How Much Does A Graphics Card Affect 3D Work


JonathanJanacek
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I'm looking into getting a new laptop, and "common sense" would tell me that a gaming laptop would handle CA best b/c they typically have strong processors and larger video cards.

 

 I know that RayTrace is heavy on the processor, but how about Perspective Full Overview or Full Camera Views?  Do they need an 8GB video card, or is that just overkill b/c CA won't really need more than 2?  

 

  Most of my work (on a laptop) is done at the office, but when I'm sitting in front of a client making my changes, I need quick responses from the software.  Should I spend the money on a beefy video card or is 2GB more than enough?

 

I've been running a 1GB for years and it's starting to show its age. 

 

Thanks,

Jonathan

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IMO get the best video card you can but I don't think you need 8gb, I have 3gb and its been more then enough. I have the NVidia 780 gtx 3gb and it work fine and fast but the best upgrade I ever did was an SSD hard drive, that really kept things fast

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I think memory clock speed may be more important than amount of memory with respect to CA. I monitor my GPU when using CA and see relatively low memory usage.

 

EDIT:  I think maximum number of CPU cores will give the most boost for CA!

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renders use the video card

 

raytraces use the cpu

 

8 GB min for cpu

 

1 GB min for video

 

best not to share ram between cpu and video card

video should have its own ram

 

yes, a gaming laptop would be the best choice for Chief

 

expect to spend $1200 give or take - you can spend way more

but be careful of "overkill"

 

Lew

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  • 4 weeks later...

I never make changes in front of the client, too much can happen. I also don't want to be there any more than I have too. I send movies to the client, to see the 3d. Very simple to do and a 3 min video takes 3 minutes to make. They can also watch it as many times as they want at their leisure..

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A few days back, Newegg had a screaming Asus laptop for gamers for about $1,700.00.  I don't know if the sale is still active or not.  If that is in your budget range, you might check it out.  From what I remember, it had a good sized (±250Gb) SSD, lots of RAM, a good video card, etc. etc.  The price was marked down $200.00.

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newegg has some great deals that's for sure.  I guess I just prefer a desktop (im old fashion) but to me having a full keyboard, mouse, and double screens is more efficient.  I usually meet clients at Starbucks and bring hard copy's to review.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just to follow up to my original question, after much internal debating, I decided to go with the ASUS.  These are the specs on the machine.
 
ASUS ROG G750JS-DS71 17.3-inch Gaming Laptop
3.4 GHz Core i7-4700HQ
16 GB DDR3
GeForce GTX 870M Graphics 3GB RAM
256GB SSD, 1TB HDD
Windows 8.1
 
CJSPUD, I think I got the machine you were referring to.  
 
Results: I've been VERY pleased with this machine.  Cranks out Ray Trace Renders at a 3x speed over my old machine.  Now, it's no big deal to put RayTrace renders in my Layouts that I send my clients.   As always, lighting slows things down a lot, so unless I'm trying to give the big WOW effect, I just turn the lights off.  Even with the lights on, it's super fast.  This picture made 300 passes in under 20 minutes.  (I forgot to limit my passes).

 

 

Small House

 

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Wow ... 300 passes in 20 minutes.  I wonder how my setup would do with that plan.  Is that something you wouldn't mind posting so I could do a test to see how my computer performs?

 

Hope that Asus continues to give you good results.  I was looking at the Digital Storm website and some of their models and was pretty impressed with them. 

 

It is good to have lots of options when it comes to computers.  I hate the fact that software and hardware spec's are constantly undergoing change (improvement) so its possilbe to be on the short end of the technology in two or three years depending on what configuration we are using.

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