Video card recommendation
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Searching archives I'm finding fairly generic advice on video cards - i'm mainly checking to see if Version 8 changes anything.
Working off Win7 - an i3-540 | 8 gig ram. I'm willing to spend upwards of ~$300 - Sketchup will be the only thing I'm upgrading the video for. The term 'Fermi' was frequently used in other posts but this seems very generic - Newegg shows 'Fermi' ranging from $50-500.
What specific card features should I be focused on?
thx -
What all do you use for PC for? Sketchup, gaming, photo editing, video editing, rendering?
In general viewports (whether it's SU or 3ds Max) aren't good at tapping a video cards potential. Have a look at this study done awhile ago ( http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review076_1.asp ). The jist of it is that there wasn't much correlation between viewport responsiveness and video card quality (a better card didn't necessarily mean better performance). On top of that you should know that SU only uses the video card for displaying textures and shadows (geometry is done via the CPU) so it's functionality is limited.
My advice would be that if SU is your most intensive graphics card application then just get a middle of the road nVidia gaming video card. Don't spend much money on it. I say nVidia because ATI video cards used to have issues with SU. I think those are all worked out but I don't see any reason to take any chances.
-Brodie
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hey guys i know im slightly off topic here
btw was hoping some one who knows SU well to give me sum advicei ahve a q8300 OC'd to like 4.oGHZ mainly did it for gaming
and then 4 gigs ram and a old 9800 gtx 256 bit 1 gig mem grafix card is this sufficient as i got a bit of cash and would like a small improvement i will eventually go i7 but would just like seggestions or shud i just wait and go i7 and is my grafiX fine?
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That's a good setup for Sketchup. Anything more won't get you much return from your money. I have a dual core at home with a 9800gt and it runs SU about the same as my setup here at work (see my sig for specs).
-Brodie
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hehe yea all my friends laugh at me cos i dont wanna change my gfx when i upgrade to an i7 but like its the most potent value for money card i know i mean my edition beats the standard nvidia 250 gts and a few above it aswell
and considering the amount of 256 bit cards out there arent that many majority are all 128 bit plus it has hdmi at da back ^^ but im very glad to hear myu setup is ok.... but i still lag quite a bit is that normal -
what kind of lag? what kind of models are you working on?
Ya, I really like my 9800GT as well. Unless I get into gaming or GPU rendering at some point I can't see changing cards for a long time unless it comes as part of a package or something.
-Brodie
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I also have a 9600 GT @ 1Gb ram and have never had any issues related to SketchUp. I can even use it for GPU rendering with fairly good results (although a more decent card would come handy in this area).
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@unknownuser said:
I have a dual core at home with a 9800gt and it runs SU about the same as my setup here at work (see my sig for specs).
-Brodie
Hi Brodie- I was about to suggest i7 and Quadro to my boss until I saw your comment and specs. I work in landscape design firm and most of my model are big stuff, like a whole master plan with all urban furnitures-modeled as per catalogue, usually meduim detail. I mean chamfer and fillet are shown but not the screws & tiny elements. Shrubs/trees are not in 3D though but in high res PNGs. I use car/people found in Google warehouse. It's really heavy and slow with my E7500 processor. I noticed that the slowest part is during turning on/off shadows or changing any face styles as well as exporting into JPG. I even have to turn off shadowns to orbit it or even turn to wireframe to make it orbit/pan faster. Really slow, exporting to JPG is like 2-5 minutes per scene. What specs can directly affect or speed up these steps? If RAM is not a factor, is using SSD would help?
My boss plans to get me a new PC in addition to my old one, so it'll be like a dual pc/dual monitor layout. I told him don't buy the expensive ones yet for I fear that it won't serve the purpose, like what you mentioned. I remember trying three Dell Precision T7500 workstation PC in our office before to render my scene and I was surprised when it crashed more compared with my entry level Lenovo with Intel E7500, nvidia 315 graphic card. That's why I'm gathering as much intel as I can so I can reply to my boss asap. Please help, thanks!:)
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Well, an i7 and Quadro will definitely get you a nice computer, but as you're seeing, it doesn't guarantee a great SU computer.
