I'm thinking of replacing my two video cards with a couple of GTX 1070's but I'm on a budget. I see you can get a used one on ebay for about $150. Anybody have experience with this?

You don't have to just buy them on ebay. More than likely there is an used computer store in your town that sells older model computers that will more than fit your budget. if not, then there are plenty of online websites that sell them. I'm currently looking into buying a used computer myself. I'm not versed enough in Windows models though to know what's the best to buy to use for Poser and Blender. All I know so far is that I have to avoid integrated graphics and get a computer with a graphics card. But some of these prices are really low.

Personally I would try local computer shops first. In all the computer shops I worked in there was always an effort to recycle components and make up a range of machines to suit different peoples needs. It was common for people to upgrade either the GPU or CPU and it seemed a shame to throw out a working component so we would often build computers around these parts utilizing components from other machines that had been handed in. For example if a motherboard had failed then the PSU, Memory, GPU, CPU and hard drives were often still working.

To a large degree it was a win win situation in that the previous owner had disposed of an old computer with little hassle and no cost, the shop covered the cost of building the second computer (which was minimal as they were often built in the quiet periods) plus a little profit and the new owner got a computer at a good price with either a six month or 1 year warranty.

I'm using an ebay purchased video card right now, have been for the last 5 years with no problem. Most important is check the sellers rating, the product description and return options. I've never found anything locally.

movida posted at 12:29PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383401

I'm using an ebay purchased video card right now, have been for the last 5 years with no problem. Most important is check the sellers rating, the product description and return options. I've never found anything locally.

Good advice and I guess the suggestion on looking locally depends a lot on where you live and what 'locally' actually offers.

hornet3d posted at 8:38AM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383402

movida posted at 12:29PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383401

I'm using an ebay purchased video card right now, have been for the last 5 years with no problem. Most important is check the sellers rating, the product description and return options. I've never found anything locally.

Good advice and I guess the suggestion on looking locally depends a lot on where you live and what 'locally' actually offers.

In my state, NC. , a few years ago, the NC surplus store used to auction off state and school owned computer equipment. They still do it, but now you have to bid on whole lots of computer equipment. A lot of computer stores do come and buy them, then, they cannibalize the computers for parts or, it they're still usable, they'll sell them for used.

I live in Silicon Valley but there really aren't any used computer store options anymore. Rents here are so high that small businesses go under and the last used tech place that I used to shop at (Weird Stuff) went belly up last year. So far I've looked on Newegg and they have "like new" 1070's for about $300 each and then ebay for the actually used cards. I'm also thinking of Craigslist too.

Ebay is your friend.

If you're going the ebay route you definitely need to watch out for scammy and low reviewed sellers. Keep an eye out for the very high trafficked and highly respected sellers, you're going to be much more safe buying from those reputable accounts. It won't be 100% because a used card is always a gamble, with or without the warranty.

Also, carefully read the descriptions for 1070's that were used for mining and see if they say that they were undervolted or not.

I see that you're going from a 970/980 combo, honestly if you were thinking of spending up to 200 or 250 for each card, that's already 400/500 for two and I'd suggest you just get a 2060 Super and set it as a dedicated render card. It's going to render faster than a 1080, has 8GB of ram and with Poser now finally supporting RTX it's going to render a lot faster than a 1070. But if you can find good 1070's for under 200 from someone reliable, I'd say that's an ok deal if you don't want RTX.

is a 2060 Super going to be faster than 2 1070's?

JohnDoe641 posted at 2:03PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383459

If you're going the ebay route you definitely need to watch out for scammy and low reviewed sellers. Keep an eye out for the very high trafficked and highly respected sellers, you're going to be much more safe buying from those reputable accounts. It won't be 100% because a used card is always a gamble, with or without the warranty.

Also, carefully read the descriptions for 1070's that were used for mining and see if they say that they were undervolted or not.

I see that you're going from a 970/980 combo, honestly if you were thinking of spending up to 200 or 250 for each card, that's already 400/500 for two and I'd suggest you just get a 2060 Super and set it as a dedicated render card. It's going to render faster than a 1080, has 8GB of ram and with Poser now finally supporting RTX it's going to render a lot faster than a 1070. But if you can find good 1070's for under 200 from someone reliable, I'd say that's an ok deal if you don't want RTX.

ghostship2 posted at 6:43PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383469

is a 2060 Super going to be faster than 2 1070's?

