OTOY Forums

Hello,

I live in El Salvador, we don't get the latest hardware and everything is more expensive locally, so any advice here will be very welcome.

I currently have a GTX780 3GB installed. I'm learning to use Octane and I'm loving it (PMC ftw!!!), the lighting it produces is just spectacular.

I found a deal for a new ZOTAC GTX780 AMP! Edition locally for $560 bucks, and since I do ArchViz for a living, I'm thinking of picking it up tomorrow... But I know the new 6GB cards are also out.

My question is, how much faster/what are the advantages of 6GB cards vs 3GB? I plan to use Octane for Interiors mostly, with around 2-5 million polygons, and some exterior scenes with ArchVision trees.

Any advise before I make my purchase is warmly welcome! Thanks

There's no speed increase due to VRAM size. But since the cards at the moment require to hold the whole scene in VRAM, a 6 GB card simply allows you to have bigger scenes.

Be aware that if you mix VRAM sizes, the smallest VRAM size will always be the one that gets used. if you mix a 3 and a 6 GB card, your maximum scene can be 3 GB (since all cards need the same, complete setup).

Other 780ies might have a different frequency though and can thus be slower or faster than what you have. The Ti variant has also more CUDA cores, which also increase speed.

And another thought: Octane 2.x apparently features something, where it can use the PCs main memory outside VRAM to hold scene data, making VRAM sizes less relevant ... but I know nothing really about that.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

I *just* discovered the Open OctaneRender Viewport button in the 3dsMax plugin and my mind is BLOWNNN (i was doing renders with F9 key preview lol...)

I am so buying all the hardware in the world for Octane, I can see final changes in realtime and tweak everything... Coming from V-Ray, this really is a game-changer!!!

If You do archviz for living wait a bit and get 6gb model.

Compared by price 780 (3gb) should be 499$ while new (6gb) model 599$ + import & other taxes.. You don't get any speed inprovement if the model is the same (without frequency mods), but You get way more of vRam to play with.

Some clients might ask You to output print resolution renders that could eat up to like 2GB of vRam (for 8k square) - If You add some high res cars or a few trees.. -3gb'er migh not be the best deal, considering You can get twice bigger for just 20% extra.