Yeah I need a better video card

Ron Knights

I rendered one image, and saw the summary of GPU & CPU usage. I was disheartened to see the rendering process ended up using some of the CPU. I'm thinking of upgrading my homebuilt computer. Would I need to replace the motherboard, CPU or PSU?? (I hesitate to upgrade my prebuilt HP computer because I'm afraid it might have proprietary connections, whatever.)

GPU Utilization 99% CPU utilization 12% 

MSI Motherboard  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y468HV3/?coliid=I1BITJ97VW6BJN&colid=3MHIUTZRLYL07&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Ryzen 3 cpu  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07STGHZK8/?coliid=I355ZNFLIP8KBR&colid=3MHIUTZRLYL07&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

750W PSU  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W47MX46/?coliid=I3LV38ZFZN9P7A&colid=3MHIUTZRLYL07&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

 

James

First, I don't know anything about HP limitations. Please take that into consideration when reading my suggestions.

CPU rendering is veeeeeeeery slow.

DAZ rendering uses GPU for the best render.
You should get the best GPU you can buy and your motherboard can fit.
I would sugggest GPU with 12 GB VRAM for the safe side. 
I'm using RTX 3060 12 GB
I would like to have RTX 3090 cos more cudas means more speed.
But I have limited budget.

VRAM is very important though.
If you VRAM can't fit the size of scene. no matter how many cudas you have.
It won't render.
Or.. depends on the settings it will fall back to CPU.

Windows 10 itself takes around 3GB of VRAM.
So your DAZ will uses what's left.

 

Gordig

Rendering is going to take up SOME processor power no matter how powerful your GPU is, so don't read too much into 12% CPU usage.

alan bard newcomer

Gordig said:

Rendering is going to take up SOME processor power no matter how powerful your GPU is, so don't read too much into 12% CPU usage.

absolutely correct... if it drops to cpu ...you lose the gpu rendering... 
check your settings ... if you don't have cpu enabled that just means it won't use it for the render... but the cpu has to feed the gpu the data it needs to render.
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as for up gradeing ...  the card only is necessary. 
I built my machine just before iray came in and I had problems with my 24g of ram being used (2 g system.... 20 g daz and scene and 2 g for the other stuff...  system would ask it if could shut down a program to free up memory and I had to keep saying NO. because the only program going was daz.
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So I got a dual server board, 64g of ram and then iray came along (I did upgrade from a 980ti but only because it was a 6g and not a 12g
so I have a titan x...  yep I'd like to upgrade but I have to go to at least a 3080 to get more cudas and 3090 for more vram.
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but I have monitored cpu usage with daz.. and it's zip.. I have 16 cores and daz very seldom (unless doing a cpu render) uses more that 10/20 % on one or two of the cores ever. 
so video card is the only really necessary upgrade ... and maybe power supply but the new cards generally use less power so even that may not be necessary  
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pic is vram and cudas and average prices (US) as about a week ago. My titan is 12g and 3072 cudas. not quite as fast as the new cards but figuring at over a grand to get major increase ... I just do other stuff while the renders is running'