JohnDoe641 posted at 2:03PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383459

If you're going the ebay route you definitely need to watch out for scammy and low reviewed sellers. Keep an eye out for the very high trafficked and highly respected sellers, you're going to be much more safe buying from those reputable accounts. It won't be 100% because a used card is always a gamble, with or without the warranty.

Also, carefully read the descriptions for 1070's that were used for mining and see if they say that they were undervolted or not.

I see that you're going from a 970/980 combo, honestly if you were thinking of spending up to 200 or 250 for each card, that's already 400/500 for two and I'd suggest you just get a 2060 Super and set it as a dedicated render card. It's going to render faster than a 1080, has 8GB of ram and with Poser now finally supporting RTX it's going to render a lot faster than a 1070. But if you can find good 1070's for under 200 from someone reliable, I'd say that's an ok deal if you don't want RTX.

If this older chart data is accurate and if Poser's updated support is good for OptiX, then yes a single 2060 Super could potentially be faster than two 1070s using the new backend. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=blender-281-optix&num=3

I looked for more up to date charts but I must be cursed today because I couldn't find any on google that were recent.

JohnDoe641 posted at 6:54PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383477

ghostship2 posted at 6:43PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383469

is a 2060 Super going to be faster than 2 1070's?

JohnDoe641 posted at 2:03PM Fri, 13 March 2020 - #4383459

If you're going the ebay route you definitely need to watch out for scammy and low reviewed sellers. Keep an eye out for the very high trafficked and highly respected sellers, you're going to be much more safe buying from those reputable accounts. It won't be 100% because a used card is always a gamble, with or without the warranty.

Also, carefully read the descriptions for 1070's that were used for mining and see if they say that they were undervolted or not.

I see that you're going from a 970/980 combo, honestly if you were thinking of spending up to 200 or 250 for each card, that's already 400/500 for two and I'd suggest you just get a 2060 Super and set it as a dedicated render card. It's going to render faster than a 1080, has 8GB of ram and with Poser now finally supporting RTX it's going to render a lot faster than a 1070. But if you can find good 1070's for under 200 from someone reliable, I'd say that's an ok deal if you don't want RTX.

If this older chart data is accurate and if Poser's updated support is good for OptiX, then yes a single 2060 Super could potentially be faster than two 1070s using the new backend. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=blender-281-optix&num=3

I looked for more up to date charts but I must be cursed today because I couldn't find any on google that were recent.

Yeah, that is the question. Will Poser support OptiX? If so then it'd be better to buy a new 2060 Super. and keep one of my old cards for the monitor.

Hi there

Personally I would get two GTX1070 and still if you have soare PCI_E slot then use GTX980 as well there, more GPUs you have faster render times will be...

I'm using or running multiple GPUs or 4GPUs setup with Asus RTX 2080Ti Strix, EVGA GTX 1080Ti,EVGA GTX1080 and Manli GTX1080 for rendering and I can only comment on my tests in Blender, my Asus RTX 2080Ti Strix will render Blender Classroom in 75 seconds with OptiX and 4GPUs(RTX 2080Ti Strix, GTX1080, GTX1080 Ti and GTX1080) will finish that in 42-45 seconds without the OptiX and Asus RTX 2080Ti Strix without the OptiX will render that in 2 minutes and 19 seconds that's in Blender Cycles

In E-Cycles same scene it will render in 1minute and 44 seconds that's on Asus RTX 2080Ti Strix and without the OptiX and same scene with 4*GPUs(Asus RTX 2080Ti Strix, GTX1080, GTX1080 and GTX1080Ti) will render in 32-36 seconds and just two GTX1080 will render that scene in E-Cycles in 1 minute and 29 seconds

Didn't test new Poser 11.3 update yet how RTX is suported and how fast it is against my other GPUs

If budget allows then yes RTX is way to go with multiple GPUs for sure

Regarding buying used GPUs, get EVGA which have transferable warranty which will only help if you have problems or issues down the line or get GPU which offers best warranty, if GPUs been used for mining, this won't make difference because mist of the people if they use them for mining they usually run them at lower power limits and most of GTX1070 have been used for mining ETH

Not sure if Poser will support OptiX if yes then happy days,but still would love to see E-Cycles or AMD ProRender, Corona Renderer in Poser rather but that's my view

E-Cycles its clearly faster than Cycles with OptiX, AMD ProRender its similarly fast as Cycles and Corona its fast as well

Hope this helps

Thanks, Jura