How much GPU RAM do you really need?
scullygirl818_02147fecb6
Posts: 170
Like many, I'm trying to get my hands on an nVidia RTX card. I've been considering going the route of a prebuilt, but I'm not quite there yet. The thing is, I've generally been looking only at the 3060, 3080 TI, and the 3090 because of the RAM. I wonder though, obviously a 3070 or 3080 for example is I'm guessing better than the 3060 if you go by price and specs - except for the RAM (why the heck did they stick to 8 GB?!). Anyway, my question is, how much RAM do you need? Would a 3080 actually be better than the 3060 when it comes to rendering, or is it not as good simply because of the lack of RAM? I'm just wondering if I'm going about it the wrong way and in all honesty any 3000 series would work well? Ideally I'll find a 3090...and for less than 3 grand LOL.
ETA I'm planning on getting a Ryzen 9 5950X with it, and 32 GB of RAM.
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The more VRAM the better really. If you can't fit the scene in your VRAM, you got a overpriced paperweight with pretty LED lighting :P
I have 8GB 2070 Super and although it is enough at the moment, I can already see that next year at the same time, it will be struggling with the constanly increasing texture sizes and poor UV mapping.
Go for 12GB's
Redacted
I have an 8 gig rtx, and I find it inadequate. The more the better. I plan to get at least 24 when the cards cost less. 12. Is not worth it. I want MOAR.
...if you are primarily looking at the card for Iray rendering, the 3060 would be the best in the way of price, VRAM, physical size, and power consumption.
Both the 3080 Ti and 3060 have the same amount of VRAM, 12 GB.. However, the 3080 Ti has a staggering 10,240 CUDA cores while the 3060 has 3,584 (514 more than the Maxwell Titan-X I have) which do determine base render speed. The 3080 Ti uses the latest GDDR6x chips which are reported to be faster while the 3060 has GDDR6. Both cards have second generation RTX cores (80 for the 3080 Ti, and 28 for teh 3060) while the 3080 has third generation Tensor compute cores (320) while the 3060 has second generation (112). Both cards have the same maximum resolution (7,680 x 4,320). The 3080Ti has a 384 bit memory bus while the 3060 has 192 bit. BAse clock speed is about the same for both (1.37 for the 3080 Ti vs 1.32 for the 3060).
MSRP for the 3080 Ti is 1,999$ MSRP for the 329$ (for comparison my Titan-X when it was new retailed for 999$so you're basically getting a Titan X at about a third of the price but with better VRAM and the addition of RTX/Tensor cores). So that is a consideration given the high markup we are seeing due to crypotomining, the chip shortage, and unscrupulous bulk buyers.
The 3080 is a farily large card at 285mm (11.2") in length while the 3060 is 242mm (9.5") in length so that may be a factor given how much interior space your case has (the Titan-X I have is 10.5" in length and just fits in my case which is pretty much a full size tower) another poitn to consider is the power draw, the 3080 Ti peaks at 350w while the 3060 at abless than half that (170).
The 3090 is in a class by itself (basically the Titan Series replacement) With 24 GB it has the most VRAM available for an enthusiast card That is a concern because Ideally yo would want at least double the VRAM in system memory to support very large scenes 32 GB would be OK for wither the 3060 or 3080 Ti. However, going with the 3090, 64 would be better to avoid falling into swap mode (system memory is still important even with GPU rendering as it is needed to support the Daz programme and scene that is currently open).
Besides 24 GB of VRAM the 3090 has 10,496 CUDA cores, 328 tensor cores (3rd generation) and 82 RT cores (2nd generation) and a base clock speed of 1.4 GHz. Memory bus is the same as the 3080 Ti. However this is a monster of a unit, at 313mm (12.3") in length and depending on the manufacturer is either a 2.5 or 3 slot card. MSRP from NVIDA was 1,499$ for the founders edition but good luck finding one of those (EVGA has the best price at 1,674$ but pretty much sold out for now).. Even at higher prices from the usual outlets they are unavailable and I've seen them on sites like Amazon and eBay going for about as much if not more than the top of the line pro grade RTX A6000 (MSRP 4,650$) which has 48 GB of VRAM and 10,752 CUDA cores, 84 RT cores 336 Tensor cores and is NVLink compatible (imagine having 96 GB of VRAM at your disposal).
