[alonebb]

Hi all,

I am currently using the ATI 4870 on my mac pro; it seems like a little slow while rendering intensive graphic. I would like to upgrade a better Cuda support video card? What are the good options? Is Quadro FX 4800 the best card in the market?

Thank you!

Chris

[gordongimano]

Actually, when it comes to CUDA, the better (and cheaper) solution is a GeForce card. Quadros have larger amounts of memory and are optimized for heavy geometry. But a GeForce card like the GTX480 has a lot of stream processors - and when using CUDA, they are CUDA cores In other words, CUDA applications run faster the more cores they have available. So go for the GeForce.
One important note: while the Radeons 5870, 5890 and the monstrous 5870 X2 boast a huge number of stream processors, CUDA is only available on nVIDIA cards. So unless you want to wait for OpenCL to become the standard and replace CUDA (and that's definitely NOT a certainty), don't expect to run CUDA apps on a Radeon.

[Argasio]

Your graphic card is not involved (and cannot be) in any way during the rendering process.
The only cards which will support future gpu rendering system are nvidia cards because they both support cuda and opencl.
The quadro fx 4800 is not the best card in the market,the best one are the QUADRO 5000 and the QUADRO 6000 (on the professional side) and the GEFORCE 480-470-460 2gb version (on the gaming side)

[alonebb]

i see, those are awesome information, I believe I need a Geforce card more than a Quadro, since I don't do a lot of modeling. what is the price of a GTX480?
haa haa, It is great to have x2 video card in the machine, but the PCI-E slots are so valuable. My raid cards have already occupied all the slots. If I have an extra slot, I rather install a usb 3.0 adapter.

[Dave]

you never mentioned your render engine, you say rendering, but that deppends on your app. if you are using vray, mental ray, or similar, then your GPU has nothing to do with it.

unless you're using a GPU renderer, like arion, octane, etc.

[Sly]

Links:

Just check your local store. Prices vary's depending on where you are. You can check this yourself

[yukon_28]

Best buy for CUDA apps today is GTX480/70/60, depending on your budget.

[alonebb]

I just realized that none of the GTX series are available for mac...

is there any other option?

[grindkorr]

everybody is making a fuss about vray 2.0 ... then talk about cuda ...

weird ... if you read carefully enough , you'll notice chaos group mentions vray 2.0 GPU rendering as using open CL ...

make your own conclusions ...

I'm not a cracker , not a provider either ... but I can read , so all is not lost ...

[sassimicah]

well its an ati and in our industry we tend to frown on that .cuda isnt the problem but few worthwhile renders take advantage and gpu language isn't definitive enough to handle production rendering for films(especially if you are talking about dense scenes with complex shaders)(renderer will run out of memory).i seem to recall a gpu talk at modo where these point were made we are still too far away to consider gpu rendering as the IT alternative.as for you render unless its a gpu render,has nothing to do with your graphics card the top renderers like mental ray and vray.... if they do use it in iray and vray rt its limited to previewing not final rendering tasks.yes cuda will make life better but not that much on the rendering front ..but you should definitely go nvidia.

as for most powerful gpu on the market ...this entire forum would have to save up alot to buy one..its called the nvidia fermi 7000 sporting specs like 800 cores for parallel computing and 12GB VRAM all for the low low price of $15,000 .
basically squeeze for deals in a planned budget and also make sure apple support it properly.

[CyberHype]

GTX480 are crap, get GTX460, or wait for new card that will come soon.

[Wall-e]

this is exactly why i hate mac. they have such a crap choice of graphics cards. your only choice is to get a quadro 4800 or a 285 gtx. nvidia are bringing the new quadro 4000 to mac but who knows how long thta will be and there has been no mention of the nvidia 400 gaming cards coming to mac yet.

kinda regret buying that mac "pro" (i still don't get what is actually "Pro" about them) now don't you. don't forget opening your mac will void the warranty if you have any of your warranty period left

[alfred]

Links:

Not quite true... If u gonna to Vray RT 2.0 for Gpu, that are in beta, they only recommend Nvidia Fermis, for graphic cards...

[CyberHype]

Links:

Dude, GTX460 are evolution of Fermi, since first generation of Fermis are a fiasco!

So what u talking about?

[yukon_28]

Links:

Links:

Man, get a grip, we are not on some gaming forum, what most people cares about here is GPU performance on GPU accelerated CG apps, and there is no better card then 480 for this (not counting ultra-hi-end fermi quadros), so wtf a fiasco you are talking about? 460 is probably best money/performance value, true, but 480 is still faster and have more CUDA cores.

[Sly]

But it all matters not if the gpu rt does not render with gpu, and before the program will be avaible as final and before there will be you know what all talk about it and buying stuff for it is meaningless

[grindkorr]

hmmm , actually if furry ball was cracked ... it looks real good ... all the features we may need and I heard it's hella fast ... so I guess this type of renderer would make GPU rendering a viable option ... if it was released and available ... and that's not the case ...

I haven't tested it myself , but from what I read and all ... it's real good ...

[CyberHype]

Links:

Let me see, GTX480 suffer from heat, noise and high power consumption, cost alot, not to mention the poor yield of this card at foundries in Taiwan. If this chip are so good and great why nvidia expend million of dolar in new Fermi project?

Why they not simple stripe down some cores/shaders/rop and release "cheaper" card called GTX460? Simply, because fist Fermi generation fail, like Pentium 4 fail.

Now they heavily recycled the project and created GF104, and GTX460 is a testing card, if this card succeeded, we will see some GTX500 or something based in same architecture, can be called like Fermi 2.0 because Fermi 1.0 fail.

[Sly]

Links:

We will not see 5series for at least end of 2011 - end 2012

Before that ati will release 6xxx series this november, and nv releasing gtx 475 on gf104 and gtx 485 on gf100 with 512 cuda's.

But the test sample was using 200W more that 480 core 480, not to mention 495 with rumored 700W cap

Back to the toppic

There is no point buying a gpu for gpu rendering without having the gpu renderer, thats rule no.1

Also the guy posted a question what is the best CUDA supported gpu card

A. The one with most cuda cores as long it will not break your budget

No point further discution about what card is better

[Cadmium77]

Links:

And this is why I'm so sick of arrogant mactard bragging about the superiority of Macs for graphics.

Overpriced crApple.

[Kellis]

If you plan to use a CUDA renderer like Octane, I would recommend a GTX 460 with 2GB of ram because you can always overclock your videocard to render a little quicker but you can't increase your video card's ram size. Its no good when you can't load a scene in your renderer because your card lacks the required ram. Of course there are workarounds that one can perform. Regardless, Quadro cards can be worth it if you've got loads of cash to burn. Personally, I feel they are way overpriced and I honestly don't know how Nvidia gets away with charging so much.