Sticky: Video card buying advice

[Karl Larsen]

I wish threads like these were a little more up to date... it's almost 2012. Even the Tom's Hardware article is old.

[DAssassin]

Please update any active links. I am in the market in search of a new system. Since, the old one is taking way too long to render in vray.

[AJLynn]

UPDATE, 9/3/2011

 

Here's what's changed since I wrote the first post here in 2008.

 

It is no longer strictly true that video cards have nothing to do with rendering. Traditional rendering, such as in Vray, mental ray, Cinema4D Advanced Render, etc., use only the CPU and not the GPU, so a better video card is not a way to speed up these renderers.

 

Renderers that do use the video card fall into two categories. These are:

 

Game engine type renderers. These renderers use Direct3D to output 3D to the display in real time, for walkthroughs and animations in the visual style of a good 3D video game. Lumion and Twinmotion are popular examples of this technology. For these programs, choose a good, current model video card marketed to gaming enthusiasts. You don't need to kill your budget on this. A Geforce 560 or 570, or a Radeon 6870 or 6950 is perfect.

 

Renderers that run monte carlo algorithms on the GPU. These all look a bit like Maxwell. They work by running a large number of simultaneous, very simple calculations to render the images by brute force. These include Vray RT GPU (but not regular Vray), iray, Arion and Octane. For these renderers, you need to first check with the manufacturer to see which video cards are compatible, then choose one that has both GPU power and a lot of memory. For most of these renderers, and most users, the right choice is currently the Geforce GTX 580 3GB version. Don't confuse this with the the Gefore GTX 590, which also has 3GB, but splits it between two GPUs, so that you can only render scenes that will render in 1.5GB of video memory - though if your scenes fit in that, they'll render very, very quickly.

 

For even better performance, run the monitor on an ATI/AMD video card and reserve the high end GeForce for running CUDA. Doing this requires a motherboard that can comfortably handle multiple video cards (LGA 1155 and 1156 boards, except for the ones that have an addon PCIE controller for gamers, are bad at this; 1366 boards are good at it; for AMD boards, check your board's specs) and a very good power supply.

 

Revit

 

If you are using an older version of Revit, I still advise staying clear of Geforce cards. Your best bet is a FirePro V5900.

 

If you are using a newer version of Revit, it uses Direct3D instead of OpenGL and the old bug warning no longer applies. It will still run great on that FirePro V5900, but you can also use high end gamer cards, which will also run 3DSMax quite well. You can choose from the above list of video cards that are good at running game engine type renderers - all the ones mentioned are good Revit options.

 

Charts of video cards

 

Here's the newest one. Take it for what it's worth - they don't test pro 3D apps, just games and such. And keep in mind that the highest results - the ones with SLI, CF or Crossfire in the name line - were tested using multiple video cards, and building a system that way does not benefit 3D apps as much as it benefits games (and it burns an awful lot of electricity in the process).

[Karl Larsen]

That was the fastest reply to a request for up to date information I've ever seen!

 

Thank you,

[DAssassin]

Thanks for the update..

[Jsteele]

Has anyone had any experience of the new amd v4900. Forgetting gpu rendering (for now)does this sound like it could handle pretty complex architectural models. i work in microstation, rhinoceros, maya and soon revit so i suppose the pro card drivers might be beneficial for the open gl apps. otherwise would something like the gtx 560ti work as well even in maya/ rhino.....or with heavy models should i be stretching to the v5800/ v5900.

 

i'm mainly trying to avoid slow viewport syndrome.

thanks

[AJLynn]

For that software I'd definitely say FirePro is a good option. The 4900 is good, the 5900 is better if you can afford it - twice the memory and a noticeably faster GPU. The 5900 is a good price point - from there, the value per extra dollar diminishes pretty quickly.

[Devin Johnston]

Andrew what card would you recommend for a high end system running Max and Vray? I've got a Quadro 6000 and I've never been more dissatisfied with a card in my life, the thing has had poor performance since the day I got it. I've never used ATI but I'm willing to give it a try if there's an advantage over Nvidia, I just want something that works.

[shawingajeelee]

Hi Andy.

 

I found you and your amazing parts list through Peter Guthrie's blog. I have an unusable viewport whenever I need to use grass or trees with my old second hand Quadro FX1700. I've been saving to buy the V7900 that you recommend for many months now. When I was about to buy it this weekend though, I found out about the newer W7000. Would you know anything about how it would perform compared to the older V7900, please?

 

Thanks.

[johnnycash]

Thanks so much for posting all of the awesome info about video card! Looking forward to seeing more posts!

[johnkernel]

Hello CG'z!! My name is John, i am from Greece. I want to buy a computer for this stuff acording to my bufget, but i want also to use adobe programs. I have read a lot of articles and forum posts all over the internet and i am confused.I am new to all these programs (i have use again adobe premiere, after effects,photoshop, illustrator but not 3dsmax really starter)

For processor i am thinking 3770k or 3820

16 mb ram

1 ssd

2 disks for raid 0

I dont know what i should do with the gpu. As i see all over the net i read good comments about gtx 570,580 what about gtx 660;

Do you know if theese gpu are ok with 3dsmax; I also thinking to buy used a quadro 4000 or to start with one 660 or 660 ti and add an another one in the future.

GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 (200 euro each) ??

GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB (300 euro each) ??

or one GeForce GTX 660 Ti OC 3GB (355 each) ?

 

Please give me your advice!!!

[Dimitris Tolios]

Some thoughts:

 

* 3820 is slower than the 3770K. There is little utility in getting a s2011 board that will cost you much more than a 1155 or 1150 one and stick with a quad core in both scenarios. Some people claim X79 is better for multi-GPU (more than 2) applications as it has more PCIe lanes, but in real life performance it is not. In a nutshell, s2011 is for 3930K or better or if you need more than 32GB of RAM.

 

* Why both SSD and RAID 0 ? Are you editing multiple 1080p video streams and HDDs cannot keep up? I don't think RAID 0 as very useful otherwise. A modern SSD will always be faster for Apps and OS but ofc it is hard to get enough SSD space to edit large videos with unless you really put down some $$$.

 

* All GTX cards are "ok" for viewport performance. Nothing fancy. Quadro 4000 will be much better. K2000 is actually comparable with the older 4000 and cheaper. Adding more than one GTX for 3D app viewport performance is of no utility: only games support SLI graphics.

[RyderSK]

Hi Dimitris,

 

you've got me very interested in the Quadro, which I always considered gimmick for Max. It's so hard to find any decent review, everyone just seems confused and base his opinion on "hear-say", nothing is equal in tests (directX vs Nitrous, different MaxVersion, viewport types...).

 

As of now, I have GTX670 (with 4GB) and 2014 Max which I use in Nitrous Viewport mostly in shaded mode with edges. My scenes are usually around 20-40 milion polys with many objects instead of fewer big ones. In 3dsMax 2013 I mostly got around 5-8 fps with these scenes, but now in 3dsMax 2014, it's constantly above 20fps (even routinely 30-40fps, and it's still the same huge scenes).

 

I will be soon building another high-end workstation, and if Quadro will truly give me the best performance, I will go for it. After all, they;re now relatively cheap (700 euros for K4000, that's damn good deal compared to what they used to go for few year ago...). But will they truly perfome better in MY conditions ? eg. 3dsMax2014 with NitrousViewport. Nothing else matter, Autocad, directX viewport...any other Cad app. Just Max2014 in Nitrous. I can't find any serious benchmark...

 

I love your blog btw, and very value your knowledge of HW and I would need help with this question that bothered me for some time now

[Dimitris Tolios]

Well...never tried 2014...20+ fps with complex 40M poly scenes is insane...I have the same 670 4GB and I am used with single-digit numbers even with scenes 1/3 that with both 2012-2013 Nitrous engines. I will have to dig out my edu email and see if I can get it for some tests - if true, it is a game changer.

$700 or euros is not a bad investment if we are talking productivity tools, but getting 60 instead of 30 fps is nothing like getting 20 instead of 5. i.e. the niche of the Quadros n 3DS is diminished if you constantly achieve > 20fps with a GTX.

[johnkernel]

Some thoughts:

 

* 3820 is slower than the 3770K. There is little utility in getting a s2011 board that will cost you much more than a 1155 or 1150 one and stick with a quad core in both scenarios. Some people claim X79 is better for multi-GPU (more than 2) applications as it has more PCIe lanes, but in real life performance it is not. In a nutshell, s2011 is for 3930K or better or if you need more than 32GB of RAM.

 

* Why both SSD and RAID 0 ? Are you editing multiple 1080p video streams and HDDs cannot keep up? I don't think RAID 0 as very useful otherwise. A modern SSD will always be faster for Apps and OS but ofc it is hard to get enough SSD space to edit large videos with unless you really put down some $$$.

 

* All GTX cards are "ok" for viewport performance. Nothing fancy. Quadro 4000 will be much better. K2000 is actually comparable with the older 4000 and cheaper. Adding more than one GTX for 3D app viewport performance is of no utility: only games support SLI graphics.

 

* I am thinking aboud one ssd for my system and two hard drives at raid 0 for my data.

 

*About sli, what he is doing ?

and you can read at the comments : Lhitanis :

Hi, well the test was made with two cards gtx 660 sc. The average time was 5.5 minutes per frame, at a resolution of 1280x720 and 128 paths / pixel. If you use a single GTX 660, the time would be doubled. Thank you very much for your comment.

[RyderSK]

I am not sure how much of that huge fps increase is due to better viewport performance, or just smarter degradation, which finally works like it should in 2014 (I had it switched off in 2013 rather for its problematic use). That said, 2014 brought its own new problems, like occasional hang outs or freezing, which I saw many people complain about but not addressed by Autodesk, and these seem viewport related. Still, it's noticeably much faster.

