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daveso
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Post edited by daveso on
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It's better than a 1050ti and roughly comparable to a 1060. Get the 1660ti if you can or the 2060 or one of the other RTX cards if you render Iray.
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These have no RTX cores, so they will get no added benefit when Iray launches with RTX support later this year. This will make the RTX cards WAY faster than they already are, and they are already pretty fast. Like in the Octane beta that adds RTX support, each of the RTX cards is about 3 TIMES faster than it was before RTX support. Personally, if Iray can see a similar performance boost, I think that is well worth saving up for. There is a huge gap between the RTX cards and non RTX cards. The 2060 should beat the 1080ti by miles once RTX gets enabled. That's how much faster these cards are capable of being. We have never seen a performance jump this big between generations.
If you absolutely cannot save up for it, then it is what it is. A 1660 will be ok, but nothing great. Certainly much better than nothing. You will probably be happy with that. But the more you can spend the more you can get.
The 1050ti was cheaper than the 1660 at MSRP. As outrider42 says save your cash for a 2060.
As someone who currently also does iRay renders on a CPU (for those who forgot how bad that is: a 1440x2960 render of just a figure with relatively simple non transparant clothes, with a HDRI background and NO props, smoke or whatever, can easily take 7 hours on my i5-1440 CPU), I know a GTX 1660 will be a massive upgrade. I am gladly in the position that I can replace my entire rig with a Ryzen7 / RTX 2070 system soon, but I can't estimate the OPs' current or future financial situation, nor whether holding out for a few weeks longer is an option.
If holding out is an option, then yeah, save up for an RTX20xx card. If not, then that GTX 1660 (or maybe a secondhand GTX 10xx from a reliable source) will give a vast improvement already.
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Looking at your gallery and the type of images you make, a 1660 would be fine. If you can pony up the additinal $25 for a 1660ti you might look at that one. Avoid the 1650 at all cost, it's a piece of junk.
Some of us forget that not everyone has a lot of money to throw into this hobby.
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I can understand budget constraints. However I will point out that the 2060 comes in different sizes. There are models that have just 1 fan. The single fan model will fit into about any system, and the recommended power supply is only 500 Watts. You can very likely get away with less, these recommended power supply numbers are always higher than reality. You need one 8 pin power connector, and if you lack this, you may be in trouble regardless, because that would be a very cheap power supply. This single fan model is $350, but has a $20 mail in rebate to bring it down to $330.
https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-rtx-2060-06g-p4-2061-kr/p/N82E16814487425?Description=2060&cm_re=2060-_-14-487-425-_-Product
Certainly that is a stretch, but that additional $100 nets a much superior card and experience. These cards will do more than just make things faster. Once you get this kind of speed, it could change your art, too. You will start thinking about making something bigger with this new freedom. Trust me, I know.
Also, waiting might see some price drops. AMD is set to reveal their lineup in just a few days. While we cannot use AMD cards for Iray, what AMD brings is competition. If AMD puts out a card that beats what Nvidia has at this level for a good price, then Nvidia will have to respond. We could see some big sales soon. It would not surprise me to see 2060s going on sale in the next month or two. Patience may be rewarded.
So keep an eye out for deals. There are apps that can help you find deals on specific items.
Another option is ebay. You can always buy from there. Nearly all of my GPUs came from ebay. The last time I bought a brand new GPU was like 2005.
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MY strong and serious suggestion is get a used 1070 or 1070 Ti.
That extra 2 gb of Vram goes a long way.
I just checked Ebay and found a number of them going for around 200
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What model is it? If it's a Optiplex then very little will fit in it. I work with those models all the time and their limits are insane. If it's one of the home units your options are better. If it's an XPS you might be able to replace the PSU with a better unit. Windows 10 OEM edition doesn't care about video card replacements as people upgrade all the time. I've only had issues with motherboard replacements.
