W8000, K5000, Titan or 290X

V-Ray V-Ray Common Hardware
1

Hello all,
I’m trying to get 3 systems ready for my office. One will be the main workstation, while the other 2 will act as backups as well as rendering stations.
I’m pretty much considering these specs:
* 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630v2 or 2640v2
* 32 GB RAM
* 2x256 GB SSD (storage available on company server, might add one more SSD to act as scratch disk)
* 1200W+ Gold PSU
* GPU - ??? (That is where the doubt it…)

So, for the GPU, I’m researching between AMD FirePro W8000, AMD Radeon R9 290X, NVidia Quadro K5000 or NVidia Titan Black. I’ll add 2 GPUs on each workstation.

After lots of research, I’ve seen that both AMD and NVidia have their own pros and cons. Many benchmarks put one above the other making it a hard decision.
I’ve had some assistance from the following benchmarks
* http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/workstation-graphics-2013/benchmarks,146.html
* Workstation Graphics: 14 FirePro And Quadro Cards | Tom's Hardware
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* Group test: AMD and Nvidia professional GPUs 2013 | CG Channel

I am a one-man band in my company, and I use 3D Studio Max with VRay, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Premiere/After Effects, Autodesk AutoCad, Bentley Microstation and occasionally GeoMedia and ArcGIS.

Looking at the above benchmarks and the apps that I use, I’m a bit unsure which way to chose. While VRay has better benchmarks with K5000, 3DS Studio Max is getting better benchmarks with W8000. 290X and Titan can bring the price down a bit, while giving better memory and faster processing, but is it worth the risk of going for a desktop graphics card versus a workstation graphics card?

Will it be benefit if I combine W8000+290X (or K5000+Titan Black)? Both Titan and 290x will give me higher clock frequencies if needed.

I’m a bit more inclined towards W8000 right now. Is there anyone who has experience with some of these cards? I’ve seen the benchmarks, and even though they haven’t helped me make my decision yet, they do give me some picture. However, I would like to know how in real world do these compare to each other.
Here are the comparison specs:

Card Memory Stream Processors Core Clock Memory Clock Approx. Price
Firepro W8000 (Gen 3.0) 4GB 1792 900 5.5 $1600
Radeon 290X 4GB 2816 727-1000 5.0 $800
K5000 4GB 1536 700 5.4 $2100
GTX Titan Black 6GB 2880 889-980 7.0 $1100

Please help. Thanks in advance…

2

I would not go with any of those gpus, if I was building a high end workstation i’d go for a gtx 780. ‘pro’ cards are a massive waste of money and doubling the cost to get a little more memory for gpu RT (but still nowhere near what you’d use in a render) still isnt enough so it’s not worth it.
Assuming you use max mostly in shaded view you’d have a hard time telling the 780 from any of the others in viewport speed. this changes a little in wireframe and microstation, but still not by much.

3

If I had a LOT of extra cash I would go K6000

4

@ Morne,
The jump from K5000 to K6000 (or W8000 to W9000) is quite significant, and pushes the budget out of reach.
I have two major limitations:
1. Cost of approximate $10000/system
2. I have to get them from Lenovo as that’s where the company has the purchase/maintenance contract with. Yes, I know… It’s a huge handicap, but I’m stuck with corporate policies here.

@ cubiclegangster
I did think of going 780, but isn’t Titan Black a step above the 780…
Plus, I wonder if the workstation cards are really that more stable as compared to the desktop/gaming cards?

5

It’s double the price. the 780 comes out above the original titan in raw performance and the titan black is a fraction over the 780. that’s not a gap i’d be willing to spend twice as much on.

No issues with stability these days - if you live in wireframe mode then you’ll notice a slight improvement on pro cards, but in shaded mode the gaming cards will perform as good if not better.
Workstation cards are more for industrial design where the model will be used for manufacturing, not visualization.

6

does anyone know if double precision (FP64) memory makes a noticeable difference on the titan black ? not sure its worth the extra coin verses getting an extra card maybe to add to your system.

7

Double-precision calculations make no difference to V-Ray RT (and most other GPU renderers out there).

Best regards,
Vlado

8

On the topic.

Has anyone tried the Radeon R9 295X2 in the viewport and performance of RT?
No it’s better if this or Titan Black.

Any suggestions.

Greetings.