A good Graphics card for After Effects+ Element 3d Plugin and render?

[TheComposer]

My rig

Windows 7
i5 3.22 GHZ
20 GB Ram memory
LGA1155 Socket

Sup, so this is the thing, I bought a GTX 960 which could be good for gaming, however, I don't game that much (I play Dota 2, but I can even play it with my Radeon 4670)

So, I was thinking on selling the GTX and get a different card.

For starters, I recently learned that After Effects/Adobe doesn't support my card for Ray Traced renderer, and I checked the list and there were a few other cards such as the 780 or others.

I found that some Quadro and Tesla cards are better but way more expensive, but I don't really know about them to tell the truth.

If I could sell my GTX 960 card, what would you think would be a better card for rendering in After Effects?

BUDGET: I guess whatever close to what I get for selling the GTX, but feel free to tell me some equivalents, specially the Quadros/Teslas since I've never heard about them.

As I said, I do some casual gaming, my priority is After Effects.

Thanks!

 

[dumisoft]

Hello,
If I explain this little bit,
GTX cards are specially for gaming purposes. Quadro cards for Animation, Rendering purposes. And Tesla cards for computing purposes. So, In your case, Quadro is the matching card for you.

Quadros are designed for workstations for long time use. They have a less power consumption and more life span than GTX cards.

Here is the After Effects supported graphics hardware:-
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/system-requirements.html#After%20Effects%20CC%20%282015%29%20system%20requirements

If you already checked it, you can see there are some GTX cards but not GTX 960. But GTX 760 is there. I'm using GTX 760 and it is little bit old card now. Since your budget is limited, you can go for GTX 760 if you like. Then you can do some gaming too. That is one option.

If you check the list again, you can see some card models ending with a CAPITAL letter M. Those are mobile GPUs which comes with laptops. So, you can neglect them as you have a PC.
So, among the quadro cards listed there, Quadro K2000 is a good option for you when thinking about your budget too. The newer version of K2000 is K2200. In my country, Quadro K2200 is available these days and I can't find K2000.

If you go with quadro, you may experience better with after effects and animation things. But quadros are not for gaming. But you can play games. with a low fps than GTX cards.

Anyway, If you need to play games well and do after effects too, its worth spending some little bit more and go for like GTX 980.
Anyway, the decision is up to you.

********
Finally, this is an additional thing. I'm telling this because you talked about Ray-Trace 3D in after effects.
You know?, Ray-Traced rendering inside after effects is really really slow when you work.
Actually Ray-Traced 3D is not practical when you do a large project. I recommend you to use Element 3D which is a 3rd Party plug-in, or use Cinema 4D which has a direct integration with after effects using Cineware Plug-in which comes with after effects CC.
I personally use Cinema 4D with After Effects because then I don't have to worry about graphics cards too much.

Hope this helps.
THanks

 

[TheComposer]

Oh thanks for the reply, sure, the only game I'm playing is Dota and every now and then, other games that require less GPU (emulators and stuff)

I've received 2 offers from local guys while I was looking for Quadros:

Quadro fx4800 and Quadro 4000

I googled and the Quadro 4000 is a lil bit better, could you confirm?

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

You'd have to spend about 3-4x more for a Quadro to match a GeForce GTX card in terms of performance. The GTX 960 does work with AE, if it's not on the supported list text file, you just edit it and type it in.

 

[Sunny Kapoor]

I have quadro 4000 and it is not worth it. if you are running software like autocad and stuff it will be great, because it can handle millions of polygons in the viewport. But if you need it especially for rendering 3D and raytrace it is not good.

Check my thread here, the render times with blender.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?383686-Which-Graphic-Card-should-I-go-for-Blender-980-ti-or-Titan-X/page2

If you are not going to render a lot get a AMD R390 it has 8 GB VRAM. If you are going to export videos every other day, get a Nvidia geforce 980 ti or 2 x gtx 970 for same price.

I have been stuck with quadro from last few years, they are crap for rendering. My current animation is rendering at 15 minutes per frame with quadro 4000. Imagine if I have to make a 5 minutes movie what will happen.

Also I forgot to mention : they run at very high heat. Currently running at 91 degrees. Run away from quadro as fast as you can.

 

[TheComposer]

Well, right now I have my GTX 960, I either have to sell it or just get a cheaper option.

I should keep it then?

I will only use After Effects, specifically for Element 3d (trapcode particular as well).

The GTX 960 will outperform the Quadro 4000 then?

 

[Sunny Kapoor]

check these bench marks, select one gpu check box and compare all the cards, you will find quadro 4000 way down. Only quadro M6000 is in the front but will cost you a lot.

https://render.otoy.com/octanebench/results.php

Get a 970 with atleast 4GB VRAM. It has a score of 79. I will get that or a 980 ti

 

[Sunny Kapoor]

Ok I just checked adobe after effects requirements as well, they have changed the opengl system with cs 6.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/system-requirements.html

Depending on which version you have cs6 or above

these are the GPU that work for 3d rendering, out of these titan is the best but very expensive

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-SuperClocked-Signature-Dual-Link-06G-P4-2793-KR/dp/B00BL8BX9C/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1445282089&sr=1-4&keywords=geforce+gtx+titan

GeForce GTX 285
GeForce GTX 470
GeForce GTX 570
GeForce GTX 580
GeForce GTX 590
GeForce GTX 670
GeForce GTX 675MX
GeForce GTX 680
GeForce GTX 680MX
GeForce GTX 690
GeForce GTX 760
GeForce GTX 770
GeForce GTX 780
GeForce GTX TITAN
GeForce GT 650M

So getting a 780 will be the best option but I doubt you will find it any more, all these are seriously outdated.

 

[TheComposer]

Yeah!, a 780 should do it, I checked the specs, I'll sell the 960 and get this one, it's similar to a K5200, so I shouls be covered

 

[Sunny Kapoor]

You should check this thread, you will get your answer

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1600474

Unless you use a ray tracer a lot then go for it, otherwise AE has no use of the GPU.

After Effects uses the GPU for almost nothing.



Details are here: http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/05/gpu-cuda-opengl-features-in-after-effects-cs6.html

GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features in After Effects



The ray-traced 3D renderer is almost entirely irrelevant. It is only used for very simple extrusions of shapes and text, and most people do (and should) use other 3D features to do this kid of work in After Effects.

get a lot of RAM in your system and more cpu cores and you will just be fine, keep your current graphic card instead of buying an outdated one.

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

You need to manually edit the text file and your 960 will speed things up using CUDA in AE.