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I'm looking to spend around $400 on a new GPU ... Any suggestions?

404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
in The Commons

So in a few months I'm looking to upgrade my gpu for rendering and gaming. Right now I have a  geforce Gtx 750ti , 2GB. I don't think I've been able to take full advantage of GPU rendering with Iray because of my lack of VRAM. The main thing I'm looking to do is increase render speeds. Any help getting pointed in the right direction would be appreciated. 

Comments

  • ZeddicussZeddicuss Posts: 167
    edited January 2016

    For around $400 you really want to pick up a GTX 970. They sell for around $350 on amazon, or you have the faster GTX 980 which is around $500. This page can be useful for benchmarking GPU's:

    http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

    It is specific to gaming results rather than rendering, but both tasks are not a million miles away when it comes to benchmarks.

    Just make sure your PSU can handle the card (specifically the amps on the V12 rail) and you have a proper 16 lane PCIE 2 or 3 slot.

    Something to bare in mind is the new pascal GPU's are supposed to be very powerful and are reported to release this year - when is anyones guess, probably towards the mid to end of year. Just an option if you want to wait.

    Post edited by Zeddicuss on
  • nDelphinDelphi Posts: 1,939

    I looked into the 900 series wattages.

    My ZOTAC GTX 960/4 GB uses a max of 120 watts.

    The 970 about 145 watts and the 980 about 165 watts according to the specs on NVIDIA's site.

    The Ti's and the Titans need about 250 watts and TItan Zs about 375 watts. Yikes!

    You can run a 960 on a 400 watts PSU. I am running mine with a Sentey 750w, 80 Plus, Bronze, Modular PSU. A bit overkill, but I didn't investigate this much prior to purchasing my card.

    The above is the research I did into the wattage used in the 900 series of cards and newer cards.

    Also, I was pretty apprehensive about these cards as I was reading about how hot they got, but the ZOTAC 960 never goes above 61C in full load with ambient temps in the 70F/80F and the fans' speeds have never gone past the 51%. In normal load it stays below 40C depending on ambient temp, right now running at 37C with fan speed at 35%. My case has good airflow.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,630

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

  • Silver DolphinSilver Dolphin Posts: 1,640

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270

    Thanks for both of your replies..i dont even know how to determine if a gpu is compatible with my desktop..or other things I need to consider like temperature or wattage..

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

     

    Thanks for the advice. I know that more VRAM allows for more complex renders but where do CUDA cores come into play?

     

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

  • ZeddicussZeddicuss Posts: 167
    404nicg said:

    Thanks for both of your replies..i dont even know how to determine if a gpu is compatible with my desktop..or other things I need to consider like temperature or wattage..

    Can you post your PC specs? Model number of parts etc, or model number if its built by dell for example.

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    risa.kb3 said:
    404nicg said:

    Thanks for both of your replies..i dont even know how to determine if a gpu is compatible with my desktop..or other things I need to consider like temperature or wattage..

    Can you post your PC specs? Model number of parts etc, or model number if its built by dell for example.

     

    Sure it's the Dell Alienware AX51R2-4292BK

    8 GB Ram

    3.20GHz Intel Core i5-4460

    1TB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive

    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics with 2GB GDDR5 graphics memory

  • Hiro ProtagonistHiro Protagonist Posts: 699
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    I did a test with one of my larger scenes, containing 5 characters (Genesis 1 with 1 level of subd), all clothed (average 3 items) and 4 with hair, plus the Medieval Tavern set with quite a few props, which makes it quite a big set. I set 3 spotlights—I believe lights take up memory too. This took 4.5GB. If you render HD characters, though (3 levels of subd), with accessories, I don't think you will get more than 2 in 4GB. I use a 980Ti 6G and if your system and budget will handle it I'd highly recommend it.

    As well as power and airflow requirements I would also check you case has room for something like a 980Ti as they are longer and, I think, higher, than the 950s and 970s. I had to take a disk cage (fortunately unused) out of my case to get mine in.

  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643
    404nicg said:
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

     

    Thanks for the advice. I know that more VRAM allows for more complex renders but where do CUDA cores come into play?

     

    Basically, more CUDA cores speed up your renders. It's like having a render farm on a card. More computing power.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,630
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    So far I have never had a render drop to CPU, and I have done some pretty complicated scenes with 5-6 characters and lots of backgrounds and props

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Hiro Protagonist said:
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    I did a test with one of my larger scenes, containing 5 characters (Genesis 1 with 1 level of subd), all clothed (average 3 items) and 4 with hair, plus the Medieval Tavern set with quite a few props, which makes it quite a big set. I set 3 spotlights—I believe lights take up memory too. This took 4.5GB. If you render HD characters, though (3 levels of subd), with accessories, I don't think you will get more than 2 in 4GB. I use a 980Ti 6G and if your system and budget will handle it I'd highly recommend it.

    As well as power and airflow requirements I would also check you case has room for something like a 980Ti as they are longer and, I think, higher, than the 950s and 970s. I had to take a disk cage (fortunately unused) out of my case to get mine in.

    I would really like to bump up to the 980TI to get even faster renders and to be on the safe side,  but that extra $300 would hurt! I could do it if I save a little longer and it would probably be a pretty good investment seeing as I do also use my computer for gaming but still. Though it would be nice being able to render decent looking scenes with Iray without having to let it run while I'm at work or something since I like to do series of renders as opposed to one-offs..

