What Graphics card / spec do you recommend for Daz3D?
GreatGonzo
Posts: 55
OK, I know this is a pretty objective post - but right now I am getting some pretty hideous render times with lRay - probably because my system has become 'a little' dated, which means it's probably time to upgrade. Anyway, what graphics card / general spec do you recommend for Daz3d?
(Current system is a laptop)
Pro: i7 2.2Gz
Ram: 16Gb
Graphics: 8Gb 750m
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Need more info on the graphics card. Iray is NVidia technology, so it only works on NVidia cards, and only if they're new enough to use CUDA cores for the massively parallel processing required. If your card doesn't fit those specs, then it will never be used for Iray and rendering will fall back to your computer's main processor. This will run, and will produce exactly the same quality of render, but it will be much slower — this is what causes your "hideous render times".
Note that your entire scene, textures and mesh data included, must be small enough to fit in the memory of the card. If it doesn't, then again rendering will fall back to the CPU.
FWIW, I'm in the same boat; I do have an NVidia card, but it's pretty old with less than 100 CUDA cores and an older, slower VRAM spec.
One suggestion; open the Render Settings tab, click on "Advanced" at the top, and look at the devices D|S thinks it can detect. If your card appears on the lists, but isn't ticked, try ticking the box.
Unfortunately the "M" model chips (M for Mobile) that you find in laptops are lower performance parts than their corresponding desktop counterparts, in order to reduce power consumption in the former. A GT 750, for example, has higher performance than your GT 750M. Neither is really ideal for Iray since the number of CUDA cores is fairly low and the clock speed is relatively slow. If you must have a laptop, there are more powerful and up-to-date GPUs available, but again you are always going to be trailing behind the desktop parts in terms of performance, and laptops with the fastest Nvidia mobile GPUs tend to be very pricey.
The best advice imo, is not to go for a laptop. You pay more and get less. Due to cooling, the constant heavy use of the GPU is likely to shorten the life of the laptop; how likely this is to be an issue, is a tough call.
980ti is the best card at a reasonable price due to price reductions, although the Titan is slightly better due to having more memory.
10 series cards don't currently support IRAY; it might not be long before they do, but until then, any claims to being better, are just that: claims.
Personally, you've waited all this time, wait until the 10 series cards work.
There is one possible exception; a system with a 980ti would be a decent rendering system, although some would be lost as the card would be also the display driver; this would mean that adding another card later would be a viable option.
You could also use onboard graphics to drive the monitor and have the 980ti for rendering. The display would be sluggish though and could make some aspects annoying to use.
The only downside to a desktop is size/portability.
... but they are much easier to upgrade, cheaper to purchase comparable specs, can more easily and cheaper to repair.
... Because of the greater upgrade options, they can be done as budget allows and will cost less.
Thanks everyone - in the process of ditching the laptop - it was good in its day but tech has moved on, What are your thoughts on the NVIDIA Quadro M4000 - seen it partnered with a few higher end systems but everyone on here seems to think multiple 980's seems to be the way to go.
So... the question now is would you go for:
Multiple 980's (prob 6Gb and a 4Gb)
or
Single NVIDIA Quadro M4000 8Gb
(probably partnered with an i6700 and about 32gb of ram)
Edit:
After finally finding a benchmark for IRay and various cards ( http://www.migenius.com/products/nvidia-iray/iray-benchmarks-2015 ;) it seems to M4000 Gb performs much more poorly than the 980 (although the M6000 seems to leave most things standing but is hellishly expensive). Looks like it will be a system with a few 980's stacked in it.
Just make sure your video cards are of the same memory size.
I use a 970 and a 980ti.
I'll consider a 1080 when drivers appear; I'll most likely wait for the1080ti.
The 980ti is tempting, but considering my circumstances, just a little to highly priced considering it is now old technologly. Adding one wouldn't make my renders twice as quick, nor allow me to share the extra memory.
I'm still inclined to recommend waiting.
I read reports of the 1080Ti possibly not coming out till maybe 2017 and the lack of Iray support is obviously an issue. Ideally I'm looking to move on this in the next month or so, which kind of kicks them out of the running - for now anyway. Which means it comes down to the 6Gb 980ti or the mighty (if expensive) 12Gb Titan X.
Cost wise (using UK prices) to drop in two 12Gb Gainward NVIDIA GTX TITAN X cards (PCIe 3.0 (x16), 7000MHz GDDR5, GPU 1000MHz, Boost 1075MHz, Cores 3072 ) looks to cost somewhere around £1,800, which is obviously more than I was thinking about paying in graphics cards - but not impossible if they will make the difference.
The other option is to drop in two 6Gb EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti SC (PCIe 3.0, 7010MHz GDDR5, GPU 1102MHz, Boost 1190MHz, Cores 2816) which will cost around £780.
The Titans will obviously give me more cores, more memory and I assume are generally better - but costs two and a half times as much as the 980's. Do you think performance wise they are worth the extra £1,000? I am not against spending the money on a decent system but am interested to hear from people who have used either (or both) of these as to which is the better way to go.
The Titan and 980ti performance-wise are similar. Not the same as the Titan does have about 5% more cores.
The only real issue, is will your scenes be over 6GB in size, if so, and you can't split them and render in sections or layers, then the 980 wouldn't be used and you'd be using the CPU.
There is nothing wrong with getting one card, and then seeing if you want another of the same after or waiting - unless you're being offered discount for buying more than one.
Scan has some good deals atm.
But 5% performance, and admittedly a lot more memory are going to cost a premium.
£389.99
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-evga-geforce-gtx-980-ti-scplus-gaming-acx-20plus-pcie-30-7010mhz-gddr5-gpu-1102mhz-boost-1190mhz
£937.00
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb-zotac-geforce-gtx-titan-x-pcie-30-7010mhz-gddr5-gpu-1000mhz-boost-1075mhz-cores-3072-3x-dp-hdmi
Do you need it now?
OR
Do you want it now?
Confusing the two can be expensive. :)
You are all awesome people, this is a lot of help :)
Question 1
As an off the shelf rig goes what are your thoughts on this?
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/pc-specialist-vortex-colossus-gaming-pc-10139140-pdt.html
i7-5820K Processor (4,4Gz / 15 MB cache)
Corsair RM1000, 1000W PSU
16 GB Ram (but the plan is to stick 64Gb in it as this is the Max the board can take)
2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6Gb
2 TB HDD, 7200 rpm / 480 GB SSD (probably put a 1Tb SSD in to host the library)
It's costly but looks like it ticks all the boxes for me... thoughts?
Question 2:
Is it possible to mix graphics cards - say at a later date add in a Titan X or similar to the 980's if renders start to exceed 6Gb