V-Ray for Rhino | Some Hardware KnowHow is asked

[Helldoor]

Hi there,

I'm currently buying parts for a Custom Build Render PC and came across some controversial topics, about which hardware would suite Rhino and V-Ray better.

CPU | A lot of people recommend, that a Intell i9 would be a good choice, but some say that a Threadripper (AMD Ryzen) would be faster. So the first question is - do Rhino or V-Ray tend to work better with/be better optimized for Intell? Also, do Rhino and V-Ray support AVX512?
GPU | I'm planing on buying a PNY Quadro P4000, as I'm working on some big cityplaning models and want a smooth workflow in Rhino, but also want to use the new V-Ray 3.6 feature of Hybrid Rendering to the max. Do you guys have and infos or experiences with Quadro vs 1080 Ti GPUs?

Thanks in advance for all the answers and input.

Much love
Helldoor

[Micha]

I don't see an advantage using a Quadro card. So far I know Rhino doesn't profit by Quadros. Looks like the 1080ti is 30% faster, but price/value is nearly the same.
https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/g...u=Quadro+P4000

[Micha]

Do you realize that the Pxxxx series quadro cards are running the same Pascal chips that are on the GTX 10xx cards?
Do you also realize that you can get Pascal based Quadro cards with much larger amounts of Vram?
The two biggest differences between Quadro cards and Geforce cards: P series Quadros do not turbo boost, and the drivers are geared towards CG work instead of gaming.

Quadro P4000 is a GTX1070 with 1 SMM disabled and a 45w lower TDP
Quadro P5000 is a GTX 1080 with double the Vram (16GB)
Quadro P6000 is a Titan XP with double the Vram (24GB)
Quadro GP100 is a Titan X with HBM2 Memory (16GB with a 4096bit interface) instead of GDDR5X

If I can afford one when I do my next computer upgrade, I will be getting at least a Quadro P5000.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discuss...vs-gtx-1080-ti

[Helldoor]

Thanks Micha!

I read through the whole forum and, hmmm, let's say I cannot declare a clear winner.

As it seems, the 1080 Ti is the faster one, with more CUDA cores, which is very good in terms of the Hybrid Rendering in V-Ray 3.6. On the other hand however, seems like the Quadro is more reliable and has more Vram, which in turn means, that the handling of big (city planing) models in Rhino would be better. Do You see it otherwise?

Also, do You know something about the Intell vs AMD optimization?

[Grigio18]

Simply,If you can afford a quadro p6000 or a gp100, buy it, otherwise go for as many gtx1080ti your motherboard allows.
for the ram limitation, you will have to optimize the polycount and reduce displacement usage, for the texture size there is the mipmap function that solves the problem..

[Helldoor]

Simply,If you can afford a quadro p6000 or a gp100, buy it, otherwise go for as many gtx1080ti your motherboard allows.
for the ram limitation, you will have to optimize the polycount and reduce displacement usage, for the texture size there is the mipmap function that solves the problem..

Well, i can afford a Quadro P4000, 8GB GDDR5. A p6000 is too expensive.

And could you explain a bit more about the mip map function?

[Grigio18]

Well, i can afford a Quadro P4000, 8GB GDDR5. A p6000 is too expensive.

And could you explain a bit more about the mip map function?

When you set the render mode to gpu (or hybrid render) you have options for the textures resize, you can chose to set texture full size, fixed size, on demand mip map.

This is from the chos group hel page: https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...+Anti-Aliasing

Resize ? Enable this option to resize high-resolution textures to smaller resolution in order to optimize GPU memory usage.

Full-size textures ? Textures are loaded into their original size.
Resize textures ? Adjusts the size of high-resolution textures to a smaller resolution to optimize render performance.
On-demand mipmapping ? Instead of loading all the texture files in their default resolution, V-Ray loads the textures as needed and automatically creates mip-map tiles for them. As a result, the GPU memory consumption is decreased, textures that are not visible are not loaded, and textures that are further away from the camera are loaded with lower resoltution. This option is only available in the Non-Interactve / Production Rendering Mode.

Texture Size ? Specifies the resolution and bit depth to which the texture will be resized.

Bit Depth ? Specifies the resolution and bit depth to which the texture will be resized.

[Peter.Chaushev]

Hello, Teodor,

While we cannot advise you of any particular hardware models, be sure to visit benchmark.chaosgroup.com
It contains a multitude of user-submitted CPU and GPU benchmark results covering pretty much all popular PC setups. Feel free to compare their results when determining your purchase of new parts.

Kind regards,
Peter

[Pretty Picture Girl]

For more general benchmarking and actually testing different components agaist each other I found this even more helpful:

http://www.userbenchmark.com/

[Travis Serio_cg]

Today, Rhino runs more reliably on GeForce cards than any other type of card. Quadros are getting better but their drivers can often times cause issues in Rhino. The sure fire bet is always on the GeForce.

Personally I wouldn't invest in GPU rendering for 2 main factors today.

1) Crypto-currency mining has more than doubled the cost of the retail price of good video cards. Who wants to pay close to $1,000 USD for a 1080 that has an MSRP of under $600.00? Not me! If you do need a good machine with a great video card you're better off buying a premade machine from someone like HP / DELL etc. Since they buy in the bulk they don't seem to be affected by the retail market prices of video cards. I saw an HP Omen last week with a 1080 in it that was less than $1,300.00 USD. The same card by itself was $960.00 on Tiger Direct by itself! It's madness right now.

2) Not all V-Ray features work well with GPU rendering right now. Things like dispersion just don't show up at all under GPU... bah.. no time for that foolery.

I have a fairly large internal network of machines that I use to render and I've currently found the best value in the AMD Ryzen line of CPU's in terms of price and performance. My Ryzen 7 1700's (OC'd to 3.8 ghz) and Threadrippers (1950x and 1920x) are my favorite performers out of the bunch, even over my 2x Xeon boxes that technically have more cores.

The benchmark pages are very helpful in helping you make a decision, especially if you're on a budget. Personally I can't toss another thousand bucks at a top of the line i9 over a Threadripper for nearly no rendering gain... that just doesnt make sense.