Best Buy averages about twice a month for NVIDIA 3090 stock online at $1,499.99. Good luck they go super fast.
With how things are good luck getting a new GPU that does not require the sale of your liver and kidney..
The current prices for GPU's are obscene, heck over here a 3090 is going for nearly $5000 AUD, with the 3080ti not far behind it..
But if you can get as much vram as you can afford, the more the better..
Yep.. the more, the better as far as VRAM is concerned with Iray rendering in Studio..
As asn aside, I remember from way back in the 80's we had in a few of our then "high end" workstations a rather expensive (for its day) and very proprietary video card that had on card SIMM slots that allowed you to add RAM as needed (there was a max, but I can't remember what it was , probably somewhere around a Mb or two). I was wonderng if that idea would be viable again, but with high speed DIMM slots?? I have no idea if its feasible, but all the talk on Vram twigged my memory.
The more VRAM the better. I've been trying to find a 3090 without having to tie myself to my computer waiting for availability notifications and it's just not possible (I just can't be available to instantaneously hit that buy button)...and I refuse to pay $3500USD to a scalper. It's looking more and more like I'm going to have to go to a pre-build...most likely from OriginPC because they do biz with Corsair, which is my Case/Cooler/Ram/PSU of choice.
The answer to that is mostly "because it's enough for most gaming".
The 3060 is a weird outlier that happened in the time between Nvidia panicking about how much VRAM AMD had put on their latest cards, and Nvidia realising that, actually, they didn't need to try to compete - anything they make is selling out instantly.
I'm pretty sure that had AMD not launched their range, the 3060 would have been a 6 GB card. Conversely, I suspect that if we weren't in the middle of a massive chip shortage, the 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti would have been the rumoured 16 and 20 GB versions in order to make Nvidia's specs compete with AMD.
As an owner of a 3060, I can say that a fair few of my scenes do end up in the 10-12 GB range that the 3060 can handle, and the 3080 couldn't. Sure, some optimisation would usually make the scenes fit onto the latter, but unless you're the kind of person who churns out scenes at a massive rate, the 3060 is already on the same tier as last generation's 2080Ti when it comes to Iray performance, so it's not exactly sluggish.
I'd recommend 64 GB of system RAM; some assets (particularly things like full body dHair) can use a lot of system RAM.
It's to bad they don't make GPUs where you can plug in DDR like you do into your system. Imagine a GPU with DIMM slots and then users like us can just purchase 2 to 4 16gig sticks and plug them in.
exactly - that's what I was describing in my previous post - it has been done before..
I find the 3080ti to be in a weird spot.
If I've already decided to spend $1200 MSRP for that card, it isn't much of a stretch to $1500 for a 3090 and get twice the VRAM (that is, all assuming we were in a normal GPU market at the moment). Unless the size or power requirements are a factor.
To the OP: how much VRAM does your current card have and are you frequently dropping to CPU and/or having to simplify your scene or split it into multiple passes for postwork? How much you need depends on your typical renderings.
Edit: BTW, I've read several reviews of the 3080ti which have complained about the amount of noise it makes. This may or may not be a factor for you, and maybe some of the coming 3rd party cards will be quieter, but just something to consider.
Sorry, I missed your post (just woke up). I bet that was something to see though, to bad the idea didn't catch on. I guess our needs are pretty specific though, although I could see that being beneficial to gamers also
Back in the day, even SoundBlasters had sockets that you could put memory in.
...surprised and dissapointed that they dumped that concept.
The problem with the concept of plug in RAM on a GPU has to do with the required speed to feed a modern GPU... You wouldn't be able to just grab off the shelf computer or laptop RAM. The ned result there would be Same GPU prices we are used to paying but with hardly any VRAM, then you would need to buy the VRAM as an add on purchase to make the card usefull.
On a side note, the mobile version of the RTX 3080 has the option to be fitted with 8GB or 16GB of VRAM. For example the new Alienware X17 comes with a RTX 3080 16GB GPU.
...yeah I've noticed that about Mobile GPUs. For example the GTX 980 mobile had 8GB.while the desktop version only had 4 GB, and Ti 6 GB
The downside of notebooks is higher cost, limited expandability, and limited cooling options compared to a desktop.
