OTOY Forums

Hello everyone,

I´ve been playing with Octane for a short time now and It´s already pretty obvious that my computer needs an upgrade. It´s far from optimal since it´s pretty old speaking in rendering terms. I´m also using after effects etc. on it which used to work ok, but Octane and DAZ simply require a bit more. So here´s my setup:

ASUS P8Z68-V
Intel i7-2600 3.4Ghz
16GB RAM (Dunno which one G-Skill I guess)
1 x GeForce GTX 570 1,5gb
Seagate Baracuda 2TB


I know that I most definetly need a new GPU but I´m not quite sure which one. I´d go for 580/680 since they´re recommended a lot here in the Forums, but I don´t know if it makes sense, given that Mainboard is pretty old and not high end?

Thanks for your input guys, appreciate it!

New GPU. Definitely.

I've read on the forums here that the 580 is a touch faster than the 680, but personally I find the 4GB of VRAM on my 680 to be much more valuable than a faster render speed, but your needs may differ. If you're using it with Daz, as I am, texture management becomes a big factor in setting up any scene. Daz content creators like to use a lot of 4K textures, so downsampling to at least 1K and remapping becomes a must.

Rest of the system specs look fine to me.

Your (very good) motherboard can handle up to 3 graphics cards. So you may have even three titans (+min. 1200W PSU). Now your budget plays crucial role. Prices of gtx780 are decreasing. It's worth considering this card.
Don't sell your cpu - I have the same which is cool (much cooler than new i7) and run at 4.5ghz (watercooled).

Your motherboard may not actually be able to hold 3 cards, because the cards we use are double width.
for 2 of the motherboards I have used, the bottom card will not allow a double width card, the card will hit components right below it. Also, my case does not have a slot below that which means if I put a card there, the vent for the card will hit the case and not blow air out.

thanks for the help guys, appreciate it...so I´ll go for a 680 or 780, not sure yet. Here´s two factors to consider:

- my 570 is about 25 cm length and that´s the maximum that the case of my computer can handle, so I´ll need to look for a card that´s about the same size. 780 will probably be bigger I guess...

- At the moment I have a 620 watts power supply. Will this be sufficient for a 680/780 or do I need to replace that as well?

edit:

just a quick idea, is it possible to have 2 different gpu´s, in my case keeping the 570 and adding the 780? would this make sense?

Thanks guys!

richertmx wrote: - At the moment I have a 620 watts power supply. Will this be sufficient for a 680/780 or do I need to replace that as well?

It's enough provided it's high end PSU.

richertmx wrote: is it possible to have 2 different gpu´s, in my case keeping the 570 and adding the 780? would this make sense?

Yes.

Thank you for your help so far!

I have now bought and installed a new gtx 780 and I am seeing great improvements in speed.

The only thing is I can´t figure out how to get my old gtx 570 to work in the second pcie slot. Windows doesn´t recognize it and the card doesn´t appear in the device manager. Anything I need to change in the BIOS maybe?

Reinstall nvidia driver - clean install.