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Havos said:
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    So far I have never had a render drop to CPU, and I have done some pretty complicated scenes with 5-6 characters and lots of backgrounds and props

     

    Do you use mostly genesis 2 characters or genesis or v4/m4 or what? Would that make much of a difference? I exclusively use genesis 2 characters these days but I don't typically do scenes with more than 4 characters at the absolute most

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Kevin Sanderson said:
    404nicg said:
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

     

    Thanks for the advice. I know that more VRAM allows for more complex renders but where do CUDA cores come into play?

     

    Basically, more CUDA cores speed up your renders. It's like having a render farm on a card. More computing power.

    Ahh gotcha thanks for clearing that up

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    Hiro Protagonist said:
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    I did a test with one of my larger scenes, containing 5 characters (Genesis 1 with 1 level of subd), all clothed (average 3 items) and 4 with hair, plus the Medieval Tavern set with quite a few props, which makes it quite a big set. I set 3 spotlights—I believe lights take up memory too. This took 4.5GB. If you render HD characters, though (3 levels of subd), with accessories, I don't think you will get more than 2 in 4GB. I use a 980Ti 6G and if your system and budget will handle it I'd highly recommend it.

    As well as power and airflow requirements I would also check you case has room for something like a 980Ti as they are longer and, I think, higher, than the 950s and 970s. I had to take a disk cage (fortunately unused) out of my case to get mine in.

     

    How do you know if a character is HD or not?

  • Hiro ProtagonistHiro Protagonist Posts: 699
    edited January 2016
    404nicg said:
     

    How do you know if a character is HD or not?

    It should say so in the product name (e.g. "FW Joanie HD"). There are also HD add-ons for existing characters (e.g. "Victoria 6 HD Add-On"). In any case, the HD element is optional—it adds finer details to a model. You can render any HD character at the default 1 level of subd (HD requires 3 levels), although, of course, you will lose those details, which in some cases (particularly monsters) are essential to getting them to look as they are intended. Each level of subd quadruples poly count, so you can see how this eats up memory. If you aren't rendering HD characters now and are happy with the results, then it may not be something to worry about in terms of GPU memory choice.

    Post edited by Hiro Protagonist on
  • Kevin SandersonKevin Sanderson Posts: 1,643

    The product description tells you if a character is HD. If it doesn't say anything about HD, it's not.

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,630
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    So far I have never had a render drop to CPU, and I have done some pretty complicated scenes with 5-6 characters and lots of backgrounds and props

     

    Do you use mostly genesis 2 characters or genesis or v4/m4 or what? Would that make much of a difference? I exclusively use genesis 2 characters these days but I don't typically do scenes with more than 4 characters at the absolute most

    I mostly use Genesis 2, though still use Genesis 1 on occasion. I am just starting to use Genesis 3 as well. The resources needed by each generation is not as straight forward as being the more advanced use more. For example the poly count on Genesis 3 is lower, but the material files are often of a higher resolution, and may include additional maps as well for SSS specular etc.

    I never use M4/V4 directly anymore, but I do transfer their skins and clothes over to the Genesis models.

    There are so many variables that can effect the amount of resources an individual character uses in the GPU memory, it is not so easy to say one generation of figure uses more than another.

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270

    I pretty much exclusively use Gensis 2 figures but I often transfer over v4 textures and clothes as well. I do have a few HD characters but I'm not sure if I ever actually use the HD morphs and I can't check right now. I think I remember not noticing the difference but maybe that's just me not having keen sight like that. 

  • wizwiz Posts: 1,100
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

    Aren't 6 gig 780s one of the cards that only allows scenes half that size with IRAY?

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    wiz said:
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

    Aren't 6 gig 780s one of the cards that only allows scenes half that size with IRAY?

     

    Bump...any info on this?

  • DAZ_SpookyDAZ_Spooky Posts: 3,100
    wiz said:
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

    Aren't 6 gig 780s one of the cards that only allows scenes half that size with IRAY?

    Since they have the same number of cores as the 780 with 3GB, it should be able to use all 6GB.

  • DAZ_SpookyDAZ_Spooky Posts: 3,100
    404nicg said:
    Havos said:

    I have a GTX 970 4GB GPU, and it speeds up my renders by roughly 10 times

    I was looking at the gtx970 . do you ever hit limitations with 4gb when rendering? 

    I have hit the memory limit on a K6000 (12GB) with one character with clothing and hair, though it was because I was being stupid and trying to do it. :) 

  • 404nicg404nicg Posts: 270
    DAZ_Spooky said:
    wiz said:
    Silver Dolphin said:

    If you can find one I would suggest a Nvidia Geforce 780 GTX 6gb edition. They originally came out with 3gb of video ram but the 6gb version is the one to get it has 2304 cuda cores and 6gb of video ram and if you can get one under $400 it is worth it. I have 3 of these bad boys and they just kick butt with Iray. If you have to pay more than $400 I would suggest saving up for a Geforce 980 with 2816 CUDA Cores and 6gb of video ram for about $600.

    Aren't 6 gig 780s one of the cards that only allows scenes half that size with IRAY?

    Since they have the same number of cores as the 780 with 3GB, it should be able to use all 6GB.

    Thanks for that. Does any one know how I can see if my computer is compatible with a particular graphics card?

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