AMD w9100 vs New Titan X

[Immitem]

Hello there, rather mundane question. I am constantly running out of VRAM on my Titan Black due to high resolution texture painting and previewing (Substance Painter 2 and Maya 2016 respectively) and so I am looking at two cards. I could get either a used w9100 with warranty intact or the upcoming Titan X for roughly the same price CAD (little over 1500). The w9100 has 4 gigs more VRAM so I will not be left wanting there but it has less than half of its theoretical max processing power! On the other hand, drivers for professional grade cards often give them superior performance in their respective applications. At the same time however, in hearsay I heard that the older Titan X performed worse than either the 980 or 980ti in 3d applications due to driver issues while some reviews show the 290x performing alongside the w9100 in 3ds Max 2014, Maya 2015, and SPECwpc so what the hell gives?!

I know that the new Titan X has not been released yet and so we cannot truly grasp how it will actually hold up but in your personal opinion and looking at hardware trends (the point at which a professional grade card's performance is exceeded by a consumer card), do you think it will outperform the w9100 or will more mature professional drivers win out?

Highly speculative but I still want to hear what you have to say.

I mainly do super high resolution polygon modeling and sculpting in Maya, Blender, and Zbrush while painting up to a hundred 512-4k textures (exporting some as 8K) in Substance Painter 2. Do not even get me started on previewing them in Maya!

So what say you?

P.S. Just a quick reminder, the used w9100 has both its warranty intact and will cost just under 1600 CAD and I have about a week before someone else will probably buy it.

 

[COLGeek]

In your case, it sounds like you need a professional tool to do the work you are doing. That being the case, it sounds like the W9100 is the more appropriate hardware and software (driver and applications support) device for the tasks at hand.

 

[Immitem]

In your case, it sounds like you need a professional tool to do the work you are doing. That being the case, it sounds like the W9100 is the more appropriate hardware and software (driver and applications support) device for the tasks at hand.

So you think the 2 year old w9100 will perform adequately compared to the newer consumer cards?

 

[COLGeek]

For the types of work you described, yes. The W9100 will do quite well.

 

[Immitem]

For the types of work you described, yes. The W9100 will do quite well.

Thank you for your time.

 

[COLGeek]

You are welcome. Have fun!

 

[Immitem]

You are welcome. Have fun!

Oh I will, especially with getting it to play nice with my current Titan. I read about how you can plug both cards into the same monitor and change the source in order to control which one you want to use but they seldom play nice together.

 

[COLGeek]

On that, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The driver conflicts will present some challenges and the tweaking to get them to cohabitate (enable/disable individually?) really isn't worth the hassle, in my opinion.

If this is predominantly a work rig, I would sell the Titan to finance the W9100. Or, I would build a second rig for non-work stuff with the Titan as its GPU.

Just a couple thoughts for your consideration.

 

[azzazel_99]

The new TitanX will have 11tflops of performance though. Even with it having 12gb vram you dont think that will be enough with the speeds its going to be running for Immitem COLGeek?

 

[COLGeek]

The new TitanX will have 11tflops of performance though. Even with it having 12gb vram you dont think that will be enough with the speeds its going to be running for Immitem COLGeek?

You can't directly compare the raw performance of the Titan vs. the W9100. You have to look at the what the GPU will be used for and the driver/software support for the applications being used.

Both Nvidia and AMD produce professional class GPUs, along with the drivers to optimize their use. For the types of work the OP is performing, a pro-grade GPU is more appropriate.

That is what the recommendation is based upon.

 

[Immitem]

On that, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The driver conflicts will present some challenges and the tweaking to get them to cohabitate (enable/disable individually?) really isn't worth the hassle, in my opinion.

If this is predominantly a work rig, I would sell the Titan to finance the W9100. Or, I would build a second rig for non-work stuff with the Titan as its GPU.

Just a couple thoughts for your consideration.

I actually have three as I used to do some heavy GPU rendering for a company though they let me go after I had done my part (animating the assembly and disassembly of electronics both for tutorial and advertising purposes). I intend to keep one Titan in order to do GPU accelerated rendering of explosions, flames, and smoke in Blender Cycles that is not currently support on OpenCL cards. I am in the process of selling two, hopefully inside of a couple of older render nodes that I no longer need (i5 3570 + 16GB RAM).

 

[COLGeek]

For your drooling pleasure:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-ssg-1tb-gpu-memory,32325.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-titan-x-details,32323.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-pro-wx-series,32324.html

There is always something great, just around the corner. However, this can lead to analysis paralysis as on waits for the next big thing and the world passes you by.

 

[Immitem]

For your drooling pleasure:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-ssg-1tb-gpu-memory,32325.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-titan-x-details,32323.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-pro-wx-series,32324.html

There is always something great, just around the corner. However, this can lead to analysis paralysis as on waits for the next big thing and the world passes you by.

I nearly had a heart attack but am I reading this right, there is an SSD inside of the card itself? If so I assume it is vastly slower than VRAM but could this possibly sidestep the issue of running out of VRAM while GPU rendering? Could it dynamically stream scene information while rendering? Hmmmm...

P.S. I just realised the time and need to get my buttskie to bed.

 

[COLGeek]

For your drooling pleasure:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-ssg-1tb-gpu-memory,32325.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-titan-x-details,32323.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-pro-wx-series,32324.html

There is always something great, just around the corner. However, this can lead to analysis paralysis as on waits for the next big thing and the world passes you by.

I nearly had a heart attack but am I reading this right, there is an SSD inside of the card itself? If so I assume it is vastly slower than VRAM but could this possibly sidestep the issue of running out of VRAM while GPU rendering? Could it dynamically stream scene information while rendering? Hmmmm...

P.S. I just realised the time and need to get my buttskie to bed.

'Tis quite the head scratcher. Certainly some real opportunities to do massive computations on the fly. Reality (benchmarks) may not live up to the possibilities, but I, for one, can hardly wait to see what these are capable of.

 

[COLGeek]

Even more pro-level drool-worthy news: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-quadro-p6000-p5000,32329.html

 

[Immitem]

Even more pro-level drool-worthy news: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-pascal-quadro-p6000-p5000,32329.html

Looks noice though I assume the new P4000 will be limited to 12 gigs of memory and will probably not be available till next year.

Still, that P6000 THO!

 

[COLGeek]

Those articles are really indicators of how Nvidia and AMD are responding to the ever increasing demands for higher performing professional tools. Just think about the rendering required for a CGI-laden movie like the recent Star Trek release (I really enjoyed it). Time = money.

 

[Immitem]

Those articles are really indicators of how Nvidia and AMD are responding to the ever increasing demands for higher performing professional tools. Just think about the rendering required for a CGI-laden movie like the recent Star Trek release (I really enjoyed it). Time = money.

I am really excited over how AMD is starting to target the consumer pocket level with their professional cards. I would expect them to have many more sales though I wonder how having such a card within such a price range will affect their ability to maintain 24Hour customer assistance when many kids will probably buy these. Mistaking them for gaming cards and complaining that they are missing out on l33t FPS against the 480x cheapos.

On the other hand, this might mean affordable dedicated rendering GPUS with 32-64-128GB of memory in the near future!!!

P.S. I got the card and it should arrive early next week, had to contact and make sure that it was shipping with the display port adapters. I will let you know how it goes.

In the meantime I am heading to the movies to catch the new Star Trek then hit the gym which is literally across the street!