Best Graphics Card for SU/Photoshop?

todamgood4U · 27 Dec 2007, 21:42

Hey All,

I'm hoping to get some insight on this. I have been at the old forum doing searches and seeing if there is anything on the subject here, but haven't found a "this is great" response.

Currently I am running a Gateway 9310XL 3.60 w/ Nvidia GeForce 6800 256MB, and 4GB of RAM w/ WinXP SP2. I haven't had any issues since my office purchased a year-ish or so ago it and a month or so ago they asked me if I wanted to upgrade anything. I suggested maybe a better video card, but then opted to leave it alone as it was working just fine.

Well now, I have a monitor going out and it seems to be graphics card related so they are going to be purchasing me a new one. My question is, is the 6800 a good card or is there something better out there that I should look at? Money really isn't an issue, but I'm sure my boss would cough at a $4,000.00 card.

I ran the crowd test from ( viewtopic.php?f=60&t=694) and here is what I got with my 6800:

The test questions were:

Scene when performance while obiting becomes less responsive.
Scene when Components turn to rectangles when orbiting.
Scene transition which takes more than 30 seconds to complete.

My test was:

Scene 11 (Took about 2 seconds for it to start the orbit)
Scene 11
Transition to scene 11 took roughly 2 seconds.

Adding layer 11 took roughly 2-3 seconds to orbit w/ rectangles but was smooth while orbiting.
Adding layer 12 instantly turned them to rectangles on orbit but had no lack of response except when finished orbiting and coming back to people from rectangles, there was a 5 second pause.

So from reading these posts, the 6800 and my setup is pretty good. I would just like some feedback on if I should stick with the 6800 (tried and true) or go with something better like a 6800 Ultra 512MB or something else?!

Thanks in advance.

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:45

I just posted a reply but I lost it...

short of it..

I use Radeon X1600Pro 512 meg over clocked to 700

I also suggest you look at Matrox TripleHead2Go cost me 650 200 for the matrox and 450 for the 3 19 LCD's

also I moved the thread to the hardware room...

todamgood4U · 27 Dec 2007, 21:46

Thanks. I have read posts dating back to 2004 stating nothing good about ATI cards and SketchUp. Everything and everyone has stated nvidia is the card to use, and with the files I have open and the way I work, I would hate to spend money on something that isn't as good as what I have or worse.

I have a Visiontek Radeon X1300 512MB card and 4GB of RAM in my home computer and have not had any issues running SketchUp, but I also don't run half the crazy things I do at the office.

I do run 2 monitors at the office, which is also important in deciding the card I guess. I can't remember what they are offhand...either 21" or 24" flat widescreens, but its a lot of real estate. I'm not sure what I would do with a 3rd. I suppose a screen dedicated to WinAMP's Visualizer.

Grrrr....I hate that. Right click, select all, Ctrl C has saved me more than once.

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:49

I would agree that ATI are nothing but trouble, however I have had no problems with SU and the card... I have had other issues with it, and other ATI's but rememer it takes one hell of an Nvidia... I tried replacing my ATI X1600Pro 512 with a Nvidia 256... didn't work... it bogged down quite a bit

dylan · 27 Dec 2007, 21:50

Maybe upgrade to one of the Nvidia 768mb cards. Im sure the extra memory will help with SU.

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:50

mmm 700 meg.... how much though?

juju · 27 Dec 2007, 21:51

Generally I'd say get the best GFX card you can afford. AFAIK neither SU / Photoshop benefits from having workstation cards (nVidia brand Quadro series or ATi/AMD brand FireGL series). There are some apps that do benefit (obviously), one of which would be 3DS Max for instance.

The more memory the better, the faster/stronger the GPU the better. I don't know how much benefit will be achieved with the new generation nVidia GeForce 8-series DX10 (DX10 only available under MS Vista) cards, depends on the size of the models you work on though.

The new generation GFX cards from nVidia and ATi/AMD packs a mighty punch, but they are costly and require a lot of power from the PSU which also translates into heat issues.

