Jason Matthews Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 First let me apologize for another video card post in advance. I am awaiting the re-release of the sandybridge chipset (motherboard) and I am putting together a a few machine options for myself. I have about $400 left in my budget for a video card. Now there has been a lot of talk here about the the GTX 580 and the FirePro 5700. Obviously those are out of my range. So I am looking at the GTX 570, GTX 560, HD5870, and HD6970. I am primarily running Max, Vray RT-GPU, Sketchup, AutoCAD and Revit. I like the fact that the HD cards give more than almost triple the stream processors that the other cards, but that will only help me with Vray RT, right. Thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 The ATI GPUs have more stream processors but they are slower than nVidia's, so it's not really an advantage, and it looks like there are still issues with Vray RT GPU on ATI so if that software is a priority you probably still want nVidia. Which is too bad, because the Radeon 6950 and 6970 2GB cards are a hell of a good value. Now, the GTX 570 is very fast, but the 560 is almost as fast (maybe a 20% difference, give or take) and comes in a 2GB version which would be helpful if you do GPU rendering. Either one would handle those programs well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Matthews Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 Thanks for the feedback. I was reading some of the reviews of both the 2GB version of the 560 and the 570 on New Egg. Most of the reviewers were saying that they have never come close to using the 2GB of memory on the 560. Granted, they are referring to game play, not viewport performance but I also know that gaming is a close comparison to viewport performance. Is memory something to look at when shopping for a card for GPU rendering? Thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted February 18, 2011 Share Posted February 18, 2011 Memory is definitely important. The GPU renderer needs to load the scene into video card memory, so the more memory you have the more complex a scene you can load. Of course, this still comes with my usual GPU rendering caveats, see: http://www.3datstech.com/2010/11/gpu-rendering-again.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Matthews Posted February 18, 2011 Author Share Posted February 18, 2011 Sweet! Thanks for the cerebral enlightenment! Reading your article now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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