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adding a card JUST to help with iray

SephnrothSephnroth Posts: 18
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Just a quickie: I use daz amaturishly and not usually very complex scenes. I currently have a EVGA GTX 680 card which doesnt do a bad job of rendering simple 1 or 2 character scenes but it IS slower than i'd like. I was thinking of adding a 2nd card just to help with rendering a bit - my 680 is fine for gaming though!

As it's just for daz to use and daz appears to provide a list of availiable hardware you can "tick" to use for rendering can it be ANY iray compat video card? Like, it doesnt have to be the same as my current card and doesnt need to SLI? I dont intend to plug a monitor into it.

I'm on a really tight budget so I cant even afford a new 680 (£120 ish) so, if the above is all true, could anyone recommend a budget card that doesnt cost a lot but would make at least a noticiable improvement to render times when used alongside the 680 and cpu? I understand I won't get blistering performance without dropping half a k on the latest and greatest but I figure something out there will at least "help" without bankcrupting me :)

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781

    I have been told that you should not mix consumer (GeForce) cards with pro cards (Quadro/Tesla) but other than that the cards don't need to match, and SLI should not be enabled in DS if they do and you use it otherwise.

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    It's hard to get a useful card for under $100-150 -- the 740 is about $110, but though it has 4GB, it's only about 380 cores. That won't help your rendering speeds all that much.

    Your better bet is to try to find something used, locally or eBay. Keep it in the GeForce family. When you find a good price, check out its specs on the nVidia site. Whatever you get be sure your PC and its power supply can accommodate it.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715

    I'd be tempted to suggest at least a series 900 card; core for core, they are better than the 700.

    The 950 is possilby within your budget, but that seems to be for cards with 2GB, and you should not consider less than 4GB.

    The 1060 is way outside (and currently not IRAY ready), but the 1050 is presumably not far from being released.

    If you get a second card; use it for rendering, and don't use the 680; it will not add a lot, and even reduce the performance of the card you buy. You'd have to experiment.

    You might find a 960 with 4GB within your budget, but probably not easily.

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