Hey yall!

I am in the market for a new video card for my rig - something more powerful than what I have now that will render quicker etc.

This is my current rig stats:

Windows 10 64-bit

Intel Core i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz

32.0 GB Ram SSD

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Any guidance is VERY much appreciated :)

Hugs

T

I have a couple of rigs with specs similar to yours.  One is an i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz with 32 GB ram and a GTX 980 with 4GB GDDR5.  The other is an i7 3820 @3.60 GHz also 32GB ram and a GTX 1060 with 6GB ram.  This was my dream machine I built myself 10 years ago.  Both cpu's are plenty fast, and I rarely max out the ram with the simple scenes I create.  Having said that, I too, find myself wishing for bigger, faster, stronger.  But with one foot into retirement, and the other foot trying to stay out of the poor house,  my options are limited.  After talking to the good people at Memory Express,  a Computer store I've used exclusively since they first opened back in the late 80's,  they told me that I could spend upwards of 3 grand to buy or build a new rig with all the latest bells and whistles,  and I still wouldn't be much better of, as far as power is concerned.  They did recommend a couple of newer GPU's to handle the ever increasing demands that software (DazStudio)  and content creators require.  I'm just a hobbyist, I do this for fun, and definately not for money.  I don't to much with dForce,  I don't render with iRay except for previews and My main software is Carrara,  which doesn't do iRay, although I do use Octane for Carrara, which requires an Nvidia GPU.  So, what I'm going with is a couple of RTX 3060  with 12GB ram.  If I remember correctly, DAZ 3D recommends an RTX 3070 as a minimum (for dForce).  But all things considered, get the best RTX card with the most ram,  in order to get the best out of DazStudio in terms of performance especially with dForce sims,  and of cource render times.

Thank you!!

I don't think you'll get best performance sticking a new GC into such an old machine. I would (and did!) build a new one. Based on the available info, a 12GB 3060 is probably your best bet for a GC upgrade..

Here is a deal on pre-built systems for you: https://deals.dell.com/en-us/member/productdetail/e9yf

If you go the pre-built route, buy the basic system with no options, then buy your memory and storage upgrades from Amazon or New Egg.  You can build/upgrade your present machine, but that would involve new processor, motherboard, ram, cooling system, and possibly the power supply.  That adds up fast, but the AMD CPUS are very attractively priced right now.  I would go with an AMD CPU, because of they draw less power and generate less heat compared to their Intel counterparts.

Look for an NVIDIA card with at least 10-12GB Vram, RTX3060 or higher.

Moot issue. As I understand it from discussion on the Other Site, the OP procured a Gigabyte 3060 and is going with that. 

FWIW, I like the idea, nakamuram, but I would stay far away from those particular computers. The cases don't breathe, run hot, and fans are loud. Good thermal performance is vital to the longevity of the components, and you won't find it there. After investigating pre-builts for months, I gave up and picked parts. If one must buy pre-built, a Newegg ABS model can be a good choice. Others tend to be too expensive or too compromised for consideration.

I hope 3DSublime is happy with his/her choice.

I purchased an iBuyPower machine back in December 2021, when my machine died.  I normally build my own systems, but I was pressed for time and I wanted to upgrade my graphics card.  As you recall graphics cards were quite unavailable at the end of 2021. The system I purchased was very close to what I would build component-wise, plus it came with a 3-year warranty.  My system is liquid cooled and has 4 case fans.  Dollar-wise, the price was about the same as purchasing the components separately.  I was so happy with my system that I bought another "JR" version of it for my grandson a couple of months later.  

I evaluated the Dell Alienware system before making both purchases, but chose the iBuypower because of the better price and warranty.  The Alienware that I recommended on this forum thread is liquid cooled, though it is a bit light on case fans.  However, Dell claims that the case design and layout has been optimized for cooling.

That's right, I remember you telling me about those systems. Excellent! I'm pretty happy with what I built, too.

OK yall. I figured you'd like to know where the choice landed me LOL

I actually was going back and forth with our local PC guy about video cards, power sources etc and he asked me my bottom line budget and then he done a few adjustments to a custom build and voila! I am currently sitting behind a custom build with the following specs:

Ryzen 9 3900X

64 GB DDR4

2TB NVME

GeForce RTX3060 12gb

Custom fan and cooling system

Loaded with LED's because.... LED's lol

Nice to have a "local PC guy" who can work with you and build you what you want, 3DSublime.  Where I live, we have Best Buy, Costco, Office Depot, and mail order.  For mail order, Amazon, iBuypower, and Dell ship for free.  Newegg does not.