Even 1660s recommend 500 Watt power supplys. 300 Watts? I think you need to look at a new system before thinking about a GPU at all. I have a bad feeling that your power supply doesn't have the proper connector, and even if it does, it probably doesn't have a proper 12V rail.
Not to mention, if your case is that tight, and your motherboard is that restrictive, you probably cannot even replace the power supply with a bigger one. Some really cheap motherboards lack the proper 24 pin connector that a typical motherboard has. If you lack this, you have trouble. Big trouble. If your motherboard lacks the connector, it likely cannot feed a GPU anyway. You might get it working, but the GPU would be running 25% slower or worse. In other words, you are wasting money buying performance you cannot make use of.
it sounds like you are in a no win situation. It looks like you have little choice. Even if you could get a decent power supply for like $40, the other limitations you have are so restrictive that any patch work solution would be of little value. You need a full size desktop with a 500 Watt power supply. It doesn't have to be new. But you need a proper base to work with here. I know this sucks, however there are no good options.
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https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCBuilder has a configurator (but they don't sell any systems themselves, mind you), even if it's just to make sure whether a motherboard actually matches the CPU you decided on is a great help.
Ignore the price estimates for the components, they're equally often right as they are wrong. But for assembling a rig it's a nice reference.
PCPartPicker.com will let you pick parts as well as look up prices and even order the parts. It checks for, basic, incompatibilities.
Building a PC is pretty easy. most things are one way plugs.
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Then I'll be blunt. Buy a new case and from the sound of it, a decent power supply.
I agree about getting a GTX 1070. Not only does it have 8GB of VRAM, but it will also render considerably faster than the GTX 1660 cards.
The GTX 1070 Mini cards should fit inside your case just fine, and you can find them used on ebay for a little less than the cost of a GTX 1660.
Yeah it's okay, in fact it's the best budget card for Iray, but you have to use few tricks to reduce the rendering time. Use Scene optimizer, update the driver to latest version, render double the resolution you want, then resize to half, convert all the surfaces to iray shader, and then use Denoiser after 50 to 200 iterations later. I also used Xnconvert's denoiser instead of daz's inbuilt one. both seems okay to me. I could render a scene (twice the size of 1920x1080px resolution) with few geneis 8 models in a couple of mintues, with lights.!! Yeah, in a couple of mintues.
I was curious, as instead of upgrading my card, I decided to invest in a backup plan: namely a Threadripper (generation 1) 1950x.
I did a simple scene similar to what you stated, and at the same resolution. My 980ti did it in 3m 55s, with the Threadripper 1950x, taking 8m 42s. So damn, 7 hours on a CPU is eye-bleedingly horrible.
So anyone upgrading, make sure the majority of your scenes either will (or can) fit in the card's RAM; if not, consider alternatives.
Just being curious how dependable would a used card be? I'm asking this for myself I have a 1060 6GB but kicking up the ram on the card would be great. But always wondered if buying a used card would be smart I fear the possibility of getting someone else's trouble.
is there tips on what and what not to look for in a used card?
Buying a used card on some place like eBay is pretty painless. If you get it and its defective you simply return it and get your money back. eBay's buyer protection is very good.
Will a used card last as long as a new one? That's impossible to know. It could have been used by a professional miner, who tend to undervolt their cards, and could last nearly as long or it could have been used by a gamer who overclocked it to just barely stable and it might have just months left. You simply can never know.
Lots of fake/mislabled cards on Fl-ebag. If you're going that route, ask lots of model-specific questions pre-purchase and if the answers don't pass the comedian test (they sound funny), move on to the next one.
Re: ebay buyer protection, it's good until it isn't. Then it's not worth the hassle.
I'm in the same predicament you are and really it's unfulfilling buying 5 year old tech when you want to learn to model and animate without your computer holding you back. I recently tried the MD 9 trial that will probably be on sale for less than $250 after Thanksgiving again and forget it. As easy as MD is to model clothing with on a fast modern computer on my computer it takes dForce simulation length times per tiny simulation that I run.