I've been eyeballing the laptops that have the 3080 16GB, trouble is most of them are behemoth 17" gaming models. Perhaps a bit too gaudy for my taste
(that and most of them, like the desktop GPUs, are out of stock)
It really depends on what you're doing. Since it's Daz Studio, going to assume it's working with people figures like Genesis 8 or 8.1...
Single figure with a plain backdrop for pinups? A 6-8 GB card will do.
Full scenes from the Daz store with multiple figures and HDRI lights? You can run out with 12 GB depending on the number of items (you can have lots of large textures - the characters themselves, hair, clothing, scene details, etc). However, with multiple figures in the scene many figures won't be that close to the camera and you can make it work with a product here "Scene Optimizer."
Ok so the big question. I just found the 3060 for $800 at Amazon and bought it and am now wondering if that's a decent price now or I should cancel. I thought the retail was $500 for some reason not $325.
...the MSRP from Nvidia for the standard 3060 is 329$
800$ is 2.4 times that, so someone is making almost 500$ off the deal, more than the card is valued at. To put that into perspective, the MSRP for the standard 3080 (10 GB with over twice the CUDA, RTX, and Tensor cores of the 3060) is 699$.
If the mark-up were say100 - 150$ that would be different, but more than twice the original price is "gouging".
Which exact model of 3060? $800 sounds a little high still. Prices and availability are supposedly getting better, not too far in the future. I thought 3060's suggested retail price is between (US) $400 and $600 for variously featured models. A few weeks ago I bought a big one (12GB ASUS "TUF Gaming GeForce RTX3060") for $500 from NewEgg (I was a "NewEgg Shuffle" winner. Wheee!). If you really need the card now, and you have $800 to spend, then why not. But if you can wait, you might save a couple hundred.
Anyone know how compatible rendering time wise the 3060 would be to the Quadro P3000? Just wondering how much faster (or slower) it would be to my laptop.
But isn't the 3080 not as good for rendering iray because of the ram?
kyoto kid said:
...I would imagine because of the RTX cores and GDDR6 memory, the 3060 would be faster. The P3000 is 2 generations old (Pascal) it has about one third the CUDA cores of the 3060 (no RTX or Tensor compute cores) a core clock of 1.08GHz, same size memory bus (192bit) and only 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM (vs. 12 for the 3060). It is considered similar to the Pascal GTX 1060 desktop GPU in performance.
On other question. I keep asking myself if I can be happy with the 3060 because I won't be able to afford to upgrade to the 3090 for awhile even if it goes down in price. I kept wondering, what if I could use the 3090 on what I have now? The basic truth is with price gouging I can either afford the 3090 maybe or what I want (Ryzen 9 5950X) with the 3060. Right now I have an i7-3770K which is pretty old. However, I look up would it work and it basically says you can even play games (or at least from what I'm reading) it got me wondering, would I actually have better rendering just keeping the crappy computer and putting the awesome 3090 in it and upgrading the rest later?
The 3090 will make the most difference in render times.
Where I've seen the difference with the CPU is when posing and moving things around, it's smoother on my new system. I went from a Threadripper 1950x to a Ryzen 5950x. It probably loads a render's data to the GPU faster, but we're talking shaving 5-10 seconds maybe on an hour render?
...I have a 6 core/12 thread Xeon x5660 on an X58 MB. That's old. So old, it only supports tri channel DDR3 memory and the MB, PCIe 2.0. The old rig's been a dependable workhorse since I built it though, and I added the Titan-X a few years ago.so I can finally use GPU mode for Iray.
As I mentioned further above the 3090 is a beast of a card spec, power wise, and physically. I might be able ot wedge one into my P-193 but it would be a really close fit. To get 24 GB, an RTX A5000 would be a better solution as it has 24 GB (though not as many cores), is the same dimensions as my Titan-X, and draws only15w more power so my current PSU would be more than sufficient. Of course i'd have to tweak the BIOS to support 48 GB of RAM (the x5660 can support up to 288 GB).
Keep in mind it is advisable to have twice the System RAM to support the card's VRAM so the 3090 would require 48 GB of system memory which with today's systems means 64. If the old system cannot support that you won't be able to take full advantage of all that VRAM.
is a5000 a Quadro? I'm not sure what series that's from or why for some reason I haven't heard of it.
kyoto kid said: