Why GeForce gtx 690 render quality is poor than gigabyte gtx 780.

[Muhammad Farooqi]

Hi.
Last night i bought nvidia gtx 690 from a used GPU market. I was told and i read myself to that gtx 690 performance is far better than my already in use card ( gigabyte gtx 780).

I created a scene in 3ds Max 2017 with maximum complex models in minimum available time.

I set the rendering settings for 4k. And rendering time to 3 min in iRay.

Gigabyte gtx 780 finished it's task with pretty fine quality in 4.34 min...
But evga nvidia gtx 690 finished the same task in 5.2 min with worst quality image.


My system configuration is as below..

Lenovo thinkstation s30
Intel Xeon E5-1660
24gb DDR3
Evga NVIDIA gtx 690
And
Gigabyte gtx 780


Please do suggest me if i should keep 780 or 690 with different configurations... Also how is it possible to get better performance with 690…?

 

[The Paladin]

benchmarks from passmark show;

GeForce GTX 780 scores, 7,995
GeForce GTX 690 scores 5308

so I dont know where you though the 690 was a better video card than a 780... but the 780 is a better card, sorry

 

[Sakkura]

benchmarks from passmark show;

GeForce GTX 780 scores, 7,995
GeForce GTX 690 scores 5308

so I dont know where you though the 690 was a better video card than a 780... but the 780 is a better card, sorry

Passmark is crap and this is a prime example of it. Note that even the GTX 670 scores higher than the GTX 690.

OP: It's likely your workload doesn't like SLI, it may not even benefit from it at all. Running out of VRAM is also a possibility. Other than that, the raw rendering power of the 690 easily trumps the 780.

 

[madmatt30]

General concensus is do not use sli for iray rendering.

You can use 2 cards but sli needs to be disabled.

I'm not sure sli can even be disabled on the 690 as its 2 gpu's on one PCB, there is then the issue of vram, the 690 has a 2 x 2gb vram configuration meaning only 2gb vram is going to be useable for rendering.

So while on paper its far stronger than a 780 , in real life for your use it very likely isn't.

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

Thanks for the quick and useful information... i read on following websites the 690 is better.. and almost on every 2nd website where GPU comparision is available 690 scores more..

1. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GIGABYTE-GeForce-GTX-780-vs-EVGA-GeForce-GTX-690
2. https://versus.com/en/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-780-vs-nvidia-geforce-gtx-690
3. http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=2144&gid2=1547&compare=Nvidia%20GeForce%20GTX%20780%20Gigabyte%20GHz%20Edition-vs-Nvidia%20GeForce%20GTX%20690%20SLI

4. http://www.hwcompare.com/14127/geforce-gtx-690-vs-geforce-gtx-780/
i'm a 3Ds MAX and Blender guy. Not interested in 3d games but a few.

Autodesk also certifies and recommends geforce 690 under professional Graphic cards.. and about 780 autodesk says .. "tested".

Please see 3rd page for 690 and 6th page for 780.
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/file_downloads/3dsmax2017_GFX_Results.pdf

Also in the following video 690 performs hell fast..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KTP-v043tM

but not mine..

BTW.. is the rest of hardware in my system fine and compatible with 690? does that effect ?

 

[madmatt30]

You are missing the point of what a 690 actually is mate.

Its not a single card , its essentially a pair of gtx 680 sku's soldered to a single PCB with an internal sli bridge.

If your rendering engine does not support sli & the card is sli enabled you essentially only get the brute power of a single gtx 680 which is some 30-40% weaker than a gtx 780.

Download cpu-z

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

At the bottom is a sli checkbox , does it show disabled or enabled for the gtx 690 ??

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

@madmatt30 i know that its not one card. but in iray there is an option to use only one card or both and I've selected both. Although this is one with two or call it i've installed two cards of 680 (i'm just assuming). shouldn't performance be any positive ?..

let me install 690 on my system and i will update you in a minute.

 

[Sakkura]

That's the problem with SLI, it doesn't always scale well. It takes extra work to optimize a program or game to make use of multiple GPUs, and since most people only use a single GPU, that's what they optimize for first. SLI (and Crossfire) is a secondary priority that they sometimes just don't have time or money to put much effort into.

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

@madmatt30 ..yes it's SLI enable.. and @Sakkura, what about render farms, arent' they SLI enabled? if this is the otherway as you are saying than why autodesk certifies 690 but not even any latest with more GBs of VRAM like 970 and even 780 is just in "tested" list in autodesk recommendations.. i'm literally very confused about 690's lower performance..


wait a minute... I just read about minimum PSU should in 750Watts.. but i'm using 600watts.. does that matter? if' 690 is working fine on 600watts.. should i need a higher powered PSU?

 

[madmatt30]

You need to disable sli mate (maybe multi-gpu) in nvidia settings if you can.

While iray supports multiple gpu's I believe it doesn't support sli properly if at all.

 

[Sakkura]

Often what they'll do is split up the workload and run many GPUs separately, ie. not in SLI.

As for the PSU, their official recommendations are exaggerated somewhat to account for low-quality PSUs that struggle to deliver their rated wattage. 600W should be okay, as long as it's good quality.

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

You need to disable sli mate (maybe multi-gpu) in nvidia settings if you can.

While iray supports multiple gpu's I believe it doesn't support sli properly if at all.

