Graphic Card

[suurland]

I'm about to buy a new computer but I'm not sure which graphic card to get, I'm looking at GTX780, Titan or K4000.. Need to be fast in Max and also fast with CUDA and OpenCL. Which should I go for?

/Thomas

[Preisler]

Hi Thomas!

I don´t no what fast in Max means to you but looking at your work I would imagine that a K6000 or K5000 would be more suitable? I have recently installed a Titan card and it is clearly faster than my FireGL cards but I was hoping that it was even faster - perhaps I had a little too high expectations for the Titan card...

I know we have mutual friends so you are welcome to call if you want further explanation or tested something.

/Lars

[Donald2B]

We deal with LOTS of engineering data and bringing it into Max. The GTX line up could not keep up with the Quadro K5000 we have now. It's worth every penny. I am assuming that from looking at your work, that you too will be dealing with similar type of geometry and complexity levels, and would benefit from the Quadro K5000 or higher video cards.

[trixian]

I'll just add my anecdote of confusing data.
My Gtx580 at home on a single quadcore i7 2600k with 8 gigs of ram (built my self), completely destroys my expensive work machine with its Quadro 5000, on a dual Xeon E5645 with 24 gigs of ram (HP Workstation).
This is for scene handling, and not rendering of course.

In fact, I have never ever had a quadro or any other "pro" card perform as good as its contemporary gaming card. The only exception is back in 1997 when I had a really expensive Evans & Sutherland card, and all gaming cards on the market were shite.

[Franx]

...
In fact, I have never ever had a quadro or any other "pro" card perform as good as its contemporary gaming card. The only exception is back in 1997 when I had a really expensive Evans & Sutherland card, and all gaming cards on the market were shite.

Evans & Sutherland, wow! Had forgotten about those... Back in a time when we had actually tons of choice for graphic cards : Elsa, Hercules, Guillemot, 3DFX, Matrox, Rendition...

[Neilg]

It depends how much time you spend in wireframe and how much time you spend in shaded view. shaded/realistic - gaming card (gtx/titan). wireframe/edges on - quadro/firepro.

That's why everyone gives wildly different results on which performs better. personally, gaming cards work much better for how i use max, but everyone works differently.

[trixian]

Well I'd just add that even wireframes are faster at home. In general, my HP workstation feels like a cheap laptop.
I have my suspicions regarding HP with their components and drivers. Can't see any other reason. Other colleagues here use HP laptops, and they too are pretty lousy considering their spec's.
Thus, I will never ever buy HP for a personal computer, just build them from good tested components.

[Donald2B]

Makes sense of the wide variations. I built all the workstations in the office and at home. I was really hoping I could get by with a Titan card, but it just couldn't deal with LOTS of body objects in Max. Once I have everything collapsed down to editable meshes things start to level out.

The last computer I bought from a company was a BOXX computer, which lasted almost 6 years before we replaced them! Great run from them, though they were on the more expensive side.

[plastic_]

Geforce vs Quadro is an old discussion. I also think Quadro is mostly snake oil.
In 3ds max traditionally there are viewport elements that are always slow, regardless of the card. Especially splines.
In max 2014 there is a massive performance increase with splines.
It's worth an upgrade, for that alone. (I don't really see other benefits of upgrading from, say, max 2010)
I don't know how Quadro vs Geforce cards compare in max 2014, but my guess would be, with the same specs, they should be quite similar in viewport speed.

[bardo]

if you are looking for applications that run with OpenCL, you should consider AMD instead of Nvidia because it seems that Nvidia prefer to promote CUDA and not OpenCL...

I didn't not tested personally but I've read this in several forums.
For example Luxrender with openCL render engine goes faster with AMD than equivalent Nvidia.

Check some benchmarks....
http://compubench.com/result.jsp

[fraggle]

you should consider AMD instead of Nvidia because it seems that Nvidia prefer to promote CUDA and not OpenCL...
http://compubench.com/result.jsp

Nobody to date on this forum have been able to run an AMD on VrayRT.
Seems there is no alternative to Nvidia today under 3Dsmax in fact. AMD driver are 100% oriented games and not optimized for soft like 3Dsmax.

But we never own one, so...

[Morne]

if you are looking for applications that run with OpenCL, you should consider AMD instead of Nvidia because it seems that Nvidia prefer to promote CUDA and not OpenCL...

I didn't not tested personally but I've read this in several forums.
For example Luxrender with openCL render engine goes faster with AMD than equivalent Nvidia.

Check some benchmarks....
http://compubench.com/result.jsp

I had an 4GB Ati 6990. Even with the latest drivers, in OpenCL mode, RT would not work.

I'm now on a 4GB Nvidia 670, much better (but obviously not running it in OpenCL mode)