What kind of system did you end up building, Torquinox?

Great news, 3DSublime! :D

Hi Nakamuram. Since you asked,  I went with an i5-12600k on an Asus B660M Wifi TUF Gaming mobo (very slick!), 64GB Oloy 3600 ram, an asus Rog Strix 3060 card (amazingly over-engineered for just a 3060), a corsair psu, WD Black SN850 1TB SSD and WD Black 4TB SATA drive  in an attractive Lian li mesh case. I went with air cooling for the CPU. It's whisper-quiet. It generally runs 30-35C for GPU and CPU. The hottest I've recorded was 50C when the temp in the room was already too hot. That part was really important to me! I also reserved some budget for new monitors, including an X-Pen tablet monitor.

It's not that impressive in the grand scheme of contemporary performance, but it runs all my software as intended. I don't have to worry that anything will melt while I'm working. It's also a great leap over my previous system, a 2015 Costco Dell 8900 with i7-6700 processor, 16GB ram, GTX 745 4GB graphics card and 1TB SATA 7200 rpm drive that usually rocketed up to 85 or 90C and sounded like a vacuum cleaner when pushed. I'm happy with the way it all turned out.

If you were wondering, yes I did use a stack of legos as a support strut for the GPU. LOL!

Looks like a good solid system with quality components, Torquinox.  The Lego support stack is a good idea.

Happy rendering and gaming, everyone!!

Thanks nakamuram!

I agree. Happy gaming and rendering to everyone.

Needing a new computer.  Have decided on Nvidia GTX 3060 12 gb graphic card, but that's about as far as I've gotten. How important for Daz 3d and maybe Blender or Vue is i7 vs. i9?  Would consider AMD Ryzen as well, but have been looking at Dell's XPS line and they see to be all Intel.  Also is 16 gb RAM enough or do I need to go 32 gb. Have used Dell for last two computers and very satisfied with them, but willing to look at other venders.  Who would you recommend?

This is a good deal, with a 3yr warranty.  It is the system I purchased for my grandson.  Please see my posts earlier in this thread.  The Dell Alienware system that I mentioned is no longer available.

https://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Gaming-RDY-SLMRG206

Know this is a old thread; ...but before you spend too much money on a new graphic card consider this – daz is known for dropping out of gpu and using the cpu. Just check out their forums, people don’t like that they spend a certain amount of money on a gpu and daz ends up using the cpu. And yes it is explained how if your scene is too big / does not fit in the gpu memory daz will use the cpu instead.

But here is the thing you can make a computer do what you want [not you reading this, but programmers] so the people at daz should recode the program to look for gpu drops and figure a way to feed the gpu smaller bits of the scene so it[the gpu] will not throw up. You know bits and bytes (see what I didn’t do there)

user12x posted at 8:46 PM Tue, 21 June 2022 - #4440175

Know this is a old thread; ...but before you spend too much money on a new graphic card consider this – daz is known for dropping out of gpu and using the cpu. Just check out their forums, people don’t like that they spend a certain amount of money on a gpu and daz ends up using the cpu. And yes it is explained how if your scene is too big / does not fit in the gpu memory daz will use the cpu instead.

But here is the thing you can make a computer do what you want [not you reading this, but programmers] so the people at daz should recode the program to look for gpu drops and figure a way to feed the gpu smaller bits of the scene so it[the gpu] will not throw up. You know bits and bytes (see what I didn’t do there)

That is why cards with 12GB or more VRam  are favored by us DAZ-heads.  However, IRAY was written by NVIDIA and implementing some sort of memory management in IRAY remedies the need to upgrade our GPU's, which goes against NVIDIA's profit motive.  I keep hoping that DAZ incorporates a hardware-agnostic renderer.

Still PC shopping. What are your thoughts on AMD Ryzen 5 5600 vs. Intel i7 as far as Daz use? I hear that Ryxen runs cooler, but i7 has more cores.

It's not useful to discuss "i7" without pinning down the nomenclature of the chip. You need that to identify the chip and to understand its capabilities. The numbers and suffix indicate generation, number of cores, features the chip may or may not have, power consumption, clock speeds, etc. This will tell you also what socket you need on your mobo, what sorts of RAM are supported, and more. At least, the nomenclature will tell you that when you plug it into a search engine and find all that info on the chip.

This article should help: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-performance-cpus,5683.html

I favor the Ryzens because they generally run cooler and draw less power, even if the 12th Gen Intel CPUs perform better.  Most of the work in rendering and gaming is done by the GPU, so the CPU performance is not as important, to me.