So I give up. I'm not going to win the lottery so I'm going to have to spend until Feb 2020 to save up the bit less than $900 to build an AMD Ryzen 5 with integrated Radeon RX Vega 11 GPU desktop PC. It's not a question really on a budget like you and I have that you build a AMD Ryzen desktop and buy an AMD Ryzen CPU integrated with an AMD Radeon GPU (so-called APU that has a G at the end of the model name). You buy an APU instead of CPU + discrete card to reasonable tide yourself over until you manage to save for the 2060 RTX or coming 3000s series nVidia GPU or DAZ Studio adds the Pro Renderer to the DS renderers available to use and to make your new desktop more affordable.
The key is you buy top of the line modern new motherboard and choose RAM stick sizes and SSD storage sizes that won't have you short almost as soon as you finish building the PC. So I am buying 1 stick 32GB sized DDR4 RAM and one stick nvme 2TB size intel SSDs, I will be buying at $200 motherboard with built-in WiFi or a $250 motherboard with built-in WiFi 6.
In February when I have this minimally functional but totally modern and fast desktop PC built because of the motherboard I choose, because of the size of the RAM I choose, because of the size of the SSDs I choose I won't have new expenses with that regard for a least 5 years and probably longer. I know quite well that once I remove hoards of music and art tutorials videos from my main PC storage 2TB is more than enough SSD storage since my massive amount of purchases at DAZ are through with now and easily fit on less than 1TB. Because computer power usage is decreasing with PC circuit die size decreasing I am probably never going to have to buy another desktop case or power supply again. That's a savings of $100 - $200.
Then by the time I finish that in Feb 2020 I can look at buying a 4K 27" monitor (ugh! starting at $250) and an nVidia video card which would be another 4 to 8 months but by then the newer 3000s series line is supposed to be out and cheaper and much faster than the 2000s series line. Since my goal is realtime PBR material raytraced animations the truth of the matter is a video card can't do that yet anyway so I don't need to hurry to buy an expensive video card that I already know can't do what I want it to do.
If you have trouble saving, LOL, like I do, don't be embarrassed just build your PC yourself each month with your discretionary budget for that month so you don't spend it on garden supplies, house DIY supplies, DAZ supplies or whatever. If you buy the top-o-the-line motherboard you want to kick off your PC building foray or even just the PC case and power supply then you'll be surprised at how already having that start in your hands and no longer being an expense you have to deal with will motivate you each month to continue your effort and build yourself finally, a respectable desktop PC that gives you an affordable PC upgrade path for the next 10 years.
Well 10 years or more upgrade paths unless something really radical happens like a 256 core CPU with integrated 4096 core GPU for the price of a cup of coffee that requires a new motherboard, new memory, new permanent storage type, and so on.
This is the model motherboard I talking of and will buy: MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard, it is the WiFi one not the WiFi 6 one and despite the $200 price tag there are more expensive motherboards out there. The only single unity thing more expensive in my current plans to build is the intel 2048GB SSD at $225.
I don't direct stream video over wifi or ethernet so the WiFi 6 version of that motherboard is a questionable extra $50 expense. As videos use so much storage anyway I am incline to just have a 5TB usb HD and a backup of that with another 5TB hd and just plug the 5TB drive into my desktop or my Android TV box or my laptop for video streaming (I really want to rip all my DVDs and bluerays to that 5TB usb HD but that will have to happen after I build my desktop as it's another $300 cash I'd need to spend).
GTX 1660 Super version was released a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend to buy it instead of GTX 1660 one. It's just $10 more expensive, and fast nearly as GTX 1660 Ti.
I'm happy with my GTX 1660, but before that I was only using CPU rendering.
It'll do until I decide to replace my 7-year old PC with a new build.
the 1660 super has 128 fewer CUDA cores than the 1660ti, overal benchmarks come in lower as well. The ti outpaces the super, and it will power with 130W so if your PCI board supplies 75W you only need one power cable to juice this thing.
Very happy with mine.