9800GTX+ vs. GTX 260 - For Rendering

chjade84

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I was wondering which card would be better for Autodesk's Inventor 9. They claim that now it has DirectX support in conjunction with Open GL so standard desktop cards that support DirectX will work just as well.

I am trying to find out the difference in expected performance between the 9800GTX+ and the GTX 260 Superclocked Edition. I know the GTX 260 is supposed to be the better gaming card but I'm not sure how that will relate to 3D CAD/Rendering.

Here are the specs:

9800GTX+
Core Clock - 740 Mhz
Stream Processors - 128
Memory Size - 1000 MB
Memory Clock - 2000 Mhz
Memory Interface - 256-bit
Memory Type - GDDR3

GTX 260 Superclocked
Core Clock - 626 Mhz
Stream Processors - 216
Memory Size - 896 MB
Memory Clock - 2106 Mhz (effective) <-- BTW what does effective mean here? Useless marketing term like "10,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio"?
Memory Interface - 448-bit
Memory Type - GDDR3

Since 3D CAD/Rendering relies on (I am assuming) different parts of the video card than gaming, (e.g. more RAM needed, fewer shader processors needed), which would be the better card for me? The one with a faster processor and more ram or the one with faster ram and faster memory interface?

Quite a pickle I am in...

 

magicbullet

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sadly, i dont know the answer, but that is a good comparison.
 

Lee-m

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I think it meens, both channels (or in some case 3) are added together, as you would with system ram running in dual channel mode.
So you would have two ram chips/modules, 2x1053=2106Mhz. Thats the memory bandwith available for use with the gpu.

Out of the two, id go for the 260, the drivers/directx should ensure it faster at any rendering task, and the gpu can do more clock for clock, even if the 9800 clocks higher.
 

Lee-m

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BlueScreenDeath: It depends on the brand of card. Some 9800 cards have 1GB of ram.
mine has 512.

Id still take the 260, no matter what the application.
 

jfurterer

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I'm not 100% sure on this but I don't think the GPU is used to actually render files. All it does is display the contents of the render through your viewport (monitor). I run 3d Max off the onboard video in a MSI mobo with Intel GMA 4500HD which anybody will tell you is total crap for gaming. Rather the Q8200 is the real important piece of the machine since the CPU does all the math when it comes to rendering. Investing in a fast quad core CPU will give you significant performance gains over any investment you could make in a GPU when working with 3D development applications.

If your using Video even a budget card with an HDMI out is sufficient to work with HD video. Again it's the CPU that does the work to encode or render your finished scenes, not the GPU.
 
The "effective" part is because it's dual data rate memory. Both listed speeds are effective - the base memory clock runs at half that speed, and it transfers data on both the rising and falling edge of the clock cycle.

Now, in pretty much every way, the 260 will be faster. I'd go for it.
 

chjade84

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Good deal, thanks guys!

Now I just have to find out the answer to the pesky problem of why the WHQL certified driver is causing crazy spikes in the Inventor drawings. They say any WHQL certified driver is certified for Inventor but all the drawings have massive spikes coming out of them when you rotate and zoom in and out. It was the same on my 9600GT as well. The only way to get rid of them so far is to have the processor do the rendering. If that's the case I'll just get a $70 video card...

Sigh...
 

tomdrum

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Yes i beleive its the processor that renders the image, for moving around the world in real time the graphics card is used to render. I think a 260 would be better? dont really know. Im using an ATI HD2600 in my laptop currently and it does a "reasonable" job of displaying stuff in maya, and 2.1ghz p8200 for rendering. Not exactly ideal for animation / modelling but does a fair job.
 

theAnimal

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No. The RAM is GDDR3, so same as DDR or DDR2 system RAM the effective speed is two times the physical speed. GDDR5 video RAM and DDR3 system RAM are quad pumped so they are 4 times the physical speed. The number of channels does not matter, and normally does not offer much performance increase.