Need an Expert HELP

[suren_011]

Hello guys,
these days there are too many types of workstation card in the market. i m thinking about buying a 300 $ card for rendering and simulating

Ati Fire pro :- OpenGL
Quadro fx :- OpenGL, Physx, CudaCore
Nvidia Fermi :- same as quadro


Now i need to know about the diference between these cards. and about their support with Autodesk Maya and Nextlimit RealFlow

 

[k1114]

Both maya and realfow are cpu based simulation and rendering unless you get an addon renderer or dynamcis simulator that supports gpu accelerration.

Fermi is an architecture. So it's only AMD Firepro or Nvidia Quadro. Amd has Stream, Nvidia has Cuda. Cuda seems to be more widely used and Nvidia usually has better driver support.

 

[mightymaxio]

Depends on if you want to buy a card to also game with, then i would recommend Nvidia gtx 400 or 500 series. But if you want a straight workstation card the quadros are pretty decent but dont expect to game with them.

 

[dormantreign]

just keep above the 300 cuda cores, things work well when it comes to plugins that use it with that many. I use, After Effects & 3DSMax2011 with 16GB ram. I built the pc you seem to be buying. I picked up the m4a89gtd pro usb3 with and amd 1055t 16GB G.skill ram and a 768mb 460GTX evga. Does everything i need.

 

[CaedenV]

AMD isn't really in the game for workstation cards (though it is nice that they pretend to offer one). You want either a fermi or a quadro. The quadro will have more ram, plus have built in error correction, which is a must in the professional environment, but they are also a bit slower than the fermi cards. The fermi cards are fast, but tend to have less ram, and no error correction.

If in a professional environment then I would go with the quadro. If working at home where the very rare and occasional error will not be the end of the world, and where you may game a bit then I would suggest the 470, 570, 480, or 580 (in that order), and purchase one with extra ram compared to the stock offerings.

an i7 or xeon with 4 or more cores and hyper-threading is also a must for the programs mentioned because while they will eat vRAM they will mostly process on the CPU unless you get addons or mods which allow gpu rendering. Also, 16GB minimum on the system RAM. And get the highest resolution monitor/s you can afford.

 

[k1114]

The new Quadros are fermi, it's an architecture, what you want to say is gtx. I just read your other thread, it's in the wrong section. Since you mentioned gaming, go with the 560ti like you said. I have one and work in max and maya and it works beautifully. I must repeat though, it will not speed up render time unless it's is a gpu accelerated renderer which mental ray and default software renderers are not. Max however now comes with iray and quicksilver which are gpu accelerated and from my uses so far, has made my renders 5-10x faster.

Gtx does have error correction but it's a bit different. I will just simplify this and say workstation cards are more accurate but the accuracy is unnoticeable unless it's microscopic for medical purposes or huge res banners. I would also not suggest a 470/480, why get a high end card of last generation when the price hasn't changed much on them?

The op has only mentioned a gpu upgrade on their current system but since rendering time is the main concern, may need to upgrade the whole rig. The program will not "mostly" process on the cpu, it will ONLY process on the cpu in rendering and simulations. The gpu would only handle the viewport. Number of cores and HT is less relevant than actual IPC and cpu performance. Amount of vram and ram required is more project dependent, more may not be necessary so you can't really give a minimum without more information.

 

[suren_011]

thanks for such useful advice k114, You said that i have to build a new rig which is not financially possible so tell me what i should do now. my PC configuration is :-

MSI P7 Platinum
Core 2 Quad 6600
4 GB RAM
1 TB HDD
512 MB 8600 GTS
500W cooler master


yesterday i did a logo design in real flow. it was 70000 particle which took almost whole night to simulate. I didn't do rendering yet. it will take double. And in India it is not possible to do work like that due to power cut 🙁

You said about upgrade a new rig...if u build a machine what will you buy under 2000 $....(about workstations)

Thanxx

 

[k1114]

If your ram is ddr3 1.5v then you can just get a new mobo+cpu and gpu if you want. But ram doesn't cost much these days though so should still be able to fit the budget. A whole new i7 rig can get down to $1000 usd.

 

[suren_011]

Best answer selected by suren_011.