I don't know if the nVidia cars are in fact better than the ATi/AMD ones for use in SU, I've never had any problems with ATi cards and generally their picture quality is better than the nVidia cards (but you'll have to look pretty close to notice the difference).

todamgood4U · 27 Dec 2007, 21:52

Thanks for the tips. I took everyone suggestions and decided to do a search on Best Buy to see what comes up and here is what I found:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&id=pcat17071&type=page&ks=960&st=nvidia&sc=Global&cp=1&sp=-currentprice+skuid&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1%7E%7Eq6e7669646961%7E%7Ecpcmcat107700050034%23%232%23%23w%7E%7Ecpcmcat107700050039%23%231%23%23q%7E%7Encpcmcat107700050041%23%230%23%23q&list=n&usc=All+Categories&nrp=15&iht=n

I'm looking at the top 3...the top 2 being water cooled. I think the water cooled cards would be a big plus minimizing heat and all 3 are 768MB. Other than hooking up a water cooling system, they don't seem to have any other special requirements that would limit me in what I already have. As far as I know, I aleady have the 500W power supply, if not, that's an easy and probably necessary upgrade anyway.

I wish I were a little more hardware savvy, but fortunately I get most of the tech stuff. So if anyone wants to take a look at those cards and recommend something, or something else, I'm still open to ideas. I'm meeting with the IT guy later this afternoon so I still have some time to decide.

Thanks again everyone.

juju · 27 Dec 2007, 21:53

Out of the new DX10 8-series cards from nVidia it has been shown (benchmarking using various apps / games) that the more RAM on the GFX card only really start to show its worth if you're running high resolutions (1600 x 1200 and up IIRC), I don't know if it holds true for SU / PS as well.

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:54

I'm thinking of trying this one out on my overclocked E4300

CAPTCHA page

(www.newegg.com)

256MB GeForce 8500GT 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

dylan · 27 Dec 2007, 21:55

I think I read that these later 768mb cards are requiring pretty big power supplies (600 +)
Another thing was that they tend to be a little larger, especially in length and some cases will not take them.

Dylan

juju · 27 Dec 2007, 21:55

Yeah Dylan, they get pretty big and indeed they might not fit some chassis designs, true also they need some serious power, but it really depends on how many other components you have and what their power requirements are. A good way to check is to use a power calculator (instead of just guessing) one of which can be found by following the power calculator links from this address: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:56

ok I broke down and got an Nvidia Verto 8500GT 512 Meg...

will report...

Stu · 27 Dec 2007, 21:57

Kris,
How is the Nvidia Verto 8500GT 512 Meg. going?
I'm probably not too far from getting a new machine and while most of your technical talk goes over my head I was thinking that a 512Mb card was a bit excessive. I dont think Oz is too far behind when it comes to things like this but its very hard to find configurations for sale with 512 cards.
And then I read http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=36208
It seems that Google are recommending a 512Mb card as optimal!

Just how common are they at the top end of the world?

And just how much of an improvement are they?......at the moment I'm using a 128 FX 5200

Stu

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:58

the 512 8500 GT is awesome... I have some glitching in my large developments but mostly it handles it...

the crowd test runs seamlessly... I love my new card... $149 at bestbuy...

all my other prgrams are running very well too...

so far I love it...

todamgood4U · 27 Dec 2007, 21:59

I have been working day and night on a very large project lately and told my boss I just needed a new machine. I mentioned the one I have would be great as a secondary machine just for running renderings and animations, while a new one for upgrading.

I'll be looking into specs this week with our IT guy and let you guys know what I'm thinking at getting. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Krisidious · 27 Dec 2007, 21:59

have a look at my E4300 overclocked build here in the hardware forum

not registered yet · 27 Dec 2007, 22:02

This is my first post here. I'm not yet a SU user but I'm building a system that I intend to use for SU:

ASUS A8V Deluxe (non-PCI)
Athlon X2 4200+
2GB DDR400
WinXP

As for my graphics card, I'm limited to AGP. I'm between the HIS X1950 Pro (512MB) and the XFX 7900 GS (256MB). I can't seem to find a 512MB version of the 7900 GS. Both cards are roughly $150 with rebates.

There aren't but a handful of AGP cards more powerful than these two, for example, the 7950 GT. I read today that NVidia has developed a AGP/PCI bridge for the GeForce 8 series and that an AGP version of the 8600 is just around the corner

Back to reality...
I'm thinking I should go with the X1950 PRO simply because it has 512MB. But I read elsewhere here that Nvidia based cards are best for SU. Perhaps this is no longer the case??

Advice would be appreciated.
David

[ginahoy]