Question I'm looking to upgrade my single GPU to a Dual GPU setup for rendering ?

[mdhtrappy]

I have a i9-9900KF, 64gb of ddr4 3200mhz RAM, and a 3060 graphic's card.

I render mainly in Daz 3D and im looking to improve my rendering times, would it be worth buying a second 3060 for this? Otherwise i could also afford a 3070 but my budget is a maximum of 500 euros so im more interested in running a Dual GPU setup than discarding my existing 3060.

Looking for any insight or recommendations i can get.

 

[Moonstick2]

What exact card do you have, and what 3070 are you looking at?

I'm not that familiar with dual-card setups, but from the little I know Daz studio strongly favours VRAM, so if you're talking about replacing a 3060 12 GB with a 3070 8 GB, that's a no-no.

If you've got a 3060 8 GB you'd probably be better off changing it to a 12 GB than buying a second 3060 8 GB, because as I understand it Daz won't combine the VRAM when using two cards but treat it as the lower of the two.

 

[Ralston18]

Verify that the existing PSU (make, model, wattage, age, condition ?) will support the power demands of both the new GPU and the host system as a whole.

FYI:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-psus,4229.html

Not that you need to immediately purchase a new PSU. Use the calculators to determine the expected power requirements. Do read the entire review....

If any component presents a range of wattage values then use the high end wattage value.

Add in extra wattage to help with peak wattage use and power demand spikes.

 

[mdhtrappy]

What exact card do you have, and what 3070 are you looking at?

I'm not that familiar with dual-card setups, but from the little I know Daz studio strongly favours VRAM, so if you're talking about replacing a 3060 12 GB with a 3070 8 GB, that's a no-no.

If you've got a 3060 8 GB you'd probably be better off changing it to a 12 GB than buying a second 3060 8 GB, because as I understand it Daz won't combine the VRAM when using two cards but treat it as the lower of the two.

I have a MSI GAMING X TRIO GeForce RTX 3060 with 12gb of vram, im not exactly familiar with dual-card setups but ive understood that VRAM doesn't combine across cards. Most of the rendering fit's on 12gb of VRAM if i optimize normally, hence another same 3060 would half my rendering times. If i got a 3070 8GB , do you know if if DAZ would need to fit the rendering onto both of the cards? (say a scene that takes 10gb VRAM would need 10gb on card 1 and 10gb on card too) or could i take a 3070 simply for its faster processing speeds while the 3060 handles the vram requirements.

Edit: I dont have a particular 3070 in mind, im just looking for the extra CUDA core's that come within the price range.​

 

[mdhtrappy]

Verify that the existing PSU (make, model, wattage, age, condition ?) will support the power demands of both the new GPU and the host system as a whole.

FYI:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-psus,4229.html

Not that you need to immediately purchase a new PSU. Use the calculators to determine the expected power requirements. Do read the entire review....

If any component presents a range of wattage values then use the high end wattage value.

Add in extra wattage to help with peak wattage use and power demand spikes.

My PSU is extremely overkill anyways, i have a silver 850w that can still fit another GPU most probably when i look at calculators.

 

[punkncat]

Only the 3090 supports SLI. Otherwise you would have to check into NVLink to see if your card supports it and whether it would actually perform up to the cost of the additional card you have or be bested by a whole new single card.

 

[Eximo]

You don't need SLI for rendering. Just the PCIe slots for the number of cards you want to use.

I agree though, just sell the card you have and buy the biggest you are willing to pay for. Just makes things easier and is the way things are going anyway.

RTX 3090 on ebay range between $500 and $800 and would be an ideal choice for rendering without trying to get an RTX 4090.

RTX 4070 Ti Super would be next on my list, but only 16GB.

 

[mdhtrappy]

You don't need SLI for rendering. Just the PCIe slots for the number of cards you want to use.

I agree though, just sell the card you have and buy the biggest you are willing to pay for. Just makes things easier and is the way things are going anyway.

RTX 3090 on ebay range between $500 and $800 and would be an ideal choice for rendering without trying to get an RTX 4090.

RTX 4070 Ti Super would be next on my list, but only 16GB.

How much could i get for a 3060 that's 3 year's old? Probably not much though. Edit: When i check ebay the prices for this specific model are insane, between 400-700 euros. I'm not sure what's particular about it? It's a three fan 12gb model, i could definitely envision a 3090 seen its used prices but i have no idea how much my current card is worth.

 

[Eximo]

New they are $270, people are still buying them on ebay for anywhere between $150 and $220.

That 12GB VRAM and a full bandwidth still make it a pretty good card for work.

Up to you how much tripling the CUDA cores and doubling the bandwidth and memory is worth.

 

[Moonstick2]

Most of the rendering fit's on 12gb of VRAM if i optimize normally, hence another same 3060 would half my rendering times. If i got a 3070 8GB , do you know if if DAZ would need to fit the rendering onto both of the cards? (say a scene that takes 10gb VRAM would need 10gb on card 1 and 10gb on card too) or could i take a 3070 simply for its faster processing speeds while the 3060 handles the vram requirements.​

Yes, everything I've read says the render needs to fit on both.

If you had 3060/12 GB + 3070/8 GB, a 7 GB render will fit into both cards and Daz will run on both. A 10 GB render would only fit on the 3060 and so only run on that with the 3070 doing nothing. It certainly won't use the 3060 VRAM with the 3070 GPU.

(If it could, there'd be a big market for VRAM-only PCIe cards: large VRAM with the most basic GPU going...)