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View Full Version : Which card brand to buy? (investment in gpu rendering/processing) under $200?

Chrisguy
03-18-2010, 11:19 PM
Hello,

I'm wondering whether I should buy an ATI or NVIDIA card. I'm normally buy Nvidia, but just yesterday I bought an ATI 5770 just to try something new...only to find out that there are more upcoming renders that will utilize Nvidia's CUDA, as well as other applications from Adobe. I also hear that 3dsmax has a PhysX based plugin. (I've been reading around too much its making me dizzy)

I upgraded to a 5770 from an 8600GTS, but when I boot up 3dsmax with a large city scene, it seems as if the power of these two cards are the same...I really don't notice the difference between the two..

It's really, really hard to wade thru all the fan-boy opinions and find a card suitable for the work I want to do. I just want a clear cut professional opinion...on what kind of card I should get that would be worth the investment. So here are my questions, I know they're ALOT but hope you can answer them ;)

+Does CUDA have a strong development following? (especially in the 3d arts?)

+Is the PhysX function worth it?

+Does ATI stream have a good following?

+Is investing in a graphics card for GPU processing (or whatever its called) worth it 3 years down the road?

+Which GPU is better for video encoding? (I know that ATI has faster video encoding, but I've looked at an article and it turns out that NVIDIA has better video quality...something I lean towards depending on the time/quality tradeoff.)

+If I use 3dsmax, mudbox, and also wait for the new adobe products, what graphics card brand should I get, that will have the most support for these programs?



Here's my Rig btw. I have a budget of $300 to spend (this includes the graphics card, so if I need more ram, let me know)

+ASRock A780GHX/128M - Crossfire supported

+4GB ram DDR2 800MHZ

+AMD Athlon X2 3.0GHZ (AMD Phenom II 965 3.4ghz being shipped...I'm not sure if its worth the money over a 955 3.2ghz)

+1TB HD 7200rpm

Any feedback is much appreciated
Jettatore
03-19-2010, 04:04 AM
I still vote GTX 260, especially on that budget.
eaclou
03-19-2010, 02:08 PM
Just to be sure, did you fully uninstall your old nVidia drivers, both through windows AND with a 3rd party driver-cleaner program?

EDIT: It's also possible that you didn't notice a difference between the two cards in that large city scene because your CPU was the bottleneck - try again when that Phenom II arrives.

The 5770 should be noticeably faster than the 8600GTS (It's about the same as the GT260, maybe a little slower).

I'd also recommend the 5770 over the GT260 right now, because it's $30-40 cheaper and is more power efficient. And, since you already own it, it's worth it to see if you can sort out why you're not seeing increased performance in the viewport.

If you can't get it to work after a week or so then try the 260, but it's less bang for your buck right now, and older tech.

As far as GPU-accelerated programs, i'm not too knowledgeable about CUDA/PhysX, but they have open-standard competition in the form of OpenCL and DirectX 11 Compute Shaders that I think are more likely to be the eventual winners, given that they can work on any vendor's GPU, not just one or the other.
InfernalDarkness
03-19-2010, 03:42 PM
Seconded Jettatore's recommendation. The 260 is the best bang for your buck.
eaclou
03-19-2010, 04:32 PM
HD 5770 online price: ~$165
GTX 260 online price: ~$200
DuttyFoot
03-19-2010, 11:53 PM
If you cant afford the 285, the 260 is the next best thing to get. I just replaced my 8800GT with a 260.
Chrisguy
03-20-2010, 03:28 AM
Hello Eaclou,

"Just to be sure, did you fully uninstall your old nVidia drivers, both through windows AND with a 3rd party driver-cleaner program?"
--Ah that makes sense, I'll try it

"It's also possible that you didn't notice a difference between the two cards in that large city scene because your CPU was the bottleneck - try again when that Phenom II arrives."
--You know what that was actually in the back of my mind, but I didnt think my cpu was that slow. I just got my phenom processor and its blowing my existing cpu out of the water.

"As far as GPU-accelerated programs, i'm not too knowledgeable about CUDA/PhysX, but they have open-standard competition in the form of OpenCL and DirectX 11 Compute Shaders that I think are more likely to be the eventual winners, given that they can work on any vendor's GPU, not just one or the other."
--I've heard of OpenCL and I'm hoping that more production companies would work with those programs. I'm praying that mental ray/3dsmax/photoshop can add OpenCL support for everyone.

I've been hearing everywhere that ATI is the best for your money. I've unfortunately returned my 5770 because it was running unusually hot and making noise.

But I'll give ATI another shot and repurchase a 5770 or go for a 5850.

I appreciate your input :)
meleseDESIGN
03-20-2010, 05:20 AM
CUDA has a good development following, especially for supported renderengines. But thereīre still limitations to render large scenes in a high resolution, because of the limitation of RAM on current supported graphics cards. A Quadro FX 5800 has 4GB RAM and with this card you could render a larger scene in a higher resolution with a GPU supported renderengine. The downside is the price for this graphic card (even so the size of your scenes and resolution is still limited also with a 4GB graphic card).

I donīt know much about that PhysX technologie, same as you I just heard of some plugins which make use of it, like Rayfire for 3DS Max. I donīt know much about it, because I never had a use for it, there are a lot good known alternatives out there

Ati stream hasnīt a good following yet.

In your case I would wait till Nvidia cards with more RAM hit the market and stick with the Ati you bought allready. Itīs probably still not the right time yet to use GPU supported renderengines, because of the limitations through current graphics cards.


;)
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