Best Nvidia card to get and install?

Hey all, 

So I'm sure that somebody, somewhere, at some point in time has asked this question before-- but I can't find it. I have a fairly new but far-from-ideal desktop setup that can't get massively upgraded until June 2019 (money will be available then.) A friend offered to help me install a new Nvidia card to at least be able to take advantage of that for rendering Iray in Daz. Right now, it's a AMD Radeon Graphics Processor  (0x6610.) I have all the other specs but not sure if there's any point in providing them all in order to help with answering this question. The $680 cards are not exactly going to happen right now... ;) But I would spend one or two hundred dollars on a reasonably good new card for sure. So what to get? All advice welcome! :)

Catie

Comments

  • OZ-84OZ-84 Posts: 128

    1060 with 6gb :-) 

     

    so easy :-)

  • It looks like a great card, but, um... would anything cheaper work?? I'll be upgrading a LOT of things in a year and a half. Until then... I don't know if I can manage that much. 

  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,760

    $400 = GTX 1070 8GB
    $450 = GTX 1070 ti 8GB
    $550 = GTX 1080 8 GB

    Whichever one of these cards fits your budget best is the card you should get.

  • edited December 2017

    Um... they're kind of getting MORE expensive as the list goes on... ;) Nothing cheaper?? This is a short-term improvement until June 2019 rolls around. I'll be able to afford much more then, but for now... 

     

    Post edited by anise_leinen_390fa63a2b on
  • edited December 2017

    I could make this one work with the budget... EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 GAMING, 2GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) Graphics Card 02G-P4-6150-KR. $135.00. Thoughts?

    https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-02G-P4-6150-KR/dp/B01M9FD3PC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513035132&sr=8-2&keywords=nvidia+card+1050

     

    Post edited by anise_leinen_390fa63a2b on
  • You need at least 4GB of RAM on the card to handle anything but the most minimal of scenes. What do you typically put in your scenes?

  • RobinsonRobinson Posts: 751

    I have a GTX 970 4G.  iRay scenes are way faster than when I had my AMD card.  Still bombs out due to scene complexity sometimes though.  You'll get a huge improvement just from switching to NVIDIA from AMD as iRay is designed around it, so you can go fairly low budget and still see a difference.

  • edited December 2017

    I usually don't have extremely complex scenes-- pretty medium, i would say. It's a long story as to why I will be able to get a much better desktop setup overall in a year and a half... basically, I'm getting Part 2 of 3 payments from an annuity...  but I just want to see SOME improvement now without spending money that I don't have yet. ;) Has anybody used the 1050? Here's another one:EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SC GAMING, 4GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) Graphics Card 

     https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-04G-P4-6253-KR/dp/B01MF7EQJZ/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1513047723&sr=1-2&keywords=nvidia+graphics+card+gtx+1050

    Post edited by anise_leinen_390fa63a2b on
  • IsaacNewtonIsaacNewton Posts: 1,300

    You could try to buy a second hand 1070 / 1070 ti if it is only a temporary measure. Later 1080s will be cheaper anyway.

     

  • OZ-84OZ-84 Posts: 128

    I usually don't have extremely complex scenes-- pretty medium, i would say. It's a long story as to why I will be able to get a much better desktop setup overall in a year and a half... basically, I'm getting Part 2 of 3 payments from an annuity...  but I just want to see SOME improvement now without spending money that I don't have yet. ;) Has anybody used the 1050? Here's another one:EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SC GAMING, 4GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) Graphics Card 

     https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-04G-P4-6253-KR/dp/B01MF7EQJZ/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1513047723&sr=1-2&keywords=nvidia+graphics+card+gtx+1050

    If i had to choose if i want to render on a 4gb 1050 or on cpu ... i would choose cpu. Those 4gb are limiting really hard. Many things wont work at all. Keep in mind that (if you are running windows 10) windows will reserve graphics memory for itself. Meaning you can easily „loose“ 1-2gb graphics memory. 

     

    In addition these 1050s are damn slow. I absolutely see no sense in getting one of those. Thats a little bit like wanting to buy a good used car for 50$. Maybe you should use your bike instead. 

    Well... you could buy a used 980ti with 6gb on ebay. This would be much better than a 1050... faster ... with 6gb mimory and if you are lucky even cheaper.

    Sorry but ill say it again; The 1050s are no good deal if you want to do iray renders

  • edited December 2017

    NOTE; this was a separate topic and was added onto the end of this one, which is why it's here. I wish I had all the money required to buy a really good system right now but I do not. The money will be there in a year and a half. right now, I have enough for a new graphics card, and that's it. So because this was added on to the previous discussion, maybe the real question is if there will be enough of a performance difference to make it worthwhile to spend $294 on that 1060 card. I have had way, way, WAY too many bad experiences with buying anything tech-related from ebay, Craigslist, the supposedly reliable friend, etc etc etc, to go that route again. 

