rendering gpu for 3ds Max rendering (low TDP)

[thegoogler]

hello all I am planning a server build for rendering mostly to allow me to continue working while I render a walkthrough or 3d scene from revit. I will have 2 L5640's and now I need to figure out which graphics card to use, I don't really need it to be super fast but not crawling slow, haven't found any videos on budget rendering graphics cards for 3ds max (3ds max support amd graphics card with plugin I pretty sure). The graphics cards I have considered are below. I would like to keep the graphics card price under $100. The server will run vm's and local home storage aswell as media playback (movies, TV, etc). If anyone knows a card that is low power but does well or reasonable well in rendering or knows which will be best for my situation please respond.

 

- Quadro K2000                                   - Tesla M2070 (very high TDP)

-Quadro 2000                                       - Tesla C1060 (also high TDP)

- Quadro 4000                                     - Amd Firepro V5900

-Quadro P600                                      - Amd Radeon pro 2100

-Amd Radeon pro 3100.

 

[scottyseng]

Well, which exact renderer are you using? Revit has several (Revit scaline renderer, Mental Ray, and there are third party ones). Some of them are CPU only.

3DS Max also can use several different render engines.

 

I would really recommend some kind of gaming GPU if on budget. You don't need a quadro / workstation GPU for rendering (Unless this is like business critical 24/7 use).

[thegoogler]

6 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Well, which exact renderer are you using? Revit has several (Revit scaline renderer, Mental Ray, and there are third party ones). Some of them are CPU only.

3DS Max also can use several different render engines.

 

I would really recommend some kind of gaming GPU if on budget. You don't need a quadro / workstation GPU for rendering (Unless this is like business critical 24/7 use).

3ds max's default I ray or something i think it was. I read up and AMD radeon has a 3ds max amd render plugin like I mentioned earlier It is called radeon pro render and needs the graphics card to support open CL 1.2 which I think the V5900 supports 1.1

[scottyseng]

Yeah, iray is a GPU renderer (I'd recommend nviidia for CUDA support). Mental ray is a CPU only renderer.

 

Hmm, I didn't know AMD made a render plugin, that's neat. Though honestly I would not attempt running at V5900 these days. I have a V7900 myself that I retired because driver support was long gone / it's not a fast card at all by today's standards.

[thegoogler]

2 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Yeah, iray is a GPU renderer (I'd recommend nviidia for CUDA support). Mental ray is a CPU only renderer.

 

Hmm, I didn't know AMD made a render plugin, that's neat. Though honestly I would not attempt running at V5900 these days. I have a V7900 myself that I retired because driver support was long gone / it's not a fast card at all by today's standards.

yeah I figured that I just have a crappy pc with a i3 6100 and gtx 1050 ti  (built 2 years ago before I wanted to to architecture) so if I can offload rendering thats fine like I said as long as it dosen't use much power I can always slot more into the srever

[scottyseng]

14 minutes ago, thegoogler said:

yeah I figured that I just have a crappy pc with a i3 6100 and gtx 1050 ti  (built 2 years ago before I wanted to to architecture) so if I can offload rendering thats fine like I said as long as it dosen't use much power I can always slot more into the srever

Honestly your 1050 Ti could probably destroy these for rendering.

 

But well, these cards you listed may not use much power, but they don't get much work done either. i mean a used 7xx / 9xx gaming GPU is what i would lean towards on a budget for CUDA rendering.

 

Else out of your list, the Quadro K2000 seems the most ideal.

[thegoogler]

5 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Honestly your 1050 Ti could probably destroy these for rendering.

 

But well, these cards you listed may not use much power, but they don't get much work done either. i mean a used 7xx / 9xx gaming GPU is what i would lean towards on a budget for CUDA rendering.

 

Else out of your list, the Quadro K2000 seems the most ideal.

I don't mind buying multiple as long as it is cheaper and more power efficient or close to for rendering. If I wanted to go overkill and blow $200 on a gpu for rendering I might buy a Tesla k10 but probably won't because It would be too overkill for me at this time and max tdp is 250W!! more tdp that the dual cpu's I plan on getting. but if anyone else wanting to build a cheap render server and doesn't need to worry about power than they might want one.

[scottyseng]

4 minutes ago, thegoogler said:

I don't mind buying multiple as long as it is cheaper and more power efficient or close to for rendering. If I wanted to go overkill and blow $200 on a gpu for rendering I might buy a Tesla k10 but probably won't because It would be too overkill for me at this time and max tdp is 250W!! more tdp that the dual cpu's I plan on getting. but if anyone else wanting to build a cheap render server and doesn't need to worry about power than they might want one.

I believe the GTX 1060s are the most efficient cards to get (rendering and gaming wise).

 

Also, don't use TDP as a figure for power consumption. Some GPUs use much more than TDP at times (Even more so if overclocked). I'd look up actual reviews (if any exist) for power consumption for said GPU. 

 

You can also undervolt GPUs to save power

[thegoogler]

43 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

I believe the GTX 1060s are the most efficient cards to get (rendering and gaming wise).

 

Also, don't use TDP as a figure for power consumption. Some GPUs use much more than TDP at times (Even more so if overclocked). I'd look up actual reviews (if any exist) for power consumption for said GPU. 

 

You can also undervolt GPUs to save power

that is what I was going to do.