danb4026 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 I keep reading all of these threads about cards but they leave me confused and indecisive. I use Max 2012 and Vray. Lots of photoshop work as well. I just want to know what to buy! Please tell! I have a Quadro 4600 and am very unhappy. If I have a scene with as little as a few Evermotion trees, the viewports just become slugs. This is even worse when using my 3dconnexion SpacePilot Pro. I assume this is because of the card and not my processor or memory, correct? (have i7 920 and 12GM ram) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gadzooks Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 I too would like to know this as well. I have a nivida 4500 128 meg card with 32gig of computer ram. And am experiencing the same sluggish performance as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 "Best" is a difficult term to define. I could just point you at this and this, but most users will have a very hard time telling the difference between either of those and, say, this or this. And with what they've been doing with GPUs lately, and with Max using Direct3D these days, in a lot of situations the fastest card is actually this, with this and this not far behind. But most users could save their money and not really lose out on anything by buying this, this, this or this. The biggest problem with the 4500 and 4600 is that they're both based on 2006 GPUs, and these newer cards are based on 2010 and 2011 GPUs. Max viewport performance is based on a combination of GPU and (single-threaded) CPU speed. The i7-920 isn't as fast as some newer models but it's probably not your weak link. Oh, and if you've got Max set to use DirectX 10, try DirectX 9 instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted May 8, 2011 Author Share Posted May 8, 2011 Andy, you say "most users could save their money and not really lose out on anything by buying this, this, this or this". What is your definition of "most" users? I would really like to spend less than $500 to upgrade my i7 920 workstation since I just spent bucks upgrading my renderslave machine to the Sandy Bridge 2600K. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 How big are the models you work with? If you don't want something spendy, and you're not like the guy who was on here a while back who modeled the thread of every screw because otherwise he would never understand the building, you should be fine choosing from the last group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted May 8, 2011 Author Share Posted May 8, 2011 The scene I am currently working on has about 11M poly's without using proxies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 Use proxies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted May 10, 2011 Author Share Posted May 10, 2011 Andy, Newegg has this :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL051011&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL051011-_-EMC-051011-Index-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14150506-L04D on sale. How much improvement do you think I could see with this over my Quadro FX4600? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 Improvement? Yes. Can I quantify the improvement? No. The two cards are pretty far apart in when they were released, and they're targeted at different markets - I'm not aware of any testing data available that compares them. The 4600 is a 500MHz G80 GPU - the closest comparable Geforce is the 8800GTS 640MB, so if we were talking about video games the 6870 would be a bit more than twice as fast on average. Video games are more GPU dependent than Max so the improvement wouldn't be as dramatic in Max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 I was wondering if the new Nitrous core within Max 2012 needs a newer card to take advantage of the new viewport display capabilities ie. graphite, colored pencil etc.. I cannot seem to get these new modes to work with my Quadro 4600. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 Well, the oldest Quadro FX's on the hardware list for Max 2012 are the 4800 etc. 4700, 4600 etc. are not listed so they're not promising that all the features work on the older ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasteland giant Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 proxies + show as box. + hidden layers. You don't need to look at all the 3D trees when you're moving around the viewport. sounds more like workflow issues than graphic card. regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Well, if I have a single tree isolated, I don't think its too much to ask to be able to move around the viewport. The fact is that Max 2010 and 2011 just plain stink. Max 2012 is a drastic improvement. Regardless, there are way better graphics cards out there and I just want a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Matthews Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 Well I bought the GTX570 and have loved every minute using it. Right now you can get it for about $320+/-. A co-worker has the GTX560i and says it performs like a champ. I run 3D Max, PS, AutoCad, Revit, and video composition software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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