Which VGA to purchase for 3dsmax - midrange card

[reneweicker]

Hello,

 

which of these two cards would you prefer for using 3dsmax 2012 and Vray?

 

Gainward Phantom GTX 580 3 GB

MSI R9 270x 4GB

 

 

Thanks in advance.

[reneweicker]

...or even a GTX760 2GB? ??

 

I read a lot about VGA cards in 3ds max, but the more i read the less i know.

I think the gtx580 3GB brings a good performance an a good money value - price is about 180$ for a second-hand.

The gainward gtx760 2GB costs about 300$ (in Germany) and i am not sure if the extra money worth.

...and the ATI card costs something in between.

 

I would be happy if someone could give me an advice.

 

 

greetings

[Dimitris Tolios]

The GTX 580 remains a powerful card - being the top of the line Fermi architecture chip of its time, but it is pulling ridiculously more power and runs hotter than Kepler based cards, even the equivalent model of this era that is the 780Ti that when idling - what will be the case with 3DS for the most part - reduces consumption to very low levels. Those are of course even lower with the 760 than the 780Ti.

 

Vram @ 2GB will be enough for viewport acceleration and most 3DS Max users. It is more of an advantage in gaming or in case you are using Vray RT GPU or equivalent progressive GPU renderers going for more than 2GB.

So the 2GB GTX 760 or even R9 270X won't be limited for purely viewport acceleration scenarios - nor would the 1.5GB Vram of the basic 580, which will be probably much easier to find used in a good price.

[reneweicker]

Thanks for your response Dimitris.

Haven´t thougt about temperature and needed power. After reading your post and some surfing throu the www I think I will go for the gtx 760 2GB. Probably ist the right desicion in view of my usage, but it is a hard one

 

Best regards

[joelmcwilliam]

The newer msi cards run silent and cool. You might have a look at those.

[reneweicker]

My daily favorite is the msi 760 gtx hawk. Think I will order this one...

[Dimitris Tolios]

Don't sweat it too much, and more importantly don't "bleed" too much with a pricey card.

 

Unless you plan on overclocking with custom BIOSs etc, there is no need to go for a custom PCB "enthusiast" card like the Hawk and pay the premium.

 

Any reference design GTX 760 will work just as fine and will probably overclock just as good and cool to the "factory overclock" the Hawk has without issues. The MSI "Hawk", much like Galaxy HOF, EVGA Classifieds etc are niche products, and what those bring to the table are rarely used by the average user.

 

If you were not to get the basic 2GB reference card as the cheapest, I would say there is less merit to spend more money to upgrade to the "Twin Frost" for the enhanced cooling (yet not all the bell and whistles the Hawk adds), or the Hawk other than looks.

Personally, if I wanted "more" and I was willing to spend more money, I would go the 4GB way and not for the Hawk.

 

At least with GPU rendering there is a chance depleting the 2GB VRam, while the average gamer needs to go to multi-monitor setups and custom hi-res texture packages to "challenge" the 2GBs with today's games.