GPU advise for new system

[chow choppe]

Hi guys

 

I am making a new machine for 3d rendering purposes to be used with 3dsmax vray photoshop AE etc.

Just confused on which GPU to buy.

Quadro 2000 /Quadro 4000/ any GTX series u recommend?/or any AMD card

 

Quadro 4000 i have heard heats up really quickly. i have AC office during the day but rendering a night happen without the AC. i am currently using V5900 on my current machine so the new one has to be better than this one.

 

Please advise on this

 

Thanks

[Dimitris Tolios]

Heating up is totally different than overheating.

The Quadro 4000 is based on Fermi architecture, lets say "half generation" behind the GTX 5xx cards. All these cards run HOT. Very hot. That's not exceeding manufacturer specs tho - not even close.

 

If your workplace is in a hot and humid place, it might get a tad hotter - but I would not worry.

After all you are talking overnight rendering, where the Quadro will be idling.

 

If you plan on GPU rendering, then the low-mid range Quadros won't give you enough power - not enough to justify their price range.

GTX 580 3GBs are the fastest consumer cards for GPU rendering (equiv. to a Tesla C2075), and pretty good for GPU accelerated apps Adobe offers. The newer GTX 6xx series are a tad slower, but run cooler, draw far less power from your PSU and are less noisy - pretty important if you plan on running more than one such card. I am happy with my GTX 670 SC 4GB so far.

 

I really don't know if I would replace the V5900 to begin with: you could just keep it as your primary card and add a GTX (or 2 - I would start with 1 and see how it works for me 1st before expanding) that would act as head-less CUDA/Open accelerator - much like a Tesla card. I honestly don't know if AE/Premiere would like that, I believe those recognize CUDA enabled cards interdependently just like VRay RT GPU does - it doesn't have to be a linked series of cards (SLI) nor identical for them to work. At any rate, it's not like the V5900 is really slower than the Q4000, so unless you are keeping both your old and new machine, you could keep the FirePro for the new one.

[chow choppe]

Thanks Dimitris for the answer. I cant use my v5900 from my old machine as this is going to be a new build totally. i mentioned v 5900 because i am used to working on it now so when i shift to a new rig i would want atleast equal power or more thats why i mentioned the card of last machine that i used. it gets really frustrating to shift from a faster card to a slower card when u r used to some viewport speed. i hope i am making sense here. whats your take on the 660Ti released recently.

 

Also my major work will be on 3dsmax and vray which doesnt uses CUDA cores as of now . Vrat RT does but i hardly use that. also working on softwares which make use of GPu rendering like AE, AP we use very rarely so i would not want to choose based on that

 

Thanks for your advise . keep it coming

[Dimitris Tolios]

No real experience with 660Ti. Just like with the rest of the GTXs you can assume it will be good enough for most stuff, but you have to check on actual compatibility with Adobe Suite (probably you will need to add it manually to the list of compatible devices for it to be recognized). I do believe the 660Ti tho great for games, is pretty expensive @ $300-310 or so. A 2GB GTX 560ti might still be a alternative which will sacrifice little, and such cards come up on sales (in the US) hovering around the $200 range ($170s for the 1GB 560Ti). There is a current offer for a GTX 560Ti 448core 1.28GB @ $180 after mail-in rebate / $220 without (448 Cuda cores / 384bit mem vs. 384 / 256 for the regular 560Ti - it is practically a 570 GTX the 448).

[chow choppe]

Hi dimitris i am from INDIA so it is not possible for me to ship from there. i am looking at something thats readily available here. i have zeroed down on few cards. can u help me choose the best out of these.

 

quadro 2000

GTX 670 jetstream from palit

 

http://www.palit.biz/enews/award/gtx670_jetstream_01/award_GTX670_jetstream_en.php

 

HD 7970?

 

OR any other u can suggest?

 

Thanks

[Dimitris Tolios]

As I've explained above, your answer depends on your priorities. Any of the cards you've mentioned will work for average usage more than fine. Cheaper alternatives most likely also will.

 

If you want cuda computation/acceleration, the Quadro 2000 is a minimal quantity. All the 5xx/6xx GTX (GeForce or "gaming cards") will run cycles around it.

Nevertheless, optimized drivers and sometimes optimized software suites do perform more fluent viewports, even with under-powered on paper Quadros. That said, I think the V5900 easily beats the Quadro 2000 in most CAD stuff. Generally I dont' believe that cards less powerful than the 4000/V5900 are worth buying. Yes the 2000 is more affordable, but being a low-end Quadro user @ work, I tend to be underwhelmed.

 

AMD offerings like the 7970 and the 7950 do offer superior OpenGL performance to any GTX card, but none of the programs you've mentioned above is OpenGL based.

AMD cards with "Graphic Core Next" (GCN) architecture like the 79xx series, also dominate in OpenCL computation. The issue is that other than the latest Photoshop and Premiere CS6, the OpenCL apps that work with AMD cards are very limited. VRay RT GPU, tho supporting both CUDA and OpenCL, doesn't work with these cards for example - not yet. OpenCL will be standardized eventually, but who knows - 1-2 years from now maybe.

 

The software industry is lagging a lot of months or even years the hardware industry in many occasions, and GPU accelerated apps are certainly the case. nVidia's CUDA is not flawless, and incompatibilities do occur (for example the new 6xx cards don't work with iRay in 3DS max), and just like with AMD, newer drivers many times "break" more stuff than they fix.

 

At this point of time, tho outdated in many areas, the best mix for GPU accelerated viewports and computation/rendering, comes from GTX 5xx series. If you can get either GTX 570 2.5GB / 580 3GB you are pretty good, as CS5/6 has them in their compatibility lists, iRay likes them, VRay RT likes them and viewport performance is not worse than 6xx series.

If you can find one of these @ good price, go for it: many times shops have them left over in their shelves, but sell them @ prices that were "ok" when those 1st came out 2 years ago - don't fall for it.

 

If you don't care about GPU accel, again, stick with the V5900. Things did not change that match for gaming cards to get any better since it came out.

[chow choppe]

thanks dimitris. the final call is in my hands now i guess

[Dimitris Tolios]

thanks dimitris. the final call is in my hands now i guess

Always