JDesign Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 OK, I recently upgraded to X7, and X8 soon. After reviewing equipment I decided to do a bit of upgrading. The I5 currently has 8gb ram and a Nvidia 550Ti card. I have 8gb of additional ram, for 16, and after reading about video cards I went with an EVGA GeForce GTX960 card with 4gb of Gddr5 ram. I'm thinking I should just use one of Chief's plans already in the program to time a rendering, perhaps time a raytrace, then switch out the new goodies, and run the same tests using the same supplied saved plan. So far I have not changed any settings for either raytrace or rendering, however, I do expect the new video card to perform substantially better than the 550 for rendering. I find it hard to justify a GeForce 970 or 980 card, when the 960 gets such good reviews as a performer. Any suggestions before running these tests are welcome, and may help someone decide to go that extra step up in video card performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumbleChief Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 The 960 should get you smoother rotating and faster 3D model building (only on bigger models) but will/should have no effect on your RayTracing. Do you currently experience jerky rotating when you view in 3D (render)? Do shadows slow the 3D rendering down? Reflections in mirrors? If this is not currently a problem you will not notice much difference but as your models get bigger and more complex you'll be happy to have the extra video muscle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zowie123 Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Hi, I've used all of those gpu's, now I have an nvidia 980 GTX ti... no more waiting when undoing. If you're new to chief, you probably won't need the power, but it does make a difference as models grow in complexity. GPU and CPU will max out if you're raytracing and rendering complex models at the same time. You can build a monster pc for under $1800. I'm sure a mac would be quite a bit more. Also gamers are always upgrading, search craigslist 980 gtx, you can often find a pretty robust machine for 1/2 the price. The i5 cpu will be slow to raytrace, but it depends on what you're used to. I've never seen system memory max beyond 8megs, 16 is more than sufficient. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDesign Posted March 7, 2016 Author Share Posted March 7, 2016 Having used chief since version 2? I remember discussions about setting up a rendering, and letting the computer run all nite or for days to achieve a result. Therefore, I just never bothered using it with any version. I upgraded from 10.8 to X7/X8. Today's computers have a lot more going for them than what we had to put up with. My expectations are not complex, I would simply like to get results in a reasonable period of time so that I'll use the rendering action more often to produce something that provides help in the sales aspect. I will not use X7 every day, so I hope to set it up for results, but not necessarily what I perceive as extreme end results. Rather decent results if that makes sense within a reasonable timeframe. If this new video card provides better elevations and overviews, faster smoother rotating, etc, then I'll be happy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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