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Hey guys, I have one-time offer to get 3 months old Sapphire R9 290X vanilla version (reference cooler) for as cheap as 180 euros. I would slap on Arctic Accelero Xtreme (50e cooler, 20e for new thermal compund and cleaning set) cooler within 30 days to reduce temperatures/noise and maybe even get some more performance with some modest OC. I've seen this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI2XCS-1uFY which shows the performance of W9100 (R9 290X's professional twin brother) in ActiveShade VRay mode and I was pretty much sold. Do you think it would be wise to invest 250 euros (180 for the card and 70 for the mod) into a R9 290X (a bit higher single precision but less VRAM)? The alternative nVIDIA route I could take is also used (1.5 years) reference GTX 780 Ti for 300 euros, no warranty. I've read that nVIDIA Titan makes viewport sluggish and barely usable while the ActiveShade mode is in on. All this for architectural visualization.

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20 euros for thermal paste and "cleaning set" is silly...paper tower and alcohol works fine for cleaning, MX-4 paste for €7 should do it (with lots to spare).

 

The 780Ti will be slightly faster (due to the VRay RT code working better with nVidia), but will have a bit less RAM to play around with than a 290X (3GB vs 4GB).

 

All single GPUs take a performance penalty when you are using GPU accelerated active shade windows along with tweaking the model - there is nothing "Different" or worse with the Titan that I know about.

Only solution is having a dedicated screen driving monitor, and one or more GPUs doing just GPGPU stuff.

 

How bad the performance hit is, is actually relative to the complexity of the scene. There is some subjectivity in all these things, what is "intolerable" for you might be "meh, what can you do" for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks again Dimitris. I ended up buying a new Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 for 280e which was too good to pass. I tested some scenes which I could barely navigate before (unless in wireframe) with the new card and it just flies through. I was able to OC this card to 1550MHz (boost) on the core and 1900MHz for the memory. Revit projects are working just as well. Highly recommended.

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Hi everyone, help please because I'm a bit confused with choosing a graphic card. I'm one step from getting a used Quadro 5000 instead of GTX 580 (After long debate with myself :)). These are the only "used" cards within my budget at

 

However, last night, It's my first time to try 3ds Max 2015 using my current Intel HD4600 which is only an integrated GPU within i7-4790 CPU. I'm surprise with the viewport speed, in both wireframe and realistic modes:

*

1million polygon : 15-25fps

5million: 6-10fps

25million: 2fps

40million: system stopped responding

 

Actually, I didn't expect it to handle even half a million polygon so I'm impressed.

 

Now, my dilemma,

1. Do I still need a Quadro 5000 if my integrated graphic unit has already a good viewport performance?

2. Is it possible to use intel HD for viewport purposes and just get a GTX580 (cheaper) for CUDA rendering purposes only?

 

I appreciate your advice, Thanks!

 

*I add a turbosmooth modifier and increase iterations value,

Polygon statistic turned on

Edited by Onzki
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1. The Q5000 will most likely be faster than the HD4600, yes. But do you "need" it?

Well, first of all, you don't need a Quadro. And it being a sorta high end GPU of the past decade (or it seems so) it is not a "cool thing" in itself as if you were buying an old sports car. A GTX 680 or even the 580 you dismissed will be easily faster for 3DS Max and also within your budget. The 580 and the 5000 will also run much hotter and louder than any 6xx/7xx/9xx, while being slower...

Can you work with the build in GPU? Sure.

Would a 750Ti be better? Yes, and used flagships like a 680 or 780 even better all around. Especially for iRay.

2. Yes. As long as you have one (or two or three) compatible GPU, iRay will work.

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@Dmitris: Thanks! That's very helpful. I'm very outdated that I never considered maxwell GPU, I thought iRay isn't supported. http://www.nvidia-arc.com/products/mentalray/maxwell-gpu-support.html I got a little bit intimidated by need to do some update part, so I played it safe to check older cards. But thanks for leading me to consider it, I'm starting to look for it.

