how fast and practical the GTX 970 GPU for rendering a short movie?

[omar_kronos]

Hi guys, it's good to be back. actually this is my first post on 3ds max forum, infact, I need help with something about Upgrading my GPU for fast and practical rendering

I'm a 3D Artist, Animatior, and Programmer.. I'm working on animated short movie using V-Ray rendering production on 3ds max 2015; before getting into the core of subject I need you to check out about a few Information regarding my PC Specifications:

• CPU: AMD FX 6300 3.50 GHz (6 core processor)
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: AMD RADEON HD 7770 4GB

as you can see above I have AMD HD 7770 GPU, and I find so many difficulties regarding rendering an animated scene with V-ray and even when using V-ray RT rendering production (which uses the GPU processing power instead of CPU) as it takes so many times for Rendering Process, about couple of minutes to render a single frame! not mentioning that I'm rendering on 600 x 480 resolution! 

it wasn't actually a problem for me that I make the fuss for.. but for taking 14 hours to render a 4 sec. duration scene, here where S**t gets real!

I can't spend too much time to product an animated short movie in this amount of time, I want the next GPU upgrade to make my PC (see above) practical for rendering scenes and short movies.

I'm going to buy GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4GB GDDR5 Windforce 3X as it's the only highest card that I can afford right now..

what do you suggest?.. is it worth the upgrade?.. or it won't make that difference?

[dgorsman]

Everything in your computer works together.  Getting a high-end video card won't help if you leave it with a bottleneck of only 8 GB RAM.  RAM is dirt-cheap these days, making it one of the easiest upgrades possible.

And don't forget about work process - thousands of dollars of hardware won't fully compensate for scenes that require more processing than necessary.  If you need it done on a short schedule your source material should be lean, lean, lean.

[omar_kronos]

your answer was very helpful! THANK YOU! I never thought about upgrading the RAM, and what limitations my motherboard shall meet if I didn't.

considering upgrading to 8 GB more, means 16 GB RAM overall, is it also necessary to upgrade the GPU to the GTX 970 I listed above knowing that my current one is AMD 7770 HD (which is sucks for gaming also)? or it won't differ that much (from the 3D production side)?

--sorry, I have limited knowledge about Computer parts functionality and compatibility-- thanks again, dgorsman

[Richard.Vivanco]

I read that gtx970 have problems,are you thinking to buy the 4gb version? Many users said that it only have 3.5gbs not 4gb.

Maybe you can try a quadro k2000

[slimcdk]

Hi, this will may be interesting for your situatuion. http://www.evermotion.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?106109-3DMAX-Vray-benchmark-test

I tested with V-Ray rendering on GTX 970 single and SLI over a i7-5930K.

[slimcdk]

My post on the thread is "ChristianSilas"

[slimcdk]

Well.. I will not get the 970 for GPU rendering, as I was facing issues with the limited and issued amount of RAM.

I had dual 970 in SLI, which was much faster than my i7-5930K @ 4.4GHz.. Even 1 was really fast.
I sold my 970's and got a 980TI witch rocks V-Ray RT 🙂 

I did this test http://www.evermotion.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?106109-3DMAX-Vray-benchmark-test