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Please help me choose the right video card...

yinliang9yinliang9 Posts: 40
edited May 2015 in Daz Studio Discussion

Whew. Okay. I've been using Daz for quite a long time now. This Iray business has me more eager than ever to really get into my renders and get the most out of them, but here's the thing. I'm using a six year-old GTX 285 video card. It doesn't even seem to WORK with the new GPU-based rendering method, and thus, my renders are still extremely slow. Rendered two figures and an environment with two basic point lights last night, at a 1000 x 1200 size, and it had done 89 iterations after an hour and a half.

I need an upgrade. But I'm a poor soul, and this purchase will be a MASSIVE undertaking for me. I have very little idea what's what when it comes to video cards, especially as far as Daz is concerned, so I could use some help. Right now I'm considering the GTX 970, but is the 980 a lot better? (It's nearly double the price.)

What do I need to look out for?
What are the most relevant facets to consider when buying a card SPECIFICALLY for Daz renders?
Do I need to be careful about power supply constraints?
Should I install a new card alongside my old one, or replace it entirely?

I'd love any tips that can be given, I'm pulling my hair out with anxiety about this purchase. Thank you in advance for your time. :)

Edit: If it helps, here's a site with a side-by-side comparison showing a lot of differences between the two cards.
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-980-vs-GeForce-GTX-970

And here's the official Nvidia specs for each card, compared to my current:

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-285/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980/specifications

(I hope there's no rule about posting links on here. If there is, let me know and I'll hand-paste the relevant data.)

Post edited by yinliang9 on

Comments

  • BeeMKayBeeMKay Posts: 7,019
    edited December 1969

    This topic has already been discussed:
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/56583/
    Please check that thread. :-)

  • yinliang9yinliang9 Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    Aha, perfect! Thank you. :D

  • alexhcowleyalexhcowley Posts: 2,392
    edited December 1969

    The two most critical elements are the memory, which ideally should be at least 4GB, and the number of Cuda cores, which should be as high as you can afford.

    The 970 has 1660 Cuda cores, the 980 has 2048, which makes the 980 very powerful but poor value for money.

    A friend of mine is about to build me a custom PC, optimised for Iray renders. I'm going for a 970.

    I hope this helps you.

    Cheers,

    Alex.

  • yinliang9yinliang9 Posts: 40
    edited December 1969

    It does help, thanks. :) I'm not sure exactly what kind of difference a couple hundred CUDA cores makes, but all things considered, I do feel the 980 is only marginally better for twice the price, so the 970 is what I'm looking at after your post.

    I also read about a 780 Titan that's apparently really good with Iray, but it requires more power, has a slower processing speed and is all around less optimized as a piece of hardware than the 970, if I'm reading things right. It has 2880 CUDA cores, however. I thought about that one, but I that one is also considerably pricier than the 970, so I think that one's off my list.

    Then there's still the wonder of... Do I leave my old card in, or just swap it out entirely? It has 240 CUDA cores an integrated memory, so I don't know that it's doing ANYTHING for my Daz renders, but I could swear I read somewhere that you can run your monitor off one card and let Daz use the other in its entirety or something...

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