1. For viewport performance + faster iRay, Which would you recommend among the GTX 7xx series?

2. I found a used and cheap Tesla C2050 (200$), is it worth buying?

 

Thanks!

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1. 780Ti = Titan Black > Titan > 780 >> 770=680 > 670 = 760 > 660Ti > 660. 780 is a great card if you can get one cheap in Island. 3GB are more than enough to toy around, but 2GB are also doable.

 

2. No. Tesla is an over-priced 1-trick-pony. Same comment for the "not-an-old-sportscar" above. You will be better of using a GTX580 for the "accelerator" role, although I would not prefer to go the HD4600 + accelerator role. 1st think about dedicated GPU than can do GPGPU, then about additional accelerators.

 

Don't idealize iRay / Vray RT fantasizing you will be rendering instantaneously. Some people like it, many hate it / cannot use it for finals, and eventually abandon it. Also Vray RT works decently with the CPU for "previewing", so more and more ppl don't really care about the GPU accel, especially if they have a couple of nodes. Start small, work with the limitations, see if you can overcome them, then invest heavily (or not).

Edited by dtolios
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Dimitris, I'm getting your point and I might go with 750ti- but are you talking about single or SLI here? If I do SLI, that's doubling the CUDA cores as well right? I like the low wattage of 750ti.

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Dimitris, I'm getting your point and I might go with 750ti- but are you talking about single or SLI here? If I do SLI, that's doubling the CUDA cores as well right? I like the low wattage of 750ti.

 

* 750Ti cannot SLI.

* 3DS / Maya / All Autodesk / C4D (u name it) don't support SLI. SLI is officially supported only for gaming graphic engines.

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* 750Ti cannot SLI.

* 3DS / Maya / All Autodesk / C4D (u name it) don't support SLI. SLI is officially supported only for gaming graphic engines.

 

Hi, my board is ASUS Z97-K (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97K/specifications/) . The first PCI slot is x16, second slot says it will run at "x4" only. Does it mean I can't add a second video card as my accelerator/GPU renderer?

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The gtx 9xxx series won't work with vray RT unless you have version 3.10 or newer only. 7xx and 9xx have different architecture and the support for vray RT was added in 3.10.

 

thank you. Im working with vray 3.0, ill go with 780ti then. But will be the 780ti in vray rt performance worth it? Or i should just get a 750ti for viewport, and forget vray rt?

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  • 3 months later...

Hello everybody,

sorry for maybe off-topic or outdated question.

We'd like to buy used workstation for AutoCAD/Revit/Sketchup/ArcGIS usage, we are really on budget.

 

I've got following offers:

Dell T1600, Xeon E3-1270 3,4GHz, 16GB, Quadro 600 1GB

 

HP Z400 Xeon W3550 3.06, 16GB, Quadro 2000 1GB

for same price

and than Dell T5500 Xeon 3,6GHz, 12GB, Quadro FX4000 2GB, for additional 180$

 

CPU/RAM is OK in my opinion, but the graphic cards are... old:-(

 

I now it is bad, but we would like to simply invest...more but... later (puting this workstation as a second grade workstation), as we are startup "garage" arch. studio.

 

Our typical usage: Sketchup modelling, AutoCAD, Photoshop. 10-20% rendering (CPU, V-Ray).

Last interior model ended 40MB, 3000000 edges / 1500000 faces

 

I would go for the Dell T1600, Xeon E3-1270 3,4GHz, 16GB, Quadro 600 1GB way , I'm just afraid, if it is not waste of money, when the quadro 600 will be so unadequate, that we'll have to buy new card anyway. Or for small models the oldish Quadro 600 can still do the work?

Would 2000 make big difference?

Does the oldish FX4000 justify the extra 180$?

Does anyone from you have experience with Sketchup/Cad/PSP and these old Quadros?

 

 

Otherwise we'd go for new, but twice the price, Xeon E3-1231V3 3,4, 16GB, GTX960 2GB.

Is the GTX960 for our usage ok? Or we can have something simpler, or there are some problems with this chipset?

 

 

Thanks a lot for any hint.

Karel Klapka

Edited by karelklapka
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