    Hey all, So I have a LITTLE bit of extra money at Christmas, and I really want to upgrade to a better video card. There are two options-- one where it's not impossible to afford this but it's a stretch (about $300), and one where I definitely could  (about $190). In a year and a half, I will be able to afford to get a MUCH better overall system. Until then, this is all I can do. There are certainly better cards out there than either of them, I know, but I cannot even think about spending more than about $300. It is just not going to happen right now. So it's going to be one of these two cards. What I need to find out if there's enough of an amazing difference between the two cards to justify spending over a hundred dollars more on the first one.

    Here's the $300 card: tGIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 DirectX 12 GV-N1060D5-6GD REV2 6GB 192-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card.

    Here's the $190 card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti FTW GAMING ACX 3.0, 04G-P4-6258-KR, 4GB GDDR5, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)

    Does anyone know if there is really enough of a difference between the performance of these two cards to justify the extra expense right now?? I don't do extremely complex scenes, but I want to get away from spending several hours on a render. I also want to go back to doing a lot more video editing again, if that helps to judge the difference.

    Thanks in advance to all the smart people here!! :)

     

    here's the link on newegg to the $294 card...... https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-125-902&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-WhaleShark+Media%3A+RetailMeNot.com-_-af-newssub-171226-_-na-_-14-125-902&AID=13187926&PID=2210202&SID=uuu409D79BA-7C70-4285-B239-505BE9533D9C&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-WhaleShark+Media%3A+RetailMeNot.com

    Here's the one to the $190 one: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16814487294

    Post edited by anise_leinen_390fa63a2b on
  • Merging the new thread with the previous discussion since a lot of the comments still apply.

    I'm not sure how their speed will compare for scenes that fit in their memory, the big question though is whether you in fact need the extra 2GB - and if you do, whether an extra 2GB wuill be enough to help. If you are typically under 4GB of GPU memory needed for your scenes then either card will be usable, if you typically need more than 6GB then neither card will be usable, and if you typically need more than 4GB but less than 6GB then only the 1060 will give you any benefit (though theer are ways to shoehorn a scene in, most obviosuly using lower resolution textures).

  • Used from Ebay. You can usually get a better card for the cost of a new one with lesser specs. Just be sure to read the decriptions to make sure you're not buying a broken card.

  • tristanthorne1997tristanthorne1997 Posts: 241
    edited December 2017

    Richard said "there are ways to shoehorn a scene in, most obviosuly using lower resolution textures"

    I found this tutorial, but the pictures are gone and it seems like a lot of work. Is there an easier way to change textures to speed up renders?

     

    http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/textures/textures-poser04

    Post edited by tristanthorne1997 on
  • frankrblowfrankrblow Posts: 2,052

    Richard said "there are ways to shoehorn a scene in, most obviosuly using lower resolution textures"

    I found this tutorial, but the pictures are gone and it seems like a lot of work. Is there an easier way to change textures to speed up renders?

     

    http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/textures/textures-poser04

    This works well: https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

  • billyben_0077a25354billyben_0077a25354 Posts: 771
    edited January 2018

    What are the specs of your machine specifcally the moterboard, processor and memory?  Need to know if it will accept a curent generation card.  I am curently running an EVGA GTX 960 4GB car which I consider the absolute minimum amount of memory.  Try to get a 6gb 1060 at a minimum if you can.  Anything less than 6 GB wuill be too limiting.  I put more than 3 or 4 people or a bunch of stuff in a scene  or render larger than 1080 x 1080 and it rolls over to CPU rendering and my system is no slouch, *(a good solid 1080P midrange gaming rig) see specs below:

    Intel i5 4670K, Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7, EVGA GTX 960 SSC 4GB, 2x 8192kb Patriot Viper DDR-3 memory, WD 6400AAKS hard drive with a SanDisk ReadyCache, 1 Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 1TB hard drive, Corsair HX1000W PSU, HP DVD1720 optical drive, CoolerMaster CM 690 II Case, Samsung SyncMaster P2370 Monitor @ 1080p, Windows 10 Professional 64.

    I am looking to upgrade to a 1080 or 1080 TI along wiht a SSD and set up a mirrored array for content.  Your minimum will be a 1060 asthe4 1050 has too few Cuda cores.  HTH

    Post edited by billyben_0077a25354 on
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