 

Edit: Here is screenshot from current project, 80milion poly, but few instances so it's actually just 40mil unique polys, almost 900 objects in various groups. It's 30-50fps have moving around, and much higher when orbiting, when it goes into heavy degrade and automatically swaps for box view on many items.

Edited June 5, 2013 by RyderSK

[johnkernel]

* I was thinking abou a 120gb ssd for my system and 2 hard drives of 1tb for my data.

 

*What this guy means when he says he uses 2 gtx 660?

Yoy can see at the comments "Lhitanis: Hi, well the test was made with two cards gtx 660 sc. The average time was 5.5 minutes per frame, at a resolution of 1280x720 and 128 paths / pixel. If you use a single GTX 660, the time would be doubled. Thank you very much for your comment. "

[Dimitris Tolios]

He is rendering the video using 2x GTX 660s - i.e. using GPUs to render each frame with a preset of 128 ray-traces per pixel of each frame @ 1280x720p. Each frame takes around 5.5 min with those cards. Nothing relevant to viewport performance here, just animated sequence output render.

 

If you see the first 5-6 sec of this youtube video, on the upper left corner the scene stats and fps for viewport are displayed: a scene with just 800,000 polys doesn't do more than 3.5 fps with his "2x GTX 660s"...ofc only one can be recognized within 3DS itself for viewport acceleration, but GPU enabled renderers can make use of as many compatible graphic cards as they can detect in your system. Those don't even need to be identical in any way, nor SLI linked.

 

If you are into GPU rendering "porn", read this lil article of mine

 

Edited June 6, 2013 by dtolios

[paneli]

Well...never tried 2014...20+ fps with complex 40M poly scenes is insane...I have the same 670 4GB and I am used with single-digit numbers even with scenes 1/3 that with both 2012-2013 Nitrous engines. I will have to dig out my edu email and see if I can get it for some tests - if true, it is a game changer.

$700 or euros is not a bad investment if we are talking productivity tools, but getting 60 instead of 30 fps is nothing like getting 20 instead of 5. i.e. the niche of the Quadros n 3DS is diminished if you constantly achieve > 20fps with a GTX.

 

How about combining the both,

ATM I have a Quadro 4000 and I really want to advance with VrayRT so I was thinking:

How about using Quadro for viewport and two GTX 780 for VrayRT on the same machine?

I have enough slots for that thing and as ad as I know, vray doesn't demand SLI in order to recognize and use both GTX cards.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Sure. Should work fine. People complain about drivers acting up sometimes with such combinations (so happens with Quadros + Teslas tbh) but I had carefree installations of various combinations. Sometimes you are just unlucky, and this happens with both DIY and off-the-shelf PCs (and Macs) :/

 

You should try with 1x card at first, to see if it is close to what you were expecting.

You will need a pretty good PSU.

[paneli]

Sure. Should work fine. People complain about drivers acting up sometimes with such combinations (so happens with Quadros + Teslas tbh) but I had carefree installations of various combinations. Sometimes you are just unlucky, and this happens with both DIY and off-the-shelf PCs (and Macs) :/

 

You should try with 1x card at first, to see if it is close to what you were expecting.

You will need a pretty good PSU.

 

Yes, I am already looking up to some SeaSonic 850W PSU.

I do plan to test the GTX 780 by itself before plugging it together with the Quadro.

I don't really want them to be in the same machine together anyway. In Max 2014 I experienced a lot of crash caused by Nitrous behavior with the Quadro. (Same scene in 2011 works like a charm)

[Dimitris Tolios]

I meant 1x "gpu renderer" card + the quadro, so that you don't buy them both for something you might not use at the end.

I don't see an issue not running the 780 with the Q 4000 straight out, unless you plan on leaving the 4000 out.

 

If 2014 does improve performance with GTX (even through aggressive degradation) and if nitrous re-adapts fast after you've orbited around etc, it is preferable over 3 jerky fps. But if I had a quadro already, I don't see any reason to leave it out if both performance and image fidelity is superior. Thats my 2 cents ofc.

[thiyagu arjunan]

Hi,

I just bought a quadro k2000 for max 2014..in big scenes or evermotion hd cars,trees,...while comparing with old gtx560 ,,its working the same oly.am not seeing any much better diff at all in viewport ..all saying quadro is a monster......it has a latest driver also...i7,3770k,16gb ram,p8z77v-pro mob...any suggections?

[paneli]

Hi,

I just bought a quadro k2000 for max 2014..in big scenes or evermotion hd cars,trees,...while comparing with old gtx560 ,,its working the same oly.am not seeing any much better diff at all in viewport ..all saying quadro is a monster......it has a latest driver also...i7,3770k,16gb ram,p8z77v-pro mob...any suggections?

 

I feel exactly the same about my Quadro 4000 when people claim that a Mid GTX can outperform it.

I think your Quadro works just fine - it's just the way it is.

[thiyagu arjunan]

yup;-( RIP