DAZ and GTX vs. Quadro cards
zug22
Posts: 73
Hi folks, I am looking at building a new PC specifically for use with DAZ Studio. The choice of GPU card is confusing me: Nvidia has a range of "Quadro" cards and there are also the "gaming" cards e.g. the GTX 1080 Ti - would it be better to get e.g. a Quadro P4000 card or a GTX 1080 for DAZ? The prices look about the same but the GTX 1080 Ti seems to have more power. Supposedly the Quadro is made for "industrial" use but surely a gamer would put a pretty heavy and constant load on their GPU too, right?
I just want iRay render power for my buck.
Thanks!
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I can't comment on the Quadro, but for what it is worth, I purchased two GTX1080Ti's in December, and I have been extremely pleased with how quickly they render Iray scenes. Even when I exprimented with a single card, Iray renders were still quicker than 3Delight for one of my benchmark scenes.
Thre are some things that only support Quadro cards, but for Iray in Daz Studio, unless you have massive memory requirements (so you need a 24 GB Quadro P6000), I've not seen anything that suggests a Quadro will make your life better, but it will make your wallet lighter.
The core difference between the Quadro and GTX series is that the Quadro clocks run slower, which is more stable for long renders (an hour or more), and that is much more of a heavy load than games can muster, especially when calculating light bounces and reflective surfaces. However, the 1080ti has twice as many CUDA cores as the P4000 (3500+ vs 1795) and more VRAM (11GB vs 8GB). You can tweak the clock speed of GTX cards with things like MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision X, though you can't get them as slow as a Quadro. Still, Iray is built around the GTX capabilities.
For Iray, the GTX is going to be your best route .
What motherboard are you using and is octane going to be important at some point to you?
IMHO with DAZ Studio, using a Quadro is a waste of money, unless you absolutely need the extra memory of a P6000. I've seen references to the Quadro's being designed for longer/heavier render use, but my experience has not been consistent with that view (I've actually had more fans fail and heat issues on Quadro's than any other card type or brand). One of the biggest differences between a Quadro and a GTX are the additional "pro" features that the Quadro (software/drivers) supports/unlocks. With optimized applications, the Quadro drivers will help with view port display speed/quality, improve the performance of certain Cuda operations (IIRC floating point calc.), and enable quad buffered stereo display. AFAIK, DS and Iray will not take advantage of any of these enhancements. However if you use Maya, 3DS, Cinema 4D, Modo, zBrush, etc. you may find some benefits to using a Quadro (or if your using the GPU for scientific computing that requires a lot of floating point calculations). As DrNewcenstein noted, If your concerned about heat or stability, you can always under-clock your GTX (though if in a well ventilated case and area your really don't need worry too much).
Wow, Thankyou everyone who posted here.
I can now smile and get a 1080 Ti and know that I haven't wasted my money. :D
glennblackphotos - I haven't even considered Octane. My focus for now is the hardware I wil be buying soon. Rejigging everything to Win 10 and Iray shaders will be quite enough without considering other render engines for now.