geforce gtx 590

[nehale]

If you need more Ram and you can afford get 2* 580s.
If you need faster performance for less money and you can live with 1.5 GB then get the 590.

But is one gtx590 not the same as two gtx580s?

[mib2berlin]

No, there are down clocked and the two cores use shared memory (3 GB/2).
I´ve read it is possible to overclock it to the level of gtx 580 with a propper cooling system.
But you have only 1.5 GB VRam for octane.

Cheers, mib

[nehale]

No, there are down clocked...

is there any particular reason why that is so?

[Jaberwocky]

because they could burst into flames otherwise.

Seriously , think it has something to do with having to keep within a certain power consumption envelope.So they underclock it to keep the temps and the power consumption under control.

[Refracty]

The main reason is the maximum power consumtion you can have with 8 pin connectors.
Each 8 pin connector will give you 150 Watts plus 75 Watts comming from the PCIe-Slot itself. So thats the limitation factor at wich the GTX 590 is almost working at.
Even with a good watercooling you can not overclock enormous like you could with the 580.

[nehale]

i just thought about it and wanted to ask, what about getting two gtx590s what speeds can i expect with that at stock cooling
and how much power will i need together with my current i7

[Refracty]

2 GTX 590 will probably give you almost 5 times faster render speed compared to your current dual 550 Ti setup.
I would recommend at least a 1000 Watt PSU. 900W could work as well but it is better to have some room to let the PSU work more efficiantly. You should measure your current power consumption and then add the Watt difference of the new GPU setup to be clear.

Instead of two 590s you could consider one 580 (3GB) and one 590. This will be a little bit slower then the dual 590 setup but it will give you more flexibility with larger scenes.

[nehale]

Instead of two 590s you could consider one 580 (3GB) and one 590. This will be a little bit slower then the dual 590 setup but it will give you more flexibility with larger scenes.

can you give an example (a picture) of a large scene because i never went over 700mb before, i do motion graphics with cinema 4D so i usually have a different project for all my shot.
if the scene is too large for the graphics card, will it only load half way or not at all?

[kubo]

if the scene is too large for your gpu it won't load at all!
I've got 1.2 Gb which usually means I can go 900 to 1000Mb tops, sometimes I've got to do quite some work arounds to fit all, once we get instances 1Gb should do for most my scenes, right now it needs at times it's quite a struggle, specially with outside shots with tons of vegetation. Althou mostly the textures are the ones filling up my vram.

[JimStar]

Don't forget that output buffer takes VRAM too. So, the more is output relolution, the more VRAM will be needed...
We don't measured this consumption in Octane in detail, but in iRay it was very big number of bytes... VRAM consumption was increased by about 300-400 MB (and even higher) if HI resolution was set...