Essentially what I've always heard is that geometry is handled by the CPU while textures and shadows are handled by the GPU (I believe that includes styles like when you use the Blue Ink Pen linetype and that sort of thing).
CPU: SU only uses 1 core so you want the processor with the highest single core clockspeed. I7's have turbo boost which will bump the single core speed up under this scenario so they're good processors for SU. Just get the best I7 you can afford. It will be great for SU and will help in all other apps as well. That said, will you notice the difference between 3.3 ghz and 3.8 ghz? Probably not much in SU. So if it's an extra $100 and the boss foots the bill, go for it. If it's $800, your conscience might start getting to you even if it's the boss' money.
The E7500 you mention doesn't have Turboboost so you're stuck with the 2.93 ghz single core speed which isn't that great. If you can get the new i7-2600 which is a very reasonably priced $300 processor you get a turboboost of 3.8ghz which is superb. It's got 4 cores which may seem like overkill, but if you multitask you'll have plenty of power for other stuff and it won't eat into the core dedicated to SU.
GPU: There's very little rhyme or reason here. Some video cards seem to just work better than others and it doesn't necessarily relate to price. Moreover, your video card is what will be chugging away on all those .png's and shadows you love so much so it's a very important piece of hardware for you. Testing SU on other systems, as you've done, is ideal. It's the only real way to know how well SU will perform. If I needed to find out what my best bet was, I'd study this thread ( http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=20076&hilit=speed ). Find the best reported times and write down the specs that produced them (and if you do report them in that thread as I'm curious but lazy). That will give you something solid to give to your boss based on real life results. That said, seems to work through that test more unpredictably (see my post about 1/2 way through the thread about odd results).
That said, quadros do tend to be a safe bet. They tend to give very even performance with good driver support. However, you have to decide whether it's worth the extra cost. It's like buying a BMW. You could save some money and buy a souped up eclipse instead but that later is a bit more of a gamble whereas you're almost certain to get a good quality vehicle with the former.
SSD: This will make SU start up faster but it's already a pretty lightweight program so it's a pretty small savings. It might help save images faster if you write them to your SSD but I'm not sure. Might want to post a separate thread about that. But it won't help you rotate around your scene.
-Brodie
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I7 2700k I have I5 2600k unlocked... running at 4.8 right now. 2 GTX 470s running sli.
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@krisidious said:
I7 2700k I have I5 2600k unlocked... running at 4.8 right now. 2 GTX 470s running sli.
...and? Do you find you get amazing results from all that power?
-Brodie
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I don't know... I know I can't go back. and I know that it doesn't lag anymore. my renderings come down quicker and larger files open quicker. however I still have files I can open and stutter it when I want.
The processor cost $225 and the cards $200 a piece. so it's not as expensive a route as some.
I have some 3D mark vantage results I think I hit 34,000 on it.
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Sounds like a very reasonable route. I think at some point you simply run into a software limitation.
-Brodie
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like you were saying about SU only using one core... you want that 1 core to be as big as bad as possible. the rest is cake. and it seems as if there is some size cutoff with SU as far as switching to boxed group instead of detailed group... and with this new processor it seems to make that leap with more ease. if I had it to do over I might go with the i7 2700k instead... but I dig this one.
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2700k?
-Brodie
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Isn't the 2700k the version which allows overclocking?
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@unknownuser said:
Isn't the 2700k the version which allows overclocking?
No 2600 is fixed. 2600k is overclockable.
If there's a 2700k out, I haven't heard of it yet.
-Brodie
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Sorry, my bad. A simple google would've answered my question. I think Kris' mention have been a dose of PEBKAC
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sorry I'm 100 up on both of those... I have the 2500k and the 2600k i7 is what I was speaking of last.
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the k indicates being unlocked via the multiplier...
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