in the neighbourhood of its 1,400 USD MSRP.
The other main issue is system memory prices which are ridiculous. Even DDR4 memory is now going up in price (likely due to the astronmical prices for DDR5) causing my "backup" upgrade configuration to go from 842 USD to 1.133.
...c'mon Megabucks lotto, the Kid seriously needs a new system upgrade.
The reason I asked about the 4090 Founders edition is because I found one for just over $2000.00
Well the 4090 Founders edition was gone when I went for another look but this had appeared ASUS ROG STRIX NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB OC at only $15 more so I grabbed it. And it is a new card not used or refurb
4090s are good cards, I'm using one in my main PC and I've a feeling it's going to be there for several more years.
If your main use is Daz Studio then it'll be fine with the original cooler on, they pull <300w rendering and have 500+ watt coolers.
Mine has a waterblock on and it tops out at about 17c over ambient during long renders. Doesn't need that level of cooling but I wanted the PC to be as quiet as possible.
Something I didn't think about I have to upgrade the power supply as well
Personally I'd go for a 5070 with 16GB.
Thanks for all the input