How to disable SLI and keep Multi GPU.. you second line made me read it a couple of times but I couldn't get it..
if i disable sli under nvidia settings (multi-gpu) it's i'm disableing multi gpu.. isn't it.. so how iray will support multi gpu... (will multi GPU will not be disabled or only sli will be disabled?)

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

Thanks Sakura.. i'm a bit relaxed in terms of PSU .. but still waiting for better performance from 690.. btw. i
just found http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html also tells 690 should perform well..

@madmatt, if i disable SLI (multi gpu) under nvidia settings, will Iray in 3ds MAX support both GPUs?

 

[madmatt30]

^ yes if you disable sli in nvidia , but enable dual GPU in iray it should still use both GPU cores.

 

[Muhammad Farooqi]

Thank you everyone for kind words..

i own another gpu, Gigabyte GTX 780... do you think that is better.. i feel that is better but i couldn't render any complex scene in 3ds max or blender but just a few boxes and materials.

I created one scene in 3ds max 2017, set IRay it's renderer, and started target rendering output for 3 minutes and 4k of resolution.

the 780 one, finished in 4.3 minutes.. while 690 finished in 5.2, also output quality was not so good as compare to 780, then i posted that thread..

i'm trying to find out any reason. if buying a used 690 was a good decision or not.. I bought 690 while I already have 780.

After reading comments of you gurus, I realized may be some settings should be changed, like turning off sli was a good idea but I didn't turned off.
For Blender, I 've seen many videos in youtube, they run one 690 (disabling sli and using only one GPU) 690 runs like a charm but i am unable so far to achieve that performance or setup the Hardware configurations ..

I don't know why Autodesk (the giant in 3d applications) Certifies and recommends only 4 GTXs along with Quadros.. GTX 690,Titan, Titanx, and TitanZ ..
Check out this link if you doubt. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/file_downloads/3dsmax2017_GFX_Results.pdf
Page 3 for gtx 690 and page 6 for 780, and my 780 is under "tested" ... not certified. while i'm seeing better performance in 780 than 690.

It purely seems 690 is for 3D Applications/Rendering not for Gamers..


I'm more than 100% sure there must be some settings issue, some configurations or there must be something that Autodesk recommends this 690. You know 690 is 2 generations OLDER but still recommended by 3D Giant Autodesk, so that is not without any reason.... even in 3ds max 2015, 2016, 2017!


I will make a very complex scene on tomorrow, with a large scale or terrain, grass, water, trees with a number of bushes.. and some rain... then i will see the viewport and rendering performance..

i will try to make that as much complex as possible...

and will process in following ways..

1. 690 without sli,
2. 690 with sli
3. 690 only one gpu
4. 690 using both gpus
5. only 780

this would be my final decision. any of them performed fine.. i will sale the other to somebody interested..

 

[Pasde_]

I had the same issue,

As the gpu render is based mostly (in 3ds max etc, vray , Redshift) on the cuda cores, you have a little extra with the 690 than the 780,

I have both and tested both.

For the 690 it is important that you disable the "multi-GPU mode" in NVIDIA Control Panel.

That will give you an extra 40% or around it for what i saw in the past in rendering time.

Both 780 and 690 are great, but the advantage of the 690 for GPU rendering is that you have 2gpu in one card and more Cuda for a good price.

If you plan to plan video games then go to the 780 instead of 690 of course.

I'M not rich either, so i 'd rather having a 690 than a 780 if it was a lot cheaper for GPU rendering.



But still now, today, the Maxwell and Pascal architectures are the best tho. I can't wait to buy at least one of those 1080ti lol.




Hope that will help !

 

[Pasde_]

Oh by the way, you should work now with Redshift.

So far it 's the fastest rendering engine. It takes the gpu, cpu, and the ram of the gpu and ram on the motherboard as well.

It's new and really cheap, there is a demo version available also. (you could also find a cracked version on torrent websites)

I use it now with an old i5 and one single 690 (2xgpu tho) with a cheap 8gb ram (dell vostro).

It really surprised me to be able to render complexe scene with more than 8million of polygons in a 3d city with vegetations and vehicules inside 7minutes. Some shots were rendered inside 3 minutes if i managed to put the vegetations on proxies or viewable only if the camera sees it.

Could still push hit farther and try more optimizations i guess.

Just need to start over from the beginning a complete new renderer, it's a pain at start but it really worths it.

I've tried also some stuffs with Quixel Megapixels with 8k resolution materials. The 690 took it without problems.

DOF enabled, Motion Blur, Volume lighting Fog, all of them with of the course the render passes shadow, reflection etc. all of it inside 5 min and around it depending of the shots, sometime less sometime more.

Try it if you have the time . that will really give you something in return !


Some renders i've been doing in the last 5 days. All with the same gtx690, and the old i5-2400ghz

http://nsa38.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625022822593956.jpg

http://nsa37.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625022819198219.jpg

http://nsa37.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625022820191549.jpg

http://nsa37.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625022821661607.jpg

http://nsa37.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625022821996862.jpg

 

[Pasde_]

That should be your settings inside NVIDIA Control panel.

http://nsa38.casimages.com/img/2017/06/25/170625023246949452.jpg


That's all you need .

And of course no SLI if you are using the gtx 780 in the same time.


Make sure that in your settings in your 3d program, that you are selecting both of gpu 690.


One selected in NVIDIA Control panel but both selected in 3d program..


I hope that you were okay with you renders.