OTOY Forums

Hi guys,

I'm new here and I'm really impressed with the demo of this render engine and I would like to see what the performance will be with a new video card which I'm about to buy soon. I would like to factor Octane in my buying decision sine I might start using it. I have about $600-650 USD to spend and I'm leaning towards GTX780 3GB. Is this the best option for this money? I've heard that more VRAM is better but Titan is out of my budget. So what do you think? Any suggestions? I currently own a GTX 460 1GB (336 CUDA cores). If GTX 780 has 2304 CUDA cores does that mean that I'll get 6.8 times better performance?

Looking forward to your replies. Thanks!

hi there, i would consider the gtx 770 4gb, ok is a rebrand of the old 680, ok it is slightly slower then a 780 but with the same budget you might get 2x770 and 1 more gb of ram doesn't hurt at all.

but, thers a pretty nice research done by some users : http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 6&start=20

check it out, it might help.

cheers.

Thanks for the reply, cayn99. I took a look at the following graphic on the page you offered - http://render.otoy.com/forum/download/f ... &mode=view but according to it isn't GTX 770 twice as slow as GTX 780? I'm looking at the 4th column "Octane performance Ms/sec". GTX 770 is 3.6 Ms/sec and GTX 780 is 7.28 Ms/sec.

Also, is it worth waiting for the Maxwell based cards and when do you guys think they will get released? If it's within a month I think I could wait. Would they offer some new improvements/features over GTX 780 for example? I've read that it will support unified memory which means the video card will be able to access system memory (although slower than using the onboard VRAM). I've also read that Kepler cards will also support this with CUDA 6. Is that true and what will be the benefit of Maxwell over Kepler?

noOne knows for sure when Maxwell is going to hit the market, there are rumors that nVidia is going to test Maxwell production soon http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia ... 25803.html However, these are rumors, rumors to build the traffic for advertisement business all these websites are living from, that's all. So take this 'info' with a grain of salt..

Knowing nVidia they to tend to release products differently, sometimes they put the best first & then the lower end models, sometimes opposite, so even if You will wait for a month or two and buy a piece if it comes..it's a bit of a question what You're going to get in terms of performance withing that architecture - might be the case that You pay extra to be among first one, but month after new card will come..that leaves You not so satisfied..

So to help You a bit, You should decide how much You want to spend & what is top most important thing to You (amount of vRam or performance). Maybe overall value - these are different from user to user as our needs are based on what we do..some will even offer to buy second hand, or older generation new card (if You can find one) to get better value.

When You thee in perspective & take into account things like upgrades (You can buy two cards that might come cheaper now, but one card leaves You some space on Your mobo if You might wish to upgrade Your rig later without trowing out something..), heat/noise (it's one thing to have computer in a studio & other thing to have one in Your apartment)..

Everything is subjective here =) because needs are a bit different from person to person, so without knowing what You do, how You do, why..it's difficult to recommend something. But if You list Your needs by Yourself - You should find the answer fast enough =)

cheers

Thanks for your thorough reply, glimpse.
I might use Octane for different type of projects but mostly interiors and product shots. As I mentioned, I'm willing to spend about $600-650 USD and would like to get the best performance and VRAM possible for this money and this usage. Second hand is out of the question for me since I'd like to have warranty if something happens.