GA-EP45-UD3R Graphics Card for 3ds Max, Mudbox, Inventor, Solidworks, plus Adobe

[frogman_d]

As the title mentions I am asking the community to help figure out what graphics card would be best for my system to run 3DS Max, Mudbox, Inventor and eventually Solidworks, plus Adobe products: Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Soundbooth, InDesign & Dreamweaver.

Currently I periodically get BSOD essentially to memory crashes. And my graphics driver fails at times too. So, I know I need to upgrade my video card (which one?), but I might need to change memory modules, or anything else you suggest..?

My budget is essentially $400, but would like to keep in the $275 - 375 range, unless the deal is too good

Motherboard: GA-EP45-UD3R

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5770

Processor: Core 2 Quad Q6600

RAM: Corsair (4 x 2GB) CM2x2048-6400C4DHX (These RAM modules don't appear specifically on QVL (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3013#)

OS HD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB

Vault HD: WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0

Power Supply: Corsair RM Series RM750 Model #: RPS0019

So my question is which graphics card would be the best bang for my $$

Autodesk's Certified Hardware List for 3DS Max (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?siteID=123112&id=18844534&results=1&stype=graphic&product_group=6&release=2016&os=8192&manuf=1&opt=2) for my price range has me interested in these NVIDIA cards:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 - $290
NVIDIA Quadro K2200 - $330
NVIDIA Quadro K4000 - $280
NVIDIA Quadro K4200 - $400 (local 3D buddy, going on Ebay for around $550, too good of a deal?)

From the research I've done it seems it'd be worth it to invest in a Quadro, but again I don't really know..? Have an offer to get 50% off AMD Fire Pro, not sure if that would be a good solution? I am all ears, please help...

Also should I start a different thread about finding different memory modules/BIOS settings?

 

[okcnaline]

Wait... Everything you're asking for already boots it up much above $400.

 

[frogman_d]

I already have everything listed in that system already, my current system:


Motherboard: GA-EP45-UD3R

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5770

Processor: Core 2 Quad Q6600

RAM: Corsair (4 x 2GB) CM2x2048-6400C4DHX (These RAM modules don't appear specifically on QVL (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=...)

OS HD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250 GB

Vault HD: WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0

Power Supply: Corsair RM Series RM750 Model #: RPS0019

My graphics card does not seem to be good enough though. So I'd like to find the best certified gfx card for the programs I use.

 

[okcnaline]

I think you can mod your card into a FirePro. That's an option.
Perhaps modding the GTX 690 or leaving as is would be the best option, since that has CUDA acceleration. But it'll take a lot of power.
Another option would be to mod a GTX 770 into a K5000. And it's doable, as long as you're willing to take the iron to the card.

 

[frogman_d]

Would rather pay a little more at this moment than doing a mod. Am interested in the future though.

I'm trying to spend as little time upgrading so I can render out a few animations and interact in large scenes that I am not able to do now. View frogmandesignz.com if you 'd like to see what I've been waiting on improving.

 

[okcnaline]

I guess you should go for the GTX 680. You can probably sell the Radeon HD 5770 for something cheap, then upgrade from the Q6600 to a X58 board with an i7, which gives you options for more cores and smaller lithography.

 

[frogman_d]

Thank you okcnaline for all your help. The GTX 680 is not listed as certified hardware for 3DS Max.

Here's how I'm looking at it. I'm either going to purchase the Quadro K4200 for $400 or purchase a GTX 690 for around $300. Will that price difference be worth the extra $100 in quality, reliability, etc?

The local seller of the Quadro 4200 also has a Asus PB287Q 28" 4K Monitor he was going to make a package deal at what seems to be a great price when I have a little more cash in the next weeks. Which is why I am more apt to go that route at the moment.

Think I will try to mod my Radeon to a FirePro at some point down the road. Don't think I'll be able to get more than $50 (at best) as I am in this for the long haul and developing a Render Farm or another decent workstation seems more valuable.

Last question, with either of these cards addition is my power supply sufficient? Corsair RM Series RM750 Model #: RPS0019

 

[okcnaline]

If you're also getting a 4K monitor along with the K4200? K4200 is the professional dialect of GeForce GTX 670, so it's decent. It still costs $789 brand new, so that's a good deal.

And you probably would get $50 for a Radeon HD 5770. That's where prices are at these days.

Also, the RM750 is decent, though I'm sure there's cheaper 750W units out there. So if you can find cheaper and better, great. But it'll power anything but the Titan X, GTX 690, Radeon HD 7990, 6990. The listed ones are all dual GPU cards.

 

[Yorkie420]

So 3DS Max 2016 would be the most intensive application in your list.
Like me, I'm assuming you would be using 3DS Max at a reasonable level, with that in mind the hardware that i purchased recently for large datasets was the following system, which runs like a dream...

Dell Precision Tower 5810,
Win 7 Pro 64bit (Incl Win 10 Pro Lic),
Intel Xeon E5-1650 v3 (6C, 3.8GHz Turbo, 15M),
Quadro M4000 8GB
32GB (4x8GB) ECC
512GB SSD
500GB SATA
3Yr Basic Warranty - NBD

3DS Max is a multi thread capable application so the more threads the better, accompany that with a high clock speed and you will be laughing. The high clock speed will also help you with your other applications such as inventor and solidworks.
I chose 32GB of Error correction memory (at the fastest MHz that the processor will allow) because I work on big models simultaneously. Also I have VM's which can eat up some when they are running.
M4000 graphics card because at the moment when bought new its only about £40 more than the K4200 (and the differences between the 2 is worth the extra £40)
SSD all the way, as the last thing you want is the HDD causing the bottle neck. 500GB extra drive to store my archived projects.

So in answer to your question, save that little extra money and buy a Nvidia Quadro M4000. Or you could go for an AMD W7100 which would work just as good.

 

[okcnaline]

Nice ~1 month bump. And you are blowing the budget out the water, so no.

 

[frogman_d]

So 3DS Max 2016 would be the most intensive application in your list.
Like me, I'm assuming you would be using 3DS Max at a reasonable level, with that in mind the hardware that i purchased recently for large datasets was the following system, which runs like a dream...

Dell Precision Tower 5810,
Win 7 Pro 64bit (Incl Win 10 Pro Lic),
Intel Xeon E5-1650 v3 (6C, 3.8GHz Turbo, 15M),
Quadro M4000 8GB
32GB (4x8GB) ECC
512GB SSD
500GB SATA
3Yr Basic Warranty - NBD

3DS Max is a multi thread capable application so the more threads the better, accompany that with a high clock speed and you will be laughing. The high clock speed will also help you with your other applications such as inventor and solidworks.
I chose 32GB of Error correction memory (at the fastest MHz that the processor will allow) because I work on big models simultaneously. Also I have VM's which can eat up some when they are running.
M4000 graphics card because at the moment when bought new its only about £40 more than the K4200 (and the differences between the 2 is worth the extra £40)
SSD all the way, as the last thing you want is the HDD causing the bottle neck. 500GB extra drive to store my archived projects.

So in answer to your question, save that little extra money and buy a Nvidia Quadro M4000. Or you could go for an AMD W7100 which would work just as good.

I thought I could have two worthy solutions and I picked okcnaline's first. Thanks for a great reply, didn't get auto notified, wish I would have seen this earlier