Best cheap GPU for 3ds Max

[GLASS-CANVAS]

Quick question for Vlado and anyone else here:

Looking at GPU prices here in the UK a Quadro 2000 is priced almost exactly the same as a GeForce GTX 680. In the past we've always bought Quadros, but if you were building a cheapish workstation to use for general 3ds Max use which GPU would you go for?

I use a bit of RT when setting up lighting/textures etc, and final frames would be rendered on our farm, so we're not looking to do final frames on RT, but I would like to use RT more (it's a bit slow on a Q2000). Also, how does the viewport performance in Max compare between using a Q2000 or GTX580 these days? Seeing as 3ds Max now has it's own Nitrous viewport driver I was wondering if powerful gaming cards give worse, the same or better performance than a Quadro.
Our main work is architectural visualisation with very high poly counts, loads of proxies and massive textures.

Thanks in advance!

[joconnell]

might be handy - http://www.nyc3d.org/3dwp/PortfolioI...s-quadro-5000/

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Id get 680 4gb

[sandykoufax]

might be handy - http://www.nyc3d.org/3dwp/PortfolioI...s-quadro-5000/

Nice link. Thanks!

[Neilg]

That's comparing a $400 card to an $1800 one... The difference in performance taking that into account is something I can quite easily live with. And that's a generation behind, the 680 should do even better (and has more memory)

[joconnell]

Yep, being stingey here and got a 660 ti for my latest build. Maybe I'm totally missing out but I haven't switched over to using RT yet. The geforce stuff have always done really well for a third of the price of a good quadro so I'm happy enough with that.

[windowlicker]

Just switched from a Quadro2000 to a GF680. I think the 680 is a much better buy. I have tried a Quadro card that was worth the cost of it.

The viewport performance in 2013 is a lot worse though. My coworkers have experienced the same thing, and some use quadro and some use gf. Doesn't seem to matter.

[Morbid Angel]

Just switched from a Quadro2000 to a GF680. I think the 680 is a much better buy. I have tried a Quadro card that was worth the cost of it.

The viewport performance in 2013 is a lot worse though. My coworkers have experienced the same thing, and some use quadro and some use gf. Doesn't seem to matter.

I think thats just max not the card's fault. If he is looking for a cheap buy, then 660 ti, or 580 would be sufficient, though 580 is more expensive.

[jacksc02]

I just got a 660ti 3gb and it is a very good card for not much $$

[Morbid Angel]

I wonder why people don't want to wait for a more better card in general? I read that 6 series is the weakest of the keplers and a more powerful ones will be coming...I personally will wait them out to release a good card, like 580 for example I cant see how you can pay $1,000 for a card these days (not the 660 ti one).

[GLASS-CANVAS]

Thanks for all the answers!
So it would seem that the depressing truth is that to get decent viewport performance in max you need a Quadro 2000 or higher, which is then not as good at all the other stuff, such as RT, and comes with half the memory on it. The cheapest Quadro with 2GB of ram is the 4000 which costs about £700 here in the UK. We're getting seriously shafted by the GPU makers.

[joconnell]

Yep - I bought a Fire GL 1 back about 10 years ago which was okay in max performance wise but it was incredibly inflexible for 2d and video work, and at the time sucked for games - That got replaced soon after with a geforce 2 GTS which was about a quarter of the price and I promised never to spend money on a pro card again. I'd rather put the cash into a render node or more ram.

[windowlicker]

Thanks for all the answers!
So it would seem that the depressing truth is that to get decent viewport performance in max you need a Quadro 2000 or higher

Nope. The GTX 680 is a lot better than the Quadro2000 (atleast from my own experience over the past year). The performance in Photoshop (and a lot of other programs) is a whole lot better with the 680 compared to the Q2000 aswell.

[yyk]

Thanks for all the answers!
So it would seem that the depressing truth is that to get decent viewport performance in max you need a Quadro 2000 or highe

I don't know what kind of scenes you are dealing with, but I have a 1.5gig GTX480 which was released spring 2010 and in Max 2012 with Nitrous on I can easily deal with scenes that have tens of millions of polygons.

[GLASS-CANVAS]

Thanks again for the responses. I'm going to give a GTX680 a go next week when I make the next office workstation. I'll let you know how it compares to a Q2000 in identical scenes. If the worst comes to the worst (which I doubt, having read people's opinions